Mk 22 Advanced Sniper Rifle

Origins

The Mk22 ASR is a sniper rifle ordered by USSOCOM based on the Barrett MRAD. Barrett Firearms of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, best known for the Barrett M82 .50-caliber rifle, designed the MRAD (Multi-Role Adaptive Design) around 2010 for a Special Operations Command competition for a precision sniper rifle that could change calibers. Barrett lost that first competition, but the rifle sold well to police, allied militaries and civilian long-range shooters. In the late 2010s SOCOM ran a new competition, the Advanced Sniper Rifle program, to replace the separate bolt-action rifles its snipers used in 7.62mm, .300 Winchester Magnum and .338 Lapua Magnum with a single system. In March 2019 Barrett won the contract with a modified MRAD, designated Mk22 Mod 0.

Design & Construction

The Mk22's key feature is the quick-change barrel. The barrel is held in the one-piece upper receiver by clamp screws, and a sniper can take off one barrel and fit another in a few minutes with a single tool. With a matching bolt and magazine, the same rifle can fire 7.62x51mm NATO for training and shorter ranges, .300 Norma Magnum, or .338 Norma Magnum, which is effective beyond 1,500 meters. The action has a short 60-degree bolt throw and feeds from a detachable box magazine. The stock folds to the side for carrying and adjusts for length and cheek height, and the full-length top rail takes a day optic and night vision or thermal sights in line with it. The rifle, its barrels, a suppressor and optics are issued together as a kit in a single case. Both the SOCOM and Army versions can be chambered in a variety of calibers, which is the point of the design.

Combat Use

The Mk22 PSR is the Army's variant: the Army adopted the Mk22 as its Precision Sniper Rifle, replacing its bolt-action M2010 Enhanced Sniper Rifle and some of its M107 .50-caliber rifles, with fielding beginning in the early 2020s. The US Marine Corps also chose the Mk22, as the replacement for the M40 Rifle, the Mk13 and the M107 in its scout-sniper and reconnaissance units. SOCOM snipers of the US Army Rangers, Green Berets, US Navy SEALs and other units began receiving it before the Army did. Because the rifle has entered service in a period without large American ground wars, there is little published detail about its combat use.

Legacy

The Mk22 is the result of a long move toward modular weapons, from the M24 Sniper Weapon System, a single-caliber rifle issued as a complete kit, to a single rifle whose caliber can be changed for each mission. It lets the US services train and supply one family of rifle for work that used to need three. The semi-automatic M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System and its successors remain alongside it for faster shooting at shorter ranges, while the Mk22 handles precise, very long-range fire. Its adoption also shows that large-caliber magnum cartridges like .338 Norma Magnum are now standard for sniper rifles.