U.S. Marine Corps more than doubles M27 rifle contract with Heckler & Koch

The U.S. Marine Corps has more than doubled the ceiling on its sole-source contract with Heckler & Koch for M27 Infantry Automatic Rifles. The modification adds $45.4 million and raises the maximum value of the deal from $39.2 million to $84.6 million, covering continued purchases of rifles, spare parts and associated equipment.

The modification, announced by the U.S. Department of War, does not say how many rifles the added ceiling could buy, and it obligates no money at the time of award. Funds will be committed through individual task orders as the Marine Corps places them. Heckler & Koch Defense of Columbus, Georgia, will carry out 70 percent of the work at the company’s main plant in Oberndorf, Germany, and the rest in Columbus, with the ordering period running to April 27, 2028.

The Marine Corps again bought the rifle without competition. It cited Federal Acquisition Regulation 6.302-1, which allows a sole-source award when only one responsible source can meet the requirement. The contracting activity is the Portfolio Acquisition Executive Marine Corps at Quantico, Virginia. When the contract was first awarded, that role sat with Marine Corps Systems Command.

The underlying contract dates to April 2018, when the Marine Corps awarded Heckler & Koch a five-year deal with a $29.4 million ceiling for up to 15,000 M27s and spare parts. The first delivery order, worth $7.4 million, bought 5,650 rifles at an average of about $1,300 per weapon system, including support equipment. The ordering period has since been extended to 10 years, and the ceiling has been raised several times. The latest increase is larger than the original contract value.

A justification document signed in July 2017 by the executive director of Marine Corps Systems Command supported the original sole-source decision. It argued that a new competition would duplicate costs and delay fielding.

“Since the M27 has been fielded, it has proven to be extremely reliable, durable, and accurate,” said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Joel Schwendinger, the Marine Corps’ combat development and integration gunner, when the 2018 contract was announced.

The M27 is a variant of Heckler & Koch’s HK416. It uses a short-stroke gas piston system, unlike the direct impingement design of the M16 and M4 family it replaced in Marine infantry units. It fires the 5.56mm NATO round from the same 30-round magazines as the M4 and the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, which keeps it compatible with existing ammunition and magazine stocks across the U.S. military.

The rifle entered service in a narrower role than it fills today. The Marine Corps selected Heckler & Koch in 2008 for 6,500 rifles and fielded them between 2010 and 2013 as an automatic rifle meant to replace the heavier, belt-fed M249 in each fire team. Marines from 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines first used it in combat at Garmser, Afghanistan, in 2011. The Corps later decided to keep the M249 in service alongside it.

The M27’s role expanded under Commandant Gen. Robert Neller, who said in 2017 that he wanted to equip every 0311 infantry rifleman with it, and the Marine Corps sought about 50,000 more rifles to arm riflemen, combat engineers and light armored reconnaissance scouts. Fielding of the additional rifles to active and reserve infantry platoons began in 2019. By then, the M27 had been chosen as standard issue for Marine infantry.

The Corps has also adopted versions of the rifle for other roles. It fields the M38 Squad Designated Marksman Rifle, an M27 fitted with a variable-power optic for longer-range shooting, and reconnaissance units have taken up a shorter-barreled variant.

The new ceiling follows the Marine Corps’ decision this year to keep the M27 rather than adopt the U.S. Army’s M7 rifle. The M7 was built by Sig Sauer under the Next Generation Squad Weapon program and fires a higher-pressure 6.8mm round from 20-round magazines. The Army chose it for greater range and better penetration against body armor, and has begun fielding it, starting with the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, along with the M250 light machine gun.

“The Marine Corps will retain the M27 for our close combat formations,” a Marine Corps spokesperson told Task & Purpose in February.

Marine Corps officials have said they will continue to monitor the M7’s development to inform future requirements, and the service’s rationale centers on commonality. Lt. Col. Eric Flanagan, a spokesperson for Marine Corps Combat Development Command, said the M27 best aligns with the Corps’ requirements and ensures “seamless interoperability across the Joint force and with coalition partners.”

The decision ends a long period of uncertainty over the M27’s future. In May 2020, Marine Corps Systems Command corrected a news release that had said the M27 would be replaced by the Next Generation Squad Weapon, and the Army’s adoption of the 6.8mm round has since left the two services using different infantry rifle calibers.

The contract announcement leaves several questions open. It does not say how many M27s the Marine Corps has bought to date, how many more it plans to order before the contract expires in April 2028, or what the rifles now cost per unit compared with the roughly $1,300 average of the first 2018 order.