rifles

U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) recently awarded a contract for new rifles chambered to fire the 6.5mm Creedmoor round to Lewis Machine & Tool (LMT). The Mid-Range Gas Gun-Assault (MRGG-A) rifles will give special operators greater reach, as well as improved accuracy and terminal performance against targets at those longer ranges.

The Pentagon quietly announced the deal for the MRGG-As (sometimes also referred to as Medium-Range Gas Gun-Assault or Mid-Range Gas Gun-Assaulter rifles) in its daily contracting announcement on August 22. The contract, which covers “medium range gas gun-assault kits, spare parts and accessories, new equipment training, and engineering change proposals,” has a maximum ceiling of $92 million and runs through August 14, 2035.

LMT’s MRGG-A is a member of its Modular Ambidextrous Rifle System-Heavy (MARS-H) family, which are commonly described as AR-10-style rifles. The original Armalite AR-10 is the larger predecessor to the widely recognized AR-15/M16 pattern. Like the AR-10, as well as many AR-15/M16 variants and derivatives, all of the MARS-H versions listed on LMT’s website at the time of writing use the so-called direct impingement operating principle. This means that when the gun is fired, some of the gas that propels the bullet down the barrel is siphoned off and blown directly against the main action to cycle it. Variations on the AR-15/M16 pattern that use a physical gas piston instead are increasingly common. A piston keeps propellant gas, and the particulate matter within it, away from the gun’s action, reducing the chance of fouling and offering other maintenance and reliability advantages. These rifles are typically heavier and more expensive than their DI counterparts, though.

The MRGG-A configuration LMT has shown publicly has a 14.5″ barrel built into an upper receiver with a ‘monolithic’ Picatinny type rail for optics and other accessories that runs the full length of the top of the rifle. The sides of the handguard have additional accessory attachment points utilizing the increasingly popular M-LOK system from Magpul. The gun has ambidextrous controls and is capable of semi-automatic and fully-automatic fire.

LMT has also shown MRGG-As with scopes from Nightforce Optics, as seen in the picture at the top of this story. Back in 2021, Nightforce announced it had secured a contract from SOCOM for ATACRTM 4-20×50 F1 scopes “to augment multiple systems in the SOCOM inventory and… to support the MRGG (Mid-Range Gas Gun) once it is fielded.” In U.S. service, those optics are also referred to as Ranging-Variable Power Scopes (R-VPS).

SOCOM’s MRGG effort traces back to the late 2010s and was subsequently split into two separate subcomponents, the MRGG-A and the MRGG-S (for sniper). It has also been presented in the past as primarily intended for use within the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community, which includes the U.S. Navy’s SEAL teams, though it is unclear if this is still the case.

In 2023, SOCOM chose a separate AR-10-esque design with a 20-inch barrel from Geissele Automatics to become the MRGG-S. The Pentagon’s contracting notice at the time noted that, despite the name, the MRGG-Ss would be used in the “sniper support weapon” and “designated marksman rifle” roles.

The 2023 video below from Geissele Automatics offers a brief overview of the company’s MRGG-S rifle.

The MRGSS-S takes “advantage of advances in ammunition and weapons technology to improve the intermediate range sniper rifle lethality, reliability and performance when suppressed during 50-1,500 meter engagements,” the Pentagon’s notice added.

The shorter-barreled MRGG-A will still offer special operators in the assault role a significant boost in capability when it comes to range and terminal effectiveness. SOCOM has said in the past that rifles chambered in 6.5mm Creedmoor, in general, could double a shooter’s probability of scoring a hit on targets up to 3,280 feet away (1,000 meters).

As a comparison, the 5.56x45mm M4A1 carbine, modified versions of which remain in use in the U.S. special operations community, has a maximum effective range of around 1,640 feet (500 meters), according to the U.S. Army. The 7.62x51mm M110, a designated marksman rifle in service across all branches of the U.S. military, as well as various U.S. federal government law enforcement agencies, can reach out to just under 2,625 feet (800 meters).

The MRGG-A is also heavier and bulkier than the M4A1. The U.S. special operations community does have a wide array of small arms options it can issue depending on the operational requirements, including if there is an expectation of close-quarters combat inside buildings or other confined spaces.

With all this in mind, SOCOM has also been looking into new light machine guns chambered in 6.5mm Creedmoor in recent years. The cartridge is seeing increasing interest elsewhere, too. In March, the U.S. Secret Service notably put out a contracting notice seeking information about potential 6.5 Creedmoor rifles to supplant its M110s.

