GUNS/RLTD Army Adopts Sig Sauer Sidearm/Sig P320 ( original post date 1-20-2017 )
- Thread starter Medical Maven
- Start date
blackjeep
The end times are here.
Having owned several 1911 pistols, I would agree. I liked them, but in the heat of the moment, less complicated units win the day.
This didn't just 'happen' - it's been in the works for a while.
==================================
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyBfrf7iitA
SIG P320
hickok45
Published on Jun 5, 2014
Shooting and discussing the new striker-fired Sig Sauer P320.
==================================
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyBfrf7iitA
SIG P320
hickok45
Published on Jun 5, 2014
Shooting and discussing the new striker-fired Sig Sauer P320.
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
When I was in the US Army back in 1974, I was issued the M-1911 as my personal weapon. I was a medic. The fact that in World War Two, Korea and Vietnam the enemy liked to shoot unarmed medics made the army issue sidearms.
Personally, I will admit there is a certain ego trip from having a M-1911 strapped on your hip, especially when you are 20 years old. However, I never really was able to shoot accurately with it. Granted, the M-1911 was the kind of sidearm where any body hits would do some serious damage, followed by a bleed out. My hands are on the small size which made holding the sidearm a real chore.
Housecarl, if you really want to get a "real sidearm" I would go with the 50 Caliber Desert Eagle! Now THAT is a sidearm!
I am just curious as to the exact timing of this contract. It could be the US Army was dealing with Obama level BS and it really took them both his terms to get the contract awarded. When you have a new CIC, as well as a new SOD, like Mattis, I just wonder why they didn't wait another month and let Mattis weigh in on it.
Being a conspiracy theorist to the core, this must mean the space aliens are involved somehow!
Personally, I will admit there is a certain ego trip from having a M-1911 strapped on your hip, especially when you are 20 years old. However, I never really was able to shoot accurately with it. Granted, the M-1911 was the kind of sidearm where any body hits would do some serious damage, followed by a bleed out. My hands are on the small size which made holding the sidearm a real chore.
Housecarl, if you really want to get a "real sidearm" I would go with the 50 Caliber Desert Eagle! Now THAT is a sidearm!
I am just curious as to the exact timing of this contract. It could be the US Army was dealing with Obama level BS and it really took them both his terms to get the contract awarded. When you have a new CIC, as well as a new SOD, like Mattis, I just wonder why they didn't wait another month and let Mattis weigh in on it.
Being a conspiracy theorist to the core, this must mean the space aliens are involved somehow!
http://weaponsman.com/?p=38511
Reactions to the SIG MHS Win
16 Replies
New Hampshire Reacts
As you might imagine, local media here in the ‘Shire is a little bit excited over this, especially as SIG is saying that these pistols will be produced here in what we call the Portsmouth plant (it’s actually across the Newington line — the former Pease AFB, where the factory is, straddles the town line. These towns are in Rockingham county, in the lower right corner of the map on the right). On the one hand, newspapers (the Portsmouth Herald, Foster’s Daily Democrat of Dover, and the Manchester-based Union Leader) all went with the press release rewrites or cribbing from military-news websites, and have no local reaction in their stories. On the other hand, local talk radio, and the comments at the newspapers’ stories, have been highly positive. On the gripping hand, gun-culture folks encountered at FFLs (it was a pick-up-the-GunBroker-haul kind of day) were beyond positive. Grouchy old men were emitting giddy chuckles.
SIG-Sauer Reacts
SIG itself totally confounded our expectation of a slow media response and got pictures of their XM17 winners (full-size and compact, replacing the M9 and M11)…
…and a press release out Friday — maybe late Thursday, SHOT time. Text of the press release:
SIG SAUER, Inc. announced today that the U.S. Army has selected the SIG SAUER Model P320 to replace the M9 service pistol currently in use since the mid-1980’s. Released in 2014, the P320 is a polymer striker-fired pistol that has proven itself in both the United States and worldwide markets. The P320 is the first modular pistol with interchangeable grip modules that can also be adjusted in frame size and caliber by the operator. All pistols will be produced at the SIG SAUER facilities in New Hampshire.
The MHS Program provides for the delivery of both full size and compact P320’s, over a period of ten (10) years. All pistols will be configurable to receive silencers and will also include both standard and extended capacity magazines.
“I am tremendously proud of the Modular Handgun System Team,” said Army Acquisition Executive, Steffanie Easter in the release. “By maximizing full and open competition across our industry partners, we truly have optimized the private sector advancements in handguns, ammunition and magazines and the end result will ensure a decidedly superior weapon system for our warfighters.”
Ron Cohen, President and CEO of SIG SAUER, said “We are both humbled and proud that the P320 was selected by the U.S. Army as its weapon of choice. Securing this contract is a testimony to SIG SAUER employees and their commitment to innovation, quality and manufacturing the most reliable firearms in the world.”
Well done, getting the word out, Ron and guys. We take back all our snide comments about your media shop.
