Sig Sauer has recently been chosen by the U.S. Army to supply .300 Winchester Magnum ammunition for its bolt-action sniper rifle. The contract amounts to USD10 million.

U.S. sniper firing with an M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle (Picture source: Horace Markeith)

Sig Sauer has recently been chosen by the U.S. Army to supply .300 Winchester Magnum ammunition for its bolt-action sniper rifle. The contract amounts to USD10 million. Sig Sauer will manufacture the Mk. 248 MOD 1 and MOD 0 .300 Win Mag ammunition for the U.S. Army's M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle. The Army transitioned from 7.62mm to the more powerful .300 Win Mag cartridge. The new round allows snipers to engage enemy targets beyond 1,200 meters compared to the 800-meter range of the older M24 sniper system used since 2011 in Afghanistan. The .300 Win Mag ammunition will be manufactured Sig Sauer's ammunition facility in Jacksonville, Arkansas.

The company was also recently selected as one of the final competitors for the Army's Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) program, along with a team from General Dynamics and a team from Textron Systems tasked to submit specially designed 6.8mm ammunition and the rifle and automatic rifle prototypes for the NGSW effort, Matthew Cox recalls on Military.com.