There has been a broader drive within the U.S. military in recent years toward rifles firing larger cartridges with greater reach, as well as increased lethality at those ranges, driven heavily by combat experiences in Afghanistan during the Global War on Terror era. Concerns about improving adversary body armor had also been a factor. This is what led the U.S. Army to adopt the M7 rifle, which has been the subject of some controversy recently, as well as the companion M250 light machine gun. The M7 and M250 are chambered to fire the 6.8x51mm cartridge. Army special operations forces were involved in developmental testing of the M7 and M250, but it remains to be seen how widespread those guns might be issued within the broader special operations community.

In the meantime, U.S. special operators are now set to get new 6.5mm Creedmoor MRGG-A rifles from LMT.

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WASHINGTON — The massive tax and spending cuts package that President Trump wants on his desk by July 4 would loosen regulations on gun silencers and certain types of rifles and shotguns, advancing a longtime priority of the gun industry as Republican leaders in the House and Senate try to win enough votes to pass the bill.

The guns provision was first requested in the House by Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Republican gun store owner who had initially opposed the larger tax package. The House bill would remove silencers — called “suppressors” by the gun industry — from a 1930s law that regulates firearms that are considered the most dangerous, eliminating a $200 tax while removing a layer of background checks.

The Senate kept the provision on silencers in its version of the bill and expanded upon it, adding short-barreled, or sawed-off, rifles and shotguns.

Republicans who have long supported the changes, along with the gun industry, say the tax infringes on 2nd Amendment rights. They say silencers are mostly used by hunters and target shooters for sport.

“Burdensome regulations and unconstitutional taxes shouldn’t stand in the way of protecting American gun owners’ hearing,” said Clyde, who owns two gun stores in Georgia and often wears a pin shaped like an assault rifle on his suit lapel.

Democrats are fighting to stop the provision, which was unveiled days after two Minnesota state legislators were shot in their homes, as the bill speeds through the Senate. They argue that loosening regulations on silencers could make it easier for criminals and active shooters to conceal their weapons.

“Parents don’t want silencers on their streets, police don’t want silencers on their streets,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

The gun language has broad support among Republicans and has received little attention as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) work to settle differences within the party on cuts to Medicaid and energy tax credits, among other issues. But it is just one of hundreds of policy and spending items included to entice members to vote for the legislation that could have broad implications if the bill is enacted within weeks, as Trump wants.

Inclusion of the provision is also a sharp turn from the climate in Washington just three years ago when Democrats, like Republicans now, controlled Congress and the White House and pushed through bipartisan gun legislation. The bill increased background checks for some buyers under the age of 21, made it easier to take firearms from potentially dangerous people and sent millions of dollars to mental health services in schools.

Passed in the summer of 2022, just weeks after the shooting of 19 children and two adults at a school in Uvalde, Texas, it was the most significant legislative response to gun violence in decades.

Three years later, as they try to take advantage of their consolidated power in Washington, Republicans are packing as many of their longtime priorities as possible, including the gun legislation, into the massive, wide-ranging bill that Trump has called “beautiful.”

“I’m glad the Senate is joining the House to stand up for the 2nd Amendment and our Constitution, and I will continue to fight for these priorities as the Senate works to pass President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who was one of the lead negotiators on the bipartisan gun bill in 2022 but is now facing a primary challenge from the right in his bid for reelection next year.

If the gun provisions remain in the larger legislation and it is passed, silencers and the short-barrel rifles and shotguns would lose an extra layer of regulation that they are subject to under the National Firearms Act, passed in the 1930s in response to concerns about mafia violence. They would still be subject to the same regulations that apply to most other guns — and that includes possible loopholes that allow some gun buyers to avoid background checks when guns are sold privately or online.

Larry Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who supports the legislation, says changes are aimed at helping target shooters and hunters protect their hearing. He argues that the use of silencers in violent crimes is rare. “All it’s ever intended to do is to reduce the report of the firearm to hearing-safe levels,” Keane says.

Speaking on the floor before the bill passed the House, Rep. Clyde said the bill restores 2nd Amendment rights from “over 90 years of draconian taxes.” Clyde said Johnson included his legislation in the larger bill “with the purest of motive.”

“Who asked for it? I asked,” said Clyde, who ultimately voted for the bill after the gun silencer provision was added.

