Army Picks Sig Sauer's P320 Handgun to Replace M9 Service Pistol | Hacker News Reader

Army Picks Sig Sauer's P320 Handgun to Replace M9 Service Pistol

military.com

Given the HN article earlier today about people claