On May 22, 2025, the U.S. Army’s xTech Program announced that the MARS Inc, Barrett team was selected as the winner of the xTech Soldier Lethality competition for the Precision Grenadier System. The Army invited companies to showcase concepts for the PGS requirements. Participants engaged and pitched their technology solutions to the Department of Defense for prize money and the potential to receive a contract award or agreement of up to $2 million.
“Lt. Col. Micah Rue, Project Manager Soldier Lethality’s Product Manager for Soldier Weapons, noted the lack of a commercial PGS solution,” the Army Innovation Programs Office noted in an Army xTech article. “To deliver an Army PGS program by fiscal year 2026, PEO Soldier partnered with xTech to fund and incentivize industry participation, sparking innovation and creating a new industry teaming environment.”
Phase 1 took place in 2023 and involved a concept white paper submission; up to five winners could be selected and were awarded $15,000 each. Winners of phase 1 were invited to participate in the phase 2 technology pitch, also in 2023. Up to three winners were selected in phase 2 and awarded $300,000 each. Phase 3, final demonstration, took place from 2024-2025 and saw FN’s PGS-001 complete against MARS Inc/Barrett’s 30mm Support Rifle System.
“In six months, this team of agile businesses were able to design, build, test, and demonstrate the effectiveness of a new 30mm grenade rifle system in support of the Army’s Precision Grenadier System (PGS) requirement,” Barrett said in a press release. “PGS is a soldier portable, shoulder fired, semi-automatic, magazine fed, integrated armament system (weapon, ammunition, fire control) that enables rapid, precision engagements to destroy personnel targets in defilade and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) targets at close range.”
Barrett and MARS worked with AMTRC Corp to develop an entirely new family of 30mm shoulder fired munitions. The new ammunition family covers the full spectrum of capabilities required by the Army including Programmable Air Bursting High Explosive, Proximity Fuzed and Point Detonating High Explosive, and even a Close Quarter Battle Round. AMTEC is the largest volume producer of 40mm grenade ammunition and fuzing in the world and is currently the sole Prime Contractor to the DoD for 40mm ammunition.