Not Everyone Excels at Publicity
We’re not so thrilled with the MHS Team; in a world of increasing government transparency, they’ve emitted a lot more squid ink than information. When will we get a report on the course of the tests and how the various contenders did? The Army released this information from all*the tests that led up to the 1911, and we got*some*information from the tests that led up to the M9. But the MHS Team has been treating the public like mushrooms: kept in the dark, and fed on horse $#!+.
A Glock Fanboy Reacts
Hey, you knew it was coming. Here’s Pete in The Firearm Blog. A taste:
Fanboy? Sure, call me names, throw rotten food at your devices, raise your torches and pitchforks. Listen to some Nickleback for crying out loud. But even if you pray to a different god, be it Sig, S&W, FN or some pot metal creation you got at a show a few years back – Deep down, you know the US Army should be carrying GLOCKs as their new handgun.
Read The Whole Thing™.
What’s a Nickleback?
This entry was posted in Industry, Pistols and Revolvers on January 21, 2017 by Hognose.
About Hognose
Former Special Forces 11B2S, later 18B, weapons man. (Also served in intelligence and operations jobs in SF).
Reactions to the SIG MHS Win
16 Replies
New Hampshire Reacts
As you might imagine, local media here in the ‘Shire is a little bit excited over this, especially as SIG is saying that these pistols will be produced here in what we call the Portsmouth plant (it’s actually across the Newington line — the former Pease AFB, where the factory is, straddles the town line. These towns are in Rockingham county, in the lower right corner of the map on the right). On the one hand, newspapers (the Portsmouth Herald, Foster’s Daily Democrat of Dover, and the Manchester-based Union Leader) all went with the press release rewrites or cribbing from military-news websites, and have no local reaction in their stories. On the other hand, local talk radio, and the comments at the newspapers’ stories, have been highly positive. On the gripping hand, gun-culture folks encountered at FFLs (it was a pick-up-the-GunBroker-haul kind of day) were beyond positive. Grouchy old men were emitting giddy chuckles.
SIG-Sauer Reacts
SIG itself totally confounded our expectation of a slow media response and got pictures of their XM17 winners (full-size and compact, replacing the M9 and M11)…
…and a press release out Friday — maybe late Thursday, SHOT time. Text of the press release:
SIG SAUER, Inc. announced today that the U.S. Army has selected the SIG SAUER Model P320 to replace the M9 service pistol currently in use since the mid-1980’s. Released in 2014, the P320 is a polymer striker-fired pistol that has proven itself in both the United States and worldwide markets. The P320 is the first modular pistol with interchangeable grip modules that can also be adjusted in frame size and caliber by the operator. All pistols will be produced at the SIG SAUER facilities in New Hampshire.
The MHS Program provides for the delivery of both full size and compact P320’s, over a period of ten (10) years. All pistols will be configurable to receive silencers and will also include both standard and extended capacity magazines.
“I am tremendously proud of the Modular Handgun System Team,” said Army Acquisition Executive, Steffanie Easter in the release. “By maximizing full and open competition across our industry partners, we truly have optimized the private sector advancements in handguns, ammunition and magazines and the end result will ensure a decidedly superior weapon system for our warfighters.”
Ron Cohen, President and CEO of SIG SAUER, said “We are both humbled and proud that the P320 was selected by the U.S. Army as its weapon of choice. Securing this contract is a testimony to SIG SAUER employees and their commitment to innovation, quality and manufacturing the most reliable firearms in the world.”
Well done, getting the word out, Ron and guys. We take back all our snide comments about your media shop.
Not Everyone Excels at Publicity
We’re not so thrilled with the MHS Team; in a world of increasing government transparency, they’ve emitted a lot more squid ink than information. When will we get a report on the course of the tests and how the various contenders did? The Army released this information from all*the tests that led up to the 1911, and we got*some*information from the tests that led up to the M9. But the MHS Team has been treating the public like mushrooms: kept in the dark, and fed on horse $#!+.
A Glock Fanboy Reacts
Hey, you knew it was coming. Here’s Pete in The Firearm Blog. A taste:
Fanboy? Sure, call me names, throw rotten food at your devices, raise your torches and pitchforks. Listen to some Nickleback for crying out loud. But even if you pray to a different god, be it Sig, S&W, FN or some pot metal creation you got at a show a few years back – Deep down, you know the US Army should be carrying GLOCKs as their new handgun.
Read The Whole Thing™.
What’s a Nickleback?
This entry was posted in Industry, Pistols and Revolvers on January 21, 2017 by Hognose.
About Hognose
Former Special Forces 11B2S, later 18B, weapons man. (Also served in intelligence and operations jobs in SF).