Clyde was responding to Rep. Maxwell Frost, a 28-year-old Florida Democrat, who went to the floor and demanded to know who was responsible for the gun provision. Frost, who was a gun-control activist before being elected to Congress, called himself a member of the “mass shooting generation” and said the bill would help “gun manufacturers make more money off the death of children and our people.”

Among other concerns, control advocates say less regulation for silencers could make it harder for law enforcement to stop an active shooter.

“There’s a reason silencers have been regulated for nearly a century: They make it much harder for law enforcement and bystanders to react quickly to gunshots,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.

Schumer and other Democrats are trying to persuade the Senate parliamentarian to drop the language as she reviews the bill for policy provisions that aren’t budget-related.

“Senate Democrats will fight this provision at the parliamentary level and every other level with everything we’ve got,” Schumer said earlier this month.

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press.

May 18 (UPI) — The federal government will allow the sale of devices that enable standard rifles to operate like machine guns, a move that angered gun control groups.

The Justice Department said Friday it reached a settlement with Rare Breed Triggers. This is in accordance with President Donald Trump‘s Feb. 17 executive order Protecting Second Amendment Rights and the attorney general’s Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force announced on April 8.

“This Department of Justice believes that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “And we are glad to end a needless cycle of litigation with a settlement that will enhance public safety.”

There are two ways to speed the firing of bullets. Bump stocks use the recoil of the weapon to repeatedly bump the trigger, while trigger devices are aftermarket items that directly engage the trigger.

During the first Trump administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives banned bump stocks, which mimic rapid trigger pulls to fire rapidly in a way similar to a machine gun. In 2017, the gunman in a mass shooting killed 58 people in Las Vegas while firing from his hotel room window using bump stocks.

In 2022, ATF included specific trigger devices under the National Firearms Act of 1934. The ATF determined that the devices allow a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle to fire as fast as a military M-16 in automatic mode.

In 2023, the Justice Department, as part of the Biden administration, brought a lawsuit in New York against Rare Breed Triggers.

The National Association of Gun Rights filed a separate lawsuit in Texas challenging the ban and a judge there ruled the ban was unlawful.

In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote in Cargill v. Garland, ruled ATF exceeded its statutory authority by issuing a rule classifying a bump stock as a “machine gun.”

The Court’s majority found that bump stocks do not meet the definition of a machine gun because they didn’t allow for automatic fire with the single pull of a trigger.

The next month, the Northern District of Texas applied the case to a device called a “forced-reset trigger” and concluded that they also cannot be classified as a “machine gun.”

DOJ is avoiding additional legal action against Rare Breed Triggers in appeals and related cases concerning the similar issue, Bondi said.

The settlement with Rare Breed Triggers includes agreed-upon conditions that significantly advance public safety with respect to FRTs, including that Rare Breed will not develop or design them for use in any pistol and will enforce its patents to prevent infringement that could threaten public safety.

Rare Breed also agreed promote the safe and responsible use of its products.

“The cuffs are off. As of May 16, 2025, we’re free! Expect the website to be updated on Monday, May 19,” the company posted on its website.

The decision was condemned by Vanessa Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Giffords, the national gun violence prevention group led by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in 2011 while meeting with constituents in her hometown of Tucson, Ariz.

“The Trump administration has just effectively legalized machine guns. Lives will be lost because of his actions,” Gonzalez said. “This is an incredibly dangerous move that will enable shooters to inflict horrific damage. The only people who benefit from these being on the market are the people who will make money from selling them, everyone else will suffer the consequences.”

The national gun control advocacy group Brady United said in a press release that “highly dangerous weapons of war can now be purchased anonymously” and without a background check.

“The Trump Administration’s secret settlement with the gun lobby to permit the sale of Forced Reset Triggers will turn already deadly firearms into weapons of mass destruction,” Kris Brown, president of Brady United, said in the release.

“Machine guns are weapons of war that have absolutely no place in our communities. This dangerous backroom deal is not only an astonishing abuse of power, but undermines decades of sensible government gun safety policy and puts whole communities at immediate serious risk,” he said.

Brady previous was called the National Council to Control Handguns and founded in 1974 by Dr. Mark Borinsky, whose son was shot and killed in 1974.

In 1981, White House Press Secretary Jim “the Bear” Brady suffered a bullet to the head, and the organization now bears his name.