With the French Army adopting the Heckler & Koch’s HK416 as a replacement for the FAMAS assault rifle, the German company may just notch up another big win on the other side of the Atlantic. The USMC is evaluating the M27 IAR as a possible standard issue rifle for all the battalions, which means the M4 rifle, which they decided to be the standard issue rifle last year, might be dislodged by M27 IAR.

The M27 IAR, which is the USMC variant of the HK416, was adopted by as a replacement for the M249 support weapon which allowed those in a SAW role to have a lesser load and still be able to provide suppressive fire at short ranges and more precise shooting at longer ranges. In this setup, a Marine fire team is equipped with just one M27 IAR and carried by the support gunner.

According to Military.com, the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, has been conducting pre-deployment exercises with the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle to evaluate it as a potential mainstay rifle for the infantry battalions. The battalion used the IAR during the 28-day Integrated Training Exercise that took place earlier this month at the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center 29 Palms, California.

For the Marines to transition from the M4 to the M27 IAR is not the issue as they have similarities though the M27 IAR is a superior rifle in terms of range, operation, and reliability. However, the Marines are also concerned about the rate of fire which according to the commander of 1st Marine Division, Maj. Gen. Daniel O'Donohue in the Military.com report:

"One of the things we're looking at is the rate of fire. You can burn off too much ammo, potentially, with the IAR. We have a selector, a regulator [showing] how many rounds the Marines shoot. So that's one area we're examining with experimentation."

With budget cutbacks, the Marines will still have to deal with the costs of equipping all the battalions as an M27 IAR costs US$3,000 a piece and it might be a daunting task to accomplish that. Chief Warrant Officer Christian Wade, the gunner, or infantry weapons officer, for 2nd Marine Division, recommends a smaller rollout if they decide to expand the use of the M27 IAR given the budget constraints.

The evaluation will continue as the 3/5  proceed with their exercises and deployment and that decision about whether to have the M27 IAR as the standard weapon will be based on the information that will be collected by the Commandant, Gen. Robert Neller.

If the M27 IAR becomes the mainstay weapon of the USMC, it will provide a more solid case for Heckler & Koch to sell the HK416 to other military organizations in the world, especially in NATO where two its members, the Norwegians and the French, have adopted it as their standard rifle.

As the for airsoft, there is an M27 IAR version as sold by Umarex with VFC as the OEM.