Thomas Paine
Has No Life - Lives on TB
I love a 1911/1911a1 but there are better systems out there for an organization that may issue pistols to as many as say 350,000 people with between 50 and 12 rds fired for quals / fam fire annually. The SIG 320 can go from a full size belt gun for the base MP/DOD Police Officer to a compact suppressed 9mm for the Direct Action guys. My understanding is that there has been a more and more use of ammo like EFMJ & Power Ball because while it expands it's not a hollow point(It makes the lawyers happy the way the Winchester 147 gr OSM HP did back when it first came out or why the various )TM /OST Match bullets are in use without anyone going to jail.This a simple rugged system which if the core fire control group survives what ever Joe Snuffy can do to it a new upper group and a frame of size of appropriate can be snapped on by the arms room armorer if the army gets that smart if not the next line in fire arms maintenance support can. The trigger beats the Glock just a little to me but that and 5.00s gets you a nice cup of coffee. Personally I didn't really care for any of the guns in the race. I do worry as I seem to remember both S&W and Sig were dropped from the competition at some point. I may be misremembering hell I'm getting old.
Up Dated after viewing the supposed pictures at weapons man. Those 320s have the rear sights on a plate that can be removed and a RMR (basically little red dot for a pistol) put on it or putt a plate with high rear suppressor sight and a high front blade combined with a can and the gun is ready to Hush Puppy.
A bit older entry - photos at the link.
PLEASE NOTE THE LAST PARAGRAPH....
===============
http://weaponsman.com/?p=38475
SIG Wins Army MHS Contract – Up to $580 Million
43 Replies
A version of the SIG P320 modular pistol has won the Army’s Modular Handgun System contract, and has been tasked to provide pistols, accessories such as holsters and suppressors, and ammunition.
The pistol will replace the M9 and M11 pistols over the next ten years; then those firearms will join the M1911 and M1873 in honored retirement.
Is this what they want? The SIG P320 family. The compact is the “Goldilocks” midsize — about the same size as a G19.
The DOD slipped the contract out on the last day of the outgoing Administration, perhaps because of noises from the Senate that were encouraging incoming Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis to cancel the program, the initial phase of which has already cost $350 million. Alternatively, it could simply be that the Army’s bureaucracy at Picatinny just got done shuffling the papers today. Complete text of the DOD contract announcement:
Sig Sauer Inc., Newington, New Hampshire, was awarded a $580,217,000 firm-fixed-price contract for the Modular Handgun System including handgun, accessories and ammunition to replace the current M9 handgun. Bids were solicited via the Internet with nine received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 19, 2027. Army Contracting Command, Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, is the contracting activity (W15QKN-17-D-0016).
OTR notified us from his sources at around the same time that one of our readers flagged us to Soldier Systems Daily in the comments to another post. Soldier Systems Daily was, as far as we know, the first publication online with the story. CWCID.
The P320 has been well received, more so than the hammer-fired P250 that had teething problems that cost it the Federal Air Marshals Service contract some years ago. Tam Keel put a thousand or two rounds downrange from one last year; the NRA awarded it the Golden Bullseye for Handgun of the Year in June.
Stand by for an announcement from SIG (their PR shop works slowly and indirectly at the best of times). This is where their press release would be, if they had one.
This may fill in some of the blanks that we don’t know from the one-paragraph DOD contract announcement:
What color? The contract suggested the military preferred a brown or FDE shade of weapon, like the P320 Compact shown dismantled above.
What caliber? SIG submitted both 9mm and .40 S&W firearms.
Pure striker-fired, or with safety?
If the news hits before our post goes live in about 11 hours, we’ll add an update below.
Congratulations to the hard-working team at SIG, and condolences to the eight other teams that competed for this contract. The problem with any such competition is that choosing a “best” from a field of very good firearms (or anything else) is inherently subjective and difficult. If you recall the JSSAP trials that yielded the M9, runners-up included SIG’s then-flagship P-series DA/SA pistols, Smith & Wesson’s generation of DA/SAs, and several others that, like the SIG and Smith, found markets elsewhere, just as the rejects, this time including Smith and Glock among others, will this time.
Updates
The Firearm Blog has some details from SHOT, still sketchy, and this photo of what is the winning firearm, the P320 Compact, presumably in 9mm, with ambi manual safety. Nathaniel promises to keep that page updated, if and when the SIG bigs issue a statement.
TFB says this is the M17, or as close as SIG has at the show.
Here are some pictures of the P320 MHS manual safety firearm as submitted. These are all originally from SIG sources, although we ganked them from here and there over the last two years of the MHS program. The full size and compact submissions:
There’s a great deal of interchangeability. Eli Whitney, eat your heart out.
Here’s a close-up of the manual safety. It seems well-designed both to avoid snags and to be positive in operation.
This does put the SOF Glock contracts at risk, for budgetary reasons. It would be very hard to quantify the superiority of the G19 over this pistol. Meanwhile, the SOF pistols come out of SOF specific money, Major Force Program (MFP) 11. MFP-11 is a finite amount; if SOF were to specify pistols that were a standard Big Green (Blue, Haze Gray, etc) NSN, the service would buy the pistols out of its general-purpose forces money, and that would leave the MFP-11 money for other SOF uses (other SOF-peculiar weapons, communications equipment, engineeer equipment, etc.).
This contract is big news in Gun Universe but back on Soldier Planet it’s not that big a deal. A pistol is almost always a secondary weapon, and the dirty little secret is that just about any service pistol will do — the SIG, the Glock, the SEALs’ P226, the Beretta, hell, the 1911. In combat, your big killers are your air and artillery, and then, your machine guns, and then, your rifles. The pistol is there for the same reason that there is a reserve canopy in your parachute rig — a backup, and a confidence builder.
This entry was posted in Consumer Alert!, Industry, Pistols and Revolvers on January 20, 2017 by Hognose.
PLEASE NOTE THE LAST PARAGRAPH....
===============
http://weaponsman.com/?p=38475
SIG Wins Army MHS Contract – Up to $580 Million
43 Replies
A version of the SIG P320 modular pistol has won the Army’s Modular Handgun System contract, and has been tasked to provide pistols, accessories such as holsters and suppressors, and ammunition.
The pistol will replace the M9 and M11 pistols over the next ten years; then those firearms will join the M1911 and M1873 in honored retirement.
Is this what they want? The SIG P320 family. The compact is the “Goldilocks” midsize — about the same size as a G19.
The DOD slipped the contract out on the last day of the outgoing Administration, perhaps because of noises from the Senate that were encouraging incoming Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis to cancel the program, the initial phase of which has already cost $350 million. Alternatively, it could simply be that the Army’s bureaucracy at Picatinny just got done shuffling the papers today. Complete text of the DOD contract announcement:
Sig Sauer Inc., Newington, New Hampshire, was awarded a $580,217,000 firm-fixed-price contract for the Modular Handgun System including handgun, accessories and ammunition to replace the current M9 handgun. Bids were solicited via the Internet with nine received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 19, 2027. Army Contracting Command, Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, is the contracting activity (W15QKN-17-D-0016).
OTR notified us from his sources at around the same time that one of our readers flagged us to Soldier Systems Daily in the comments to another post. Soldier Systems Daily was, as far as we know, the first publication online with the story. CWCID.
The P320 has been well received, more so than the hammer-fired P250 that had teething problems that cost it the Federal Air Marshals Service contract some years ago. Tam Keel put a thousand or two rounds downrange from one last year; the NRA awarded it the Golden Bullseye for Handgun of the Year in June.
Stand by for an announcement from SIG (their PR shop works slowly and indirectly at the best of times). This is where their press release would be, if they had one.
This may fill in some of the blanks that we don’t know from the one-paragraph DOD contract announcement:
What color? The contract suggested the military preferred a brown or FDE shade of weapon, like the P320 Compact shown dismantled above.
What caliber? SIG submitted both 9mm and .40 S&W firearms.
Pure striker-fired, or with safety?
If the news hits before our post goes live in about 11 hours, we’ll add an update below.
Congratulations to the hard-working team at SIG, and condolences to the eight other teams that competed for this contract. The problem with any such competition is that choosing a “best” from a field of very good firearms (or anything else) is inherently subjective and difficult. If you recall the JSSAP trials that yielded the M9, runners-up included SIG’s then-flagship P-series DA/SA pistols, Smith & Wesson’s generation of DA/SAs, and several others that, like the SIG and Smith, found markets elsewhere, just as the rejects, this time including Smith and Glock among others, will this time.
Updates
The Firearm Blog has some details from SHOT, still sketchy, and this photo of what is the winning firearm, the P320 Compact, presumably in 9mm, with ambi manual safety. Nathaniel promises to keep that page updated, if and when the SIG bigs issue a statement.
TFB says this is the M17, or as close as SIG has at the show.
Here are some pictures of the P320 MHS manual safety firearm as submitted. These are all originally from SIG sources, although we ganked them from here and there over the last two years of the MHS program. The full size and compact submissions:
There’s a great deal of interchangeability. Eli Whitney, eat your heart out.
Here’s a close-up of the manual safety. It seems well-designed both to avoid snags and to be positive in operation.
This does put the SOF Glock contracts at risk, for budgetary reasons. It would be very hard to quantify the superiority of the G19 over this pistol. Meanwhile, the SOF pistols come out of SOF specific money, Major Force Program (MFP) 11. MFP-11 is a finite amount; if SOF were to specify pistols that were a standard Big Green (Blue, Haze Gray, etc) NSN, the service would buy the pistols out of its general-purpose forces money, and that would leave the MFP-11 money for other SOF uses (other SOF-peculiar weapons, communications equipment, engineeer equipment, etc.).
This contract is big news in Gun Universe but back on Soldier Planet it’s not that big a deal. A pistol is almost always a secondary weapon, and the dirty little secret is that just about any service pistol will do — the SIG, the Glock, the SEALs’ P226, the Beretta, hell, the 1911. In combat, your big killers are your air and artillery, and then, your machine guns, and then, your rifles. The pistol is there for the same reason that there is a reserve canopy in your parachute rig — a backup, and a confidence builder.
This entry was posted in Consumer Alert!, Industry, Pistols and Revolvers on January 20, 2017 by Hognose.
