The assault rifle was made for the military and is already being marketed to the public.
SIG Sauer’s new MCX-SPEAR fires bullets with twice the kinetic energy of those from an AR-15. That means double the horrifying force that mangled the victims of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and left one youngster essentially decapitated.
“It’ll shoot through almost all of the bulletproof vests that are worn by law enforcement in the county right now,” said Ryan Busse, a former firearms company executive who is now a senior policy analyst with the Giffords Law Center and author of Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America.
The MCX-SPEAR is the civilian version of the U.S. Army’s NGSW-R (Next Generation Squad Weapon-Rifle), which was created with the express purpose of tearing through enemy body armor.
“This is a weapon that could defeat any body armor, any planned body armor that we know of in the future,” then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told the Army Times in 2019. “This is a weapon that can go out at ranges that are unknown today.”
Milley had in mind the body armor worn by Russian and Chinese troops. The Army just shrugged when asked this week whether the same could apply to that worn by cops.
“Please, refer your question to Sig Sauer and civilian law enforcement agencies,” a spokesperson for the Army Modernization Team told The Daily Beast.
The Army’s new rifle is now for sale to the general public, both under the MCX Spear and XM5 names. It currently sells for $8,000. Various vendors we talked to at the Dulles gun show expect that price to go down by half in the coming years.
It can be accurate up to a thousand yards with enough power to punch through nearly all body armor according to the US Army. The Army says it wanted the new .277 Fury round because the Army’s current round, the 5.56 NATO, often fails to punch through enemy body armor at long range.
“There are probably almost no law enforcement agencies, probably almost no domestic police agencies, that are set to have body armor set to defend against the .277 Fury,” added Busse.
While police vests can be pierced with current AR-15 rounds, the rounds the MCX Spear shoots are specifically designed to pierce through all but the toughest body armor, according to the US Army.
