As Canada upgrades its assault rifle, could the UK follow suit and swap the SA80 for the C25?

As Britain looks to replace its SA80 family of individual weapons, Canada is in the process of doing something similar, swapping its C7 and C8 rifles with the new C25.

The Canadian weapons date back four decades – like the SA80 – and the UK's Project Grayburn aims to find a replacement for this, with the ambidextrous C25 being a potential contender for the UK's Armed Forces.

Grayburn has not given weapons manufacturers much of a detailed brief on what the MOD is looking for – there's no specified calibre for example – but one stipulation is that it should be able to defeat body armour.

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A spoonful of secret sauce

But even this is vague, as Grayburn makes no mention of what type of body armour and at what distances of engagement - but Colt Canada has its own way of offering lethality with the C25 – accuracy and ease of use.

As Timothy Moore from Colt Canada explained: "This is the C25 and this is an evolution of the C7/C8 rifle that has been used by the Canadian armed forces since the mid-80s.

"It's also been adopted by the Danish armed forces, the Dutch armed forces, the Norwegian Special Operations community, and it's been in service with the UK as well with specialist user groups.

"The C7/C8 family is currently in use in Ukraine as well with the Ukrainian armed forces."

Mr Moore told BFBS Forces News what makes the C25 so special.

"What we have today is the evolution of that and really where we go with that is how do we make the rifle more accurate and easy to shoot?

"The barrel has been redesigned internally to ensure it's more accurate.

"There's a bit of secret sauce in there, but essentially we've looked at the internals of the barrel and how we can deliver a more accurate round.

"And then on the Canadian version – and remember this is the C25 for Canada – they've installed a low-power variable optic, a 1-6x optic, which will allow you to acquire targets faster and more accurately."

Accuracy is everything

Mr Moore was asked about the C25's lethality and ability to defeat body armour.

This can be achieved through punching through the armour, damaging the bone and tissue behind through kinetic force, or seeking to thread a bullet between the gaps between the armour plates.

"Fundamentally, there are three schools of thought in terms of defeating or delivering lethal effect," he explained.

"We can go for defeating centre mass and body armour and punching through that plate. That is one option.

"The second option is going for accuracy and looking at soft targets, so shoulders, face, groin, hips, etc, and going after that.

"And then the third option is going for mass, so just as many rounds downrange as possible and through probability hitting the objective.

"The Canadians went for accuracy. And the enhancement of a two-stage trigger, a more accurate barrel, an LPVO – a low -power variable optic – and reduced recoil, adds to that.

"So we're not really looking at trying to defeat the armour as such. We're trying to look for how we can be more accurate under pressure and allow an easier use of the rifle."

Not just a suppressor

Located at the end of the barrel is the multi-function muzzle device, which Mr Moore said does four things for the firer.

"First things first, it allows all your nasty gases to go out that way," he said. "The other thing that it does as well is it slows down the gases and reduces the noise to around about 140dB, so hearing-safe, essentially.

"[So this] is great from a health and safety perspective, but also from a signature management perspective as well, and a command and control perspective.

"So I'm turning, essentially, the volume of the gun down so I can talk to you and I'm not going to be hoarse at the end of the day shouting orders, having fought the noise of this rifle.

"The other thing that it does as well is it reduces flash to a minimal. So if you imagine a section of infantry in a tree line, you're not seeing reports of flashes of people shooting the rifle. It reduces that.

"And then critically, and perhaps most importantly, it reduces felt recoil significantly. So essentially, we can go to the range, load a magazine of 5.56 in there, shoot away, and it feels like shooting a .22 rifle.

"And this is all born from the desire to be more accurate and more shootable as a weapon."