Thomas, it's great technology... I have a G34 Gen4, with threaded LWD barrel, Trijicon RMR, Trijicon tritium suppressor sights, Viridian X5L, competition internals, and Gemtech Blackside w/LID. With or without NVG, I rule whatever I can see, that's in range... That RMR is absolutely amazing technology... I use CR2032 Duracell Lithium batteries... Loaded with either a 17rd or 32 rd mag, filled with 147gr standard velocity Federal HST... Tack driver... If I can see it, I can hit it, within 100 yards... So yeah, for old geezers like me, that red dot is technology that works...
GBY&Y's
Maranatha
OldARcher
Doomer Doug
TB Fanatic
Old Geezer, Old Geezer, Old Archer? I consider myself a dangerous, cranky Senior Citizen with an attitude! he he he Plus I have a handgun! Watch out, Snowflakes!
ElevenO
Veteran Member
The contract includes more than the base pistol itself plus a few spare magazines for each pistol. The contract will also include spare parts, training, simunitions and blank firing kits as well as new ammunition (which may include hollowpoint ammo in addition to standard full metal jacket ammo and it will, likely, be chambered in 9mm Luger). Holsters, magazines and cleaning kits may be included in the contract, as well. I don't know if that's the case but it would make some fiscal sense to set up a large contract that way.
I would expect that, sooner or later, the other branches will piggyback onto this contract and will make the switch to the P320 also. Hopefully, trump will allow the CMP program to surplus out the current M9's and M11's to civilians at some point in the future as well.
Last edited:
ElevenO
Veteran Member
Trump had no hand in any of this as the MHS program is several years old now and it's predecessors, which were all cancelled in previous administrations due to cost, are even older than that. For all practical purposes, the Army has been looking for an M9 replacement for about 10 years or so.
As for American jobs, Sig Sauer's U.S. factory is located in New Hampshire so, even though they may be a foreign company, the people who will be building these firearms will be Americans here at home.
Jackpine Savage
Veteran Member
Thomas Paine
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Probably never most of them are ragged out. 16 years of constant deployments, issuing everyone they can a pistol who tor everyone who can beg one when going beyond the wire has probably ate into reserve stocks. Most of the ones I have seen on Vests, LBE, Harness what ever your generation called appear really war weary in videos, news footage and pictures my of guys trying to show me why I should get rid of 92 FS. Aluminum frames don't lend themselves to constant depot rebuilds I have been told, I can't verify myself but I trust the people who told me.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/01/analysis-us-army-chooses-sig-320-as-new-pistol/ reports a unit price of $207 per ...
For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/01/analysis-us-army-chooses-sig-320-as-new-pistol/
Analysis: US Army Chooses Sig 320 as New Pistol
Posted by Andrew Branca ** Friday, January 20, 2017 at 8:05pm
Army chooses striker-fired 15+ round 9mm handgun, at reported price of $207/gun
http://s3.legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Sig-320-640-592x442.jpg
I’ve spent the last week at the gun industry SHOT Show convention in Las Vegas, and I’m pretty sure I need a hip replacement after walking mile after mile of exhibits of guns, guns, more guns, related gun stuff, and guns.
Perhaps the biggest gun-related news event of the week, however, wasn’t anything on display at the SHOT Show. Rather it was the US Army’s announcement that they had finally–FINALLY!–chosen the pistol to replace the Beretta M9 handgun adopted back in the 1980s, which in turn had replaced the 1911 “Government model” 45 first designed by gun genius John Moses Browning way back in–wait for it–1911.
The newly chosen*pistol is to be the Sig Sauer P320, a semiautomatic striker-fired 15+ round 9mm handgun (seen in featured picture above).
The Army’s pistol evaluation program had already taken a ridiculous amount of time and expense by the time it came up as a subject in the Senate hearings on just-confirmed-today Secretary of Defense James “Chaos” Mattis. Frankly, the program was as illustrative an example of government ineptitude as could be imagined.
Was it coincidence that a day or two before Donald Trump was sworn in as our 45th President that the Army finally got off its butt and made a decision? Hmmmm.
What about the choice on the merits?I’ll use Glocks for comparative purposes because I’m most personally familiar with them among the guns that were also in the running for the Army program.
In the interests of full disclosure,*I personally carry a Sig 320 Compact every day for personal protection, so obviously I think quite highly of the gun. That said, I’ve also carried Glocks for the same purpose, own several firearms from both companies, and think highly of both their products.
As Sigs go the 320 is relatively*inexpensive. Note that caveat, however: as Sigs go. A more typical Sig pistol can easily cost well in excess of $1,000 per pistol. In contrast, the Sig 320 runs closer to $700 per pistol. *This is nevertheless still quite a bit more expensive than a similar Glock pistol, which might retail for perhaps $550 per pistol. Naturally the Army would not be paying anything close to retail pricing for either gun, but I would expect the price differential between the two handguns to be of that magnitude.
