Candidates line up to replace UK's SA80 assault rifle

A UK L85A3 (SA80 family) rifle with M-LOK handguard. The SA80 is due to be replaced by 2035. (Janes/Amael Kotlarski)

By early 2026 some tender requirements from the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) are expected for Project Grayburn, the procurement of 170,000 new weapon systems to replace the UK armed services' SA80 family of service rifles.

Janes understands that the out-of-service date of the SA80, originally planned for 2030, has now been pushed back to 2035. Janes spoke to manufacturers considering assault rifle submissions to Project Grayburn.

Berretta Defense Technologies (BDT)

Following BDT's launch of its UK land industrial strategy the manager of the Military and Law Enforcement Group of BDT UK, Jack Cadman, detailed to Janes the proposed offering to the UK MoD and wider UK economy, which he said could create up to 70 new high-skilled manufacturing jobs.

The bid includes both the Beretta New Assault Rifle Platform (NARP) and Sako Arctic Rifle Generation (ARG) assault rifles for the dismounted close combat (DCC) and combat support (CS) troop roles. The BDT offering includes two assault rifles with flexibility to change calibres to reflect changes in MoD requirements, or a calibre change partway through the rifles' service.

Ammunition input from BDT group company Norma Group, sighting from BDT group company Steiner Optics, and BDT's own suppressors may also be included as part of the bid, depending on tender requirements. In addition to this, BDT provided a conceptual site master plan for upgrading the existing Lincolnshire facility it uses into a small-arms production hub. Projections were released for production capacity and domestic production scenarios, which included 5%, 20%, 80%, and 100% domestic UK-manufactured weapon systems.