Quoted: If I remember right, the Marine Corps was able to get them from the army via DRMO at like no cost. The army was DRMOing allot of the guns as part of its draw down of armor/heavy forces following ODS.
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Yes, the Army had extra basic M240's left over one year because of a difference in vehicle production numbers vs gun numbers. The "R" in DRMO is Reutilization, and things going to DRMO don't have to be junk or things getting scrapped. Much of it is stuff that ends up going to other parts of DoD. This was the case with the M240s. The USMC basically got them free, transferred from the Army.
The Marines used a conglomeration of parts, like some FN and some Brit L7 IIRC to build up the first M240Gs to test. It worked out so well that the "conversion kit" was born. It had all the parts needed to make a basic M240 coax into a GPMG (pg, fs, stock, sights, etc).
The Army got pissed and wanted the USMC to pay for the guns, but DoD said, "no, you're the ones that surplused them." Apparently the Army surplussed them in the first place for accounting purposes to shift money to the next year or something. The way the DoD buys stuff is beyond comprehension some times. But for some reason it was more advantageous for the Army to surpuls them than stock them for the next year's vehicles. It doesn't have to do with "real" money, just the way the DoD accounts for stuff and what budget it comes out of.
Anyway, the USMC did indeed get the guns for free, and most of us in the Army actually thought it was pretty slick the way they did it and it definately had the "two thumbs up" from us.
The Ranger battalions managed to get some. I believe they were provided by FN on the chance for futrue sales (FN is pretty sharp). They may have just gotten the conversion kits and some M240s. Either way the Army finally caught on to the fact that this was the gun we should have bought in 1958 when the rest of the world bought it, and the M240B was born, after the obligatory changes made by the service.