In terms of overall function and capability, there would appear to be little to choose from between the 320 and a Glock. They’re both semiautomatic striker-fired 9mm pistols with a magazine capacity of 15+ rounds, give or take a couple of rounds depending on specific configuration. *They’re both about the same size, and have various options for modification of the size/shape of the grip to fit different hand sizes.
The triggers feel quite different from each other to the experienced hand, and I personally much prefer the Sig trigger, but most military people will never have much training or experience on a handgun, so I doubt any subtleties*in trigger*matter in the military context.
Either gun would have come with open*sights rather than any kind of fancier optic (my own carry gun now carries an RMR optic, as my old eyes can’t see the front sight any longer). But again, this shouldn’t matter in a military context. A good optic on a rifle is a game changer; on a pistol, for soldiers with young eyes, very few of whom*will ever be tasked to make use of a handgun, probably not so much.
Both guns use a rather traditional Browning-style lock-up, so there’s nothing to choose between them there.
Glocks left in factory configuration are famously reliable, and have been since they were introduced to the market in the 1980s. The Sig 320 has only been on the market something like 18 months (that’s months, not years), so we don’t have a similarly lengthy history, but I expect the military will have tested reliability extensively in its trials process.
Also, I believe both handguns are built in the United States, so there would have been no issues either way with any kind of foreign manufacture.
There are a couple of differences between the Sig 320 and the Glock that could have led the Army to favoring the Sig, however. Both are arguably safety related.
First, the Glock requires that the trigger be depressed in order to take the slide off the gun (field stripped) for cleaning and other purposes–that is, the trigger must be pressed in the exact same manner as when one intends to fire the gun. If a round is in the chamber when this is done the gun will, obviously, fire that round. Of course the user should have confirmed that the gun was unloaded before depressing the trigger for this purpose, but accidental discharges have been known to occur under these circumstances. I’ve personally been present at one of these accidental discharges, and I can tell you that’s a very, very loud bang in that unexpected context. In contrast to the Glock, however, the Sig 320 does not*require that the trigger be depressed in order for the gun to be taken apart for cleaning. Safer? Your call.
Second, although the “normal” Sig 320 that’s been on the market since introduction does not come with any external safety mechanisms or levers, and the Glock is similarly designed, the version of the 320 being procured by the Army in fact has a frame-mounted thumb safety. With the thumb safety in the upper “on” (“safe”) position, even depressing the trigger will not discharge the gun. The safety must be swept down to the “off” (“fire”) position in order for the gun to discharge. Given how little actual training soldiers typically get with handguns, such an additional safety mechanism is almost certainly a good thing. (Indeed, the moment I discovered that the thumb safety was an option on the 320 I immediately contacted Sig to order a 320*with this feature for myself. I’m a fan of frame-mounted thumb safeties.)
In general when people ask me what kind of handgun to purchase for self-defense purposes I tell them that it’s hard to go wrong with a Glock. Of course, as noted I carry a Sig 320 myself, and the cost differential between the two guns is not really that great when one throws in such additional expenses as ammo, holsters, instruction, etc.
Frankly, I’m just pleased that a choice has been made.
Postscript: Two gun industry sources whom*I consider to be reliable, but whom I would not be free to identify, saw my post on Legal Insurrection and*told me that the Army is paying a mere $207 for each Sig 320 handgun. That’s a ridiculously low price, and would alone entirely explain the Army’s choice. I have not independently confirmed this pricing information directly with the Army or Sig.
–-Andrew
Andrew F. Branca is an attorney and the author of*The Law of Self Defense, 3rd Edition, and a host on The Outdoor Channel’s TV show, The Best Defense.
[Featured photo is a Sig-released media photo.]
*
56 Comments
Mark D
Now running for Emperor.
If you don't have gorilla-sized hands, the M9 can be a bit, "Cumbersome". The Sig is an attempt at addressing that issue with a common platform.
Gotta make it work for the transgender midgets in the "new army"?
Thomas Paine
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Nope in my infantry unit way back when we had every thing from grunt who barely made height and weight standards to get in to a 6 foot 5in tall grunt. One size fits all is bloody stupid. It has nothing to do with sex it has to function.
night driver
ESFP adrift in INTJ sea
Bro in law and I like to shoot now and then.
*I* am OK with 9mm and .40 S&W from Gaston.
HE tends to favor .45-70 and .45-90 which I can't even get my hands around. Bastard shoots a TC in .45-90 off hand ACCURATELY out to 50 meters plus.
Size matters for function.
I've never shot a 320, but I have shot a SIG 220 series pistol (don't recall exactly which one, I think it was the 226). That was a very fine pistol and a lot of fun to shoot. A VERY smooth action that felt like a Swiss watch (hey, wait, SIG is Swiss too, LOL). Probably the best feeling pistol I've ever shot overall. So if the 320 is anything like it, our Army guys should be in for a real treat compared to the Berettas they have had before. It also allows the Army to use one platform for multiple calibers depending on mission requirements. They could potentially shoot 9mm, .40 or .45 - which should make all the services happy. The 320 doesn't seem to cost a whole lot more than a Glock, so I don't think the taxpayers will be overly, well, taxed with this choice of pistol. Sounds like a good choice to me.
blueinterceptor
Veteran Member
Grip size on the Sig seems to be the same on every frame. The frame size changes but the grip appears to remain the same
I doubt there is that much of a difference in grip size.
byronandkathy2003
Veteran Member
You should realize Housecarl that the 9mm versus the 45 ACP ammo argument here at timebomb is like waving raw meat in front of a starving wolf pack!
no matter what any one else says i still think a 1911 .45 is better
At least with the civilian verson there are different sized grip areas along with different sized frames
I'm a 5'8" male with an average build, the M9 feels like a beer can in my hand.
