Tag Archives: usamu

Registration Open for the 2026 U.S. Army Small Arms Championships!

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Via the USAMU, Fort Benning- December 2025- Attention all U.S. Army Soldiers! Registration is now open for the 2026 U.S. Army Small Arms Championships at Fort Benning, Georgia, March 8-14.

The US Army Small Arms Championship (All Army) is an advanced combat live-fire training event. Training and skill exercises apply to all military small arms firing disciplines.

This event is only open to Active Army, Army Reserves, U.S. Army or Air National Guard, Military Academy, College ROTC Cadets, and OCS Candidates.  Civilians and military personnel from other services are prohibited from participating in any event.

All competitors must register as individuals for this event.  Please ensure that you fill out all of the information on the registration form.

USAMU will not be providing weapons or equipment to competitors.  This is the responsibility of the unit sending the Soldier to the event. The Match Program can be found in the upper-right corner.  We have made changes to the match program.  Please ensure that you download the match program.

Registration and the Program can be found here.

Registration closes February 27, 2026.

Help the Sniper Monuments!

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Both the Army’s USAMU program and the Marines’ (recently retired) Scout Sniper program seek to have memorials produced.

The Civilian Marksmanship Program is holding a special auction of a highly collectible SA M1D Garand sniper rifle (SN 3112737), including all original GI parts such as the original MRT 2-52 leather cheek pad, T37 five-prong flash hider, and correct M84 scope (13712).

The rifle will be available on CMP’s Online Auction site beginning Nov. 18, with bids accepted until Nov. 30, to raise funds toward a U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) Exhibit at the National Infantry Museum in Columbus, Georgia “in the hopes of contributing to the preservation and legacy of U.S. military marksmanship programs and ensuring future generations learn the significance these units have played in national defense and marksmanship excellence.”

Marine Scout Sniper Monument

The Marine Scout Sniper War Memorial is a planned monument in the Semper Fidelis Memorial Park at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia that will honor the legacy of Marine Scout Snipers.

The memorial will feature a bronze World War I observer with a Brodie helmet and a slung M1903 rifle, assisting a more modern Marine sniper with an M40A6 rifle.

The USMC Scout Sniper Heritage Foundation is raising the cash needed to build the memorial. One way is by selling raffle tickets for an authentic Marine M40 sniper rifle used in the Vietnam War, complete with an original “Greenie” Redfield scope.

It seems to be a tack driver.

A look at the new .264 Round from FN and the Rifle that Uses it

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FN America brought some of the best new tech to SHOT Show last month, including a new weapon system developed for the “Irregular Warfare Technology Support Directorate.”

Built around a new 6.5x43mm Lightweight Intermediate Caliber Cartridge, or LICC (lick?), that the company says delivers 7.62 NATO performance in a 5.56-sized package, FN’s new Individual Weapon System was developed for the IWTSD, a government office that supports the U.S. special operations community. Originally formed in 1999 as the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office, for those curious, the “IWTSD Identifies and develops capabilities for DOD and Interagency customers to conduct Irregular Warfare against all adversaries, including Great Power competitors and non-state actors.”

The 6.5x43mm was developed by the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit in partnership with IWTSD and was originally dubbed the .264 USA back in 2014 while the LICC designation was in use by 2016. Awarded a contract in 2019 to further develop the concept and a weapon platform to use it, FN delivered prototyped 6.5x43mm Individual Weapon Systems to the government for testing last summer.

FN optimized the round for practical use and had examples on hand at SHOT Show, seen here with 103-grain bullets loaded. Would be interesting to do the math on that ballistic coefficient. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

The IWS is a fully-ambi piston gun rather than using direct gas impingement like the M4 series. (Photo: FN)

More in my column at Guns.com.