Sig Sauer has recently been chosen by the U.S. Army to supply .300 Winchester Magnum ammunition for its bolt-action sniper rifle. The .300 Winchester Magnum (also known as .300 Win Mag or 300WM) (7.62×67mm) is a belted, bottlenecked magnum rifle cartridge that was introduced by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1963. The .300 Winchester Magnum is a magnum cartridge designed to fit in a standard rifle action. The .300 Winchester is extremely versatile and has been adopted by a wide range of users including hunters, target shooters, military units, and law enforcement departments.
The .300 Winchester Magnum ammunition 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 U.S. 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 .300 300 Winchester Magnum ammunition will be manufactured Sig Sauer’s ammunition facility in Jacksonville, Arkansas.
The M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle (ESR), formerly known as the XM2010 and M24 Reconfigured Sniper Weapon System, is a sniper rifle developed by PEO Soldier for the United States Army. It is derived from the M24 Sniper Weapon System and replaced the existing M24s. After winning a competitive bidding process, Remington was awarded the production contract for up to 3,600 weapons. The M2010 fires .300 Winchester Magnum (7.62×67mm) ammunition, which offers about 50 percent more effective range than the M24’s 7.62×51mm NATO. This chambering to dimensionally larger cartridges is possible because the M24 was designed to use the “long action” bolt version of the Remington 700 receiver for cartridges up to 3.34 inches (84.84 mm) in overall length.