It's always a rare military procurement that is not fouled up by political considerations.
The Beretta was adopted during Reagan admin to secure cruise missiles on Italian soil.
There were much better candidates in the running and the evaluation tests back then.
I'll be really surprised if anything the military ever acquires is really the very best suited.
- Shane
The Beretta was adopted during Reagan admin to secure cruise missiles on Italian soil.
There were much better candidates in the running and the evaluation tests back then.
I'll be really surprised if anything the military ever acquires is really the very best suited.
- Shane
There were much better candidates in the running and the evaluation tests back then.
A friend was on the JSSAP (Joint Services Small Arms Acquisition Program) board back then. He carried a Browning HiPower himself, and he voted for the Beretta.
NATO dictates a lot more as to 'choices' than some realize. .45ACP is not a NATO caliber, but 9mm is.
A friend was on the JSSAP (Joint Services Small Arms Acquisition Program) board back then. He carried a Browning HiPower himself, and he voted for the Beretta.
NATO dictates a lot more as to 'choices' than some realize. .45ACP is not a NATO caliber, but 9mm is.
HMMMM
A "natural fit"?
Prefer whisky.
Doc1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Considerations for YOU
Okey dokey. Lemme provide one of my inflammatory posts in which everyone will find something to dislike. See? I can be egalitarian at times! First of all, I won't especially care what pistol the Army chooses to field for at least five, ten or maybe twenty years. It will take at least that long for a lot of spare and surplus parts to start hitting the market. I titled this post "Considerations for YOU" and what I mean by that is the individual, civilian, survivalist, homemaker, Indian chief, accountant combatant. You can define those parameters anyway you'd like, but the Army's choice of pistol shouldn't be especially important to you on an individual basis. You are not in the Army, you won't be given a free, .mil-issued pistol and the Army's choice really won't affect you on an individual basis. Maybe in several years when inexpensive surplus or aftermarket parts become common, it will be a consideration.
If you are concerned about national security and our military having the best possible personal weapons, pistol choice is still mostly irrelevant. Pistols are the least important firearms in national inventories and have virtually no effect on the outcome of any war or battle. They are actually employed and used in a statistically insignificant number of armed military encounters. The US military could issue all personnel with cheap Hi Point 9 millimeters and it would not affect battle statistics in the slightest. Survival-oriented boards love to diss Army-issued equipment and pick apart the military's choices in everything from fighter aircraft to insect repellent. No offense; I do too, but I notice that once a pistol[/I magically] acquires the Army seal of approval, people tend to glom on to it and forget all their previous criticisms. That's human nature I suppose, but it has nothing to do with the relative merits of a given firearm.
As an individual - civilian - potential combatant you should primarily be interested in a pistol's effectiveness and reliability. Secondary-though-important considerations would be parts availability, expense and ease of field repair. These things are even more important to those who believe they may one day face an TEOTWAWKI scenario. No one else can judge the relative merits of these criterion for you, as everyones' concerns and ability to service their personal weapons is different.
Handgun owners generally concentrate too much on their pet model of pistol. The acquisition of a 1911 or Glock is not going to suddenly transform you into a crack shot, despite the pervasive marketing hype and the opinions of your favorite gun trade writer. Ideally, you should strive to be a competent shooter with whatever type of handgun you may find pressed into service. As an example, the venerable Smith & Wesson Military and Police .38 Special revolver has fallen out of favor in recent decades, though it performed reliable military and police service for nearly a century. I will submit that a well-trained and experienced combat shooter in possession of an old M&P is going to be a far more formidable adversary than an untrained, Kimber 1911 owner who only manages to shoot half a box of shells a year. These observations only apply to well-made, quality firearms: I'm not suggesting that your arsenal should be filled with Lorcins or Jennings.
The military has made very few if any truly awful firearms selections over the centuries and eventually - perhaps after a few bugs have been worked out - civilian shooters eventually embrace the military's selections. I'm fairly certain this will be the case with the new Sig.
Best regards
Doc
Okey dokey. Lemme provide one of my inflammatory posts in which everyone will find something to dislike. See? I can be egalitarian at times! First of all, I won't especially care what pistol the Army chooses to field for at least five, ten or maybe twenty years. It will take at least that long for a lot of spare and surplus parts to start hitting the market. I titled this post "Considerations for YOU" and what I mean by that is the individual, civilian, survivalist, homemaker, Indian chief, accountant combatant. You can define those parameters anyway you'd like, but the Army's choice of pistol shouldn't be especially important to you on an individual basis. You are not in the Army, you won't be given a free, .mil-issued pistol and the Army's choice really won't affect you on an individual basis. Maybe in several years when inexpensive surplus or aftermarket parts become common, it will be a consideration.
