IDEX 2025: BDT finalising its bid for UK MoD’s SA80 assault rifle replacement programme
Peter Felstead
21. February 2025
Beretta Defence Technologies (BDT), the strategic alliance of holding companies under Italy’s Beretta Group, is finalising its bid for Project Grayburn: the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) initiative to replace the UK armed forces’ L85A3 (SA80) individual service weapon.
While Project Grayburn is currently still at the concept stage, the project ultimately intends to procure around 170,000 assault rifles to replace the SA80, which was first introduced in 1985 and has been progressively upgraded, with the latest L85A3 version issued in 2018. The UK MoD has thus far not stipulated a desired calibre for the new weapons and appears to be open to researched options.
Speaking at the IDEX 2025 defence exhibition in Abu Dhabi on 18 February, Jack Cadman, law enforcement and military group manager at BDT, told ESD, “We have two options to put forward to the UK MoD. We have Beretta’s New Assault Rifle Platform (NARP) and we have the Sako [M23] platform, which is the in-service weapon for the Finnish and Swedish armed forces. We’re really in a fortunate position that we, for the UK, were able to put forward two offers of a system under current expected specification requirements.”
Currently chambered for the 5.56×45 mm NATO calibre, the NARP family of weapons has been designed to increase and enhance five operational key capabilities: lethality, reliability, ergonomics, modularity and signature reduction. Development of the weapon began in 2018 and, as Cadman explained to ESD, BDT took the classic AR-15 assault rifle design as a baseline and then sought to eradicate, or at least mitigate, all known issues with the AR-15 action.
Unlike the SA80, the NARP design is fully ambidextrous and attention has been paid to the weapon’s centre of gravity, allowing it to be fired more effectively singled handed if necessary. The weapon, which weighs around 3.2-3.3 kg, will be available in 11.5-, 14.5-and 16-inch barrel lengths and, unlike the AR-15, the rifle’s recoil spring is located in the upper receiver, allowing a full range of buttstocks to be fitted, including a Beretta-developed adjustable folding stock. The weapon uses a short-stroke gas system with a two-position (normal and suppressed) adjustable gas port and has what Beretta describes as a prismatic bolt carrier with a rotating bolt to minimise vibration and reduce fouling issues. The NARP has also been coated in thermal signature-reducing paint.
The M23 from Finnish Beretta holding company Sako, meanwhile, is currently chambered for both 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm calibres and is available with barrel lengths of 11.5, 16, 18 and 20 inches. The weapon is an AR-10 pattern short-stroke piston-operated semi-auto rifle that is also fully ambidextrous.
A 7.62 mm Sako M23 fitted with a Steiner scope and an Ase Utra-suppressor. This is one of the two weapon families being bid by BDT for the UK MoD’s Project Grayburn, which is intended to replace the UK armed forces’ SA80 individual service weapon. (Photo: FDF)
While the calibre, or calibres, for the UK’s next-generation individual service weapon has yet to be determined, Cadman pointed out to ESD that France, Sweden, Finland and Italy have all chosen to stay with the current NATO calibres of 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm.
Although BDT has a background in supplying ammunition for the UK’s Metropolitan Police and provided Benelli shotguns for close-quarter combat under an Urgent Operational Requirement for the British Army’s Operation ‘Herrick’ campaign in Afghanistan, addressing UK MoD requirements for a new individual service weapon is a completely new market for BDT.
“We quickly realised that for us to mount a credible bid for Project Grayburn, we need to have a weapon system that does what is required and answers the lethality problem, which absolutely, from a UK perspective, I think it’s imperative we give the right kit and the right weapons to our soldiers across our services because at the moment the SA80 is an outdated weapon system that needs to be replaced,” said Cadman.
“We realised that our industrial strategy, which is going to be a huge component of Project Grayburn, is absolutely something that we need to do,” Cadman explained. “From our perspective, [with] our industrial strategy, what problems are we solving? Well, UK Government want national security resilience and economic prosperity. Our offer to the UK MoD and to UK government is using UK suppliers and having a production facility in the UK. We’re in a very lucky and fortunate position that one of our factory sites in the UK currently, which is already in use up in Lincolnshire, has a purpose-built facility for testing and evaluation of weapons, which was originally for testing RAF ammunition during World War Two and then has since become a pyrotechnic space. But ultimately, we’ve got a purpose-built indoor range and the capability to put a production facility very quickly into action.”
As of January 2025, Project Grayburn remained in the concept phase, with the official line from the UK MoD saying little more than that the SA80 will be replaced over the coming decade.
An example of BDT’s NARP assault rifle family on display at IDEX 2025. BDT is bidding the weapon for Project Grayburn: the UK MoD project to replace the UK armed forces’ SA80 individual service weapon. (Photo: BDT)
https://euro-sd.com/2025/02/major-news/ ... yburn-bid/