Which company(s) produces most US military ARs?

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How about large urban police depts.?

Today I was thinking about the much pricier FN carbine handled weeks ago just before selecting the popular S&W, as a first 'AR'.

Do branches of the US DOD or major LEO departments base their decisions primarily on cost, or do they mostly evaluate multiple manufacturers' select-fire rifles (with gr. launchers etc) for reliability?
Special forces are always exceptions, it seems, being able to order other types of guns.
 
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I'm no military procurement expert but FN is making both M16s and M4s for the military. Colt has filed for bankruptcy. They still own the M4 TDP, but I have no idea how many they are actually making.

Urban police department procurement is a patchwork of policies and sources. Surplus M16s and M4s, new M4s for well heeled departments and a cacophony of non select fire AR variants provided by machiavallian contract bidding processes and privately by officers alike. I am not aware of a department that has the resources to undertake an extended evaluation process. I would think most simply look at cost and reputation with some monetary penalty contract language guaranteeing performance.
 
Colt Defense LLC, West Hartford, Connecticut (15QKN-15-D-0102); and FN America LLC, Columbia, South Carolina (W15QKN-15-D-0072), were awarded a $212,000,000 firm-fixed-price multi-year contract for M4 and M4A1 carbines for the Army and others, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 24, 2020. Bids were solicited via the Internet with six received. Funding and work location will be determined with each order. Army Contracting Command, Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, is the contracting activity.
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http://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract-View/Article/620608 But who really makes them? FN.
 
Military is Colt and FN. I believe the portion of Colt that makes weapons for the mil is a different company than the civilian side.
 
Many local police officers use their own personal AR's as well as their sidearms. This is fairly common in smaller departments. You see a little of everything.
 
Colt Defense LLC, West Hartford, Connecticut, was awarded a $36,104,812 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity foreign military sales contract (Jordan, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Colombia, Hungary, Oman, Panama, Romania, Senegal, Lebanon, Romania) for M4/M4A1 carbines. Funding and work location will be determined with each order with an estimated completion date of May 21, 2018. Bids were solicited via the Internet with one received. Army Contracting Command, Warren, Michigan, is the contracting activity (W56HZV-15-D-0038).
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The Defense branch should be doing well. $$$$$
Colt Defense LLC, West Hartford, Conn. (W15QKN-14-D-0027) and FN Manufacturing LLC, Columbia, S.C. (W15QKN-14-D-0026), were awarded a $16,321,305 firm-fixed-price, multi-year contract for M4 rifle bolts for the M4 product improvement program . Funding and work location will be determined with each order. Estimated completion date is Feb. 28, 2018. Bids were solicited via the Internet with six received. Army Contracting Command, Picatinny Arsenal, N.J., is the contracting activity.
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M4 PIP program, 16 million for bolts? :eek:
 
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The M4A1 upgrade consists of a heavier barrel, ambidextrous safety controls, and conversion from three-round burst to fully automatic.
 
Almost every M4 I've seen in the Army has been a Colt. Almost every M16A2 has been a Colt. Almost every M16A4 has been an FN. I've seen a few M16A2s converted from old M16A1s with obscure manufacturers from the 60s. Recently we received brand new FN M4s built using old stock M16A4 receivers. FN took the receivers stamped M16A4, milled it out and restamped them with M4 Carbine.
 
Colt has been out of bankruptcy for months. They are sharing a $212 million contract for M4s with FN through 2020.

Colt has recently cancelled all back orders to dealers on rifles and will only be producing 6920s at least through the end of the year. No wasting production time switching over to other models. I guess they want to be ready in case there's a large consumer demand later this year?
 
jmr40: as for really small departments, a Deputy in Wynne AR four years ago showed me his Mini 14 with a red dot sight in his patrol car.

A former LEO from s.e. GA who was on the jumpseat into SAV weeks ago pointed to one of two really large white bldgs., approx. 10-12 nm northwest of the airport.
He told us that Daniel Defense (located there) had ordered a recall of several thousand ARs a while back (?), but as to which military branch, he didn't know.

Based on FN's lengthy, very solid background, I'm not surprised that they have been so successful with AR contracts.
Do they have a plant in the US?
 
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I've been on the Colt factory floor (mil side) with crates of M4's piled as high as a house; this was about 4 years ago. They make a lot of 'em.
 
Remington has a contract for some kind of AR - the end user may not be US military but plenty of the smaller companies are sourced for overseas contracts.

LWRC builds a PDW in 6.8 for the Mideast, it uses a larger magazine body that prevents interchange with milspec AR's

Lewis Machine and Tool makes an AR 10 designated the L129A1 for Great Britain.

Bushmasters have been floating around in use in smaller border states of the old Soviet Union, some reports have them in the hands of ISIS along with others.

Who knows what got sent to Libya and to what ends - the killings in Benghazi shut up the knowledgeable players. :scrutiny:

When we discuss this the frame of reference tends to be only what is issue to our troops that conforms to the TDP or other contract specification, but in a larger sense we are shipping a lot of "Milspec" arms overseas above and beyond a known US government contract. Those have to be unearthed thru careful examination of documents which supply "foreign military aid" and are layered in blankets of deniability.

On the other hand, when we have surplus curios and relics which can be disposed of to US citizens, that same scrutiny uncovers a line in a bill Sen. McCain introduced calling for the last 100, 000 1911's to be scrapped, not sold to you and me.

You can't really tell which side some people are on when you discuss arms.
 
Acera: Thank you very much for the links. It was interesting to see the raw upper and lower parts. Would anyone know, are those upper and lowers cast or forging?

I did not see any bolt pictures, so, does Colt or FN make their own bolts or are those subcontracted?
 
Military uses either Colt or FN. The last few years I was in, when Colt was having issues, I was starting to see more FN rifles.
 
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