If you are concerned about national security and our military having the best possible personal weapons, pistol choice is still mostly irrelevant. Pistols are the least important firearms in national inventories and have virtually no effect on the outcome of any war or battle. They are actually employed and used in a statistically insignificant number of armed military encounters. The US military could issue all personnel with cheap Hi Point 9 millimeters and it would not affect battle statistics in the slightest. Survival-oriented boards love to diss Army-issued equipment and pick apart the military's choices in everything from fighter aircraft to insect repellent. No offense; I do too, but I notice that once a pistol[/I magically] acquires the Army seal of approval, people tend to glom on to it and forget all their previous criticisms. That's human nature I suppose, but it has nothing to do with the relative merits of a given firearm.
As an individual - civilian - potential combatant you should primarily be interested in a pistol's effectiveness and reliability. Secondary-though-important considerations would be parts availability, expense and ease of field repair. These things are even more important to those who believe they may one day face an TEOTWAWKI scenario. No one else can judge the relative merits of these criterion for you, as everyones' concerns and ability to service their personal weapons is different.
Handgun owners generally concentrate too much on their pet model of pistol. The acquisition of a 1911 or Glock is not going to suddenly transform you into a crack shot, despite the pervasive marketing hype and the opinions of your favorite gun trade writer. Ideally, you should strive to be a competent shooter with whatever type of handgun you may find pressed into service. As an example, the venerable Smith & Wesson Military and Police .38 Special revolver has fallen out of favor in recent decades, though it performed reliable military and police service for nearly a century. I will submit that a well-trained and experienced combat shooter in possession of an old M&P is going to be a far more formidable adversary than an untrained, Kimber 1911 owner who only manages to shoot half a box of shells a year. These observations only apply to well-made, quality firearms: I'm not suggesting that your arsenal should be filled with Lorcins or Jennings.
The military has made very few if any truly awful firearms selections over the centuries and eventually - perhaps after a few bugs have been worked out - civilian shooters eventually embrace the military's selections. I'm fairly certain this will be the case with the new Sig.
Best regards
Doc
I was with Silent Partner Body Armor at the time and regularly running into friends at S&W updating me on the process, test results and then threat of suits that followed.
They seemed, at the time to me, to have made a good case that the selection process was pre-destined from on high, especially with all the earlier controversy that preceded it.
Not necessarily fraud in the testing or among the testers, but last minute rule changes and/or advanced knowledge that gave edge to Beretta out bidding other comprable contenders.
- Shane
Wise Owl
Deceased
I probably said this back on page 1 but dh has a SIG P320 in .45 in the compact frame for carry. He really likes it. It's lighter to carry then his full sized 1911 and smaller so it doesn't print so much. It also has a great trigger on it. Easy to care for and yes, you can interchange the grips/size on them.
The military will love the new trigger. Whether they like the gun? Who knows but pretty sure they will use them cause that is what they will be given to use.
Nuff said.
The military will love the new trigger. Whether they like the gun? Who knows but pretty sure they will use them cause that is what they will be given to use.
Nuff said.
Doc1
Has No Life - Lives on TB
I sometimes still carry a Hi Power and - again - sometimes use one in local matches. It's a fine and reliable weapon. IMHO, the more modern "fantastic plastic" pistols have nothing on the Hi Power for those who are competent with a single-action pistol. The same holds true with the 1911. I'm amazed at the number of 1911 haters who go out of their way to denigrate the classic .45. If you don't like 1911s, fine, but why make it your personal mission to spread the anti-1911 mantra? When it comes to firearms topics, a lot of folks expend more energy than televangelists!
Best regards
Doc
Mark D
Now running for Emperor.
I'm 6', 1", textbook size Medium hands, and athletic build; I have shot the M9/92SF for going on three decades, and I can easily see why it's too big for a BUNCH of people... At least you can use it as a blunt instrument.
Truth be told, a handgun that big should carry more than fifteen rounds on-board, OR, you should be carrying a Glock 19. =-)
Mec-Gar makes great AFC 20rd magazines for 92FS/Inox/M9A1. Very reasonable. Used them for years, when I carried Berettas. Likewise, never had any problems with any of the six handguns I owned, or their Mec-Gar magazines. Mec-Gar makes Beretta 92 series magazines.
MecGar does indeed make good magazines. They turn out OEM marked mags for several manufacturers.
My folks out at Range 37 used to run a lot of 20 rounders in the Berettas they used in SFARTAETC. Replaced a lot of locking blocks in those Berettas too - and an occasional slide.
My folks out at Range 37 used to run a lot of 20 rounders in the Berettas they used in SFARTAETC. Replaced a lot of locking blocks in those Berettas too - and an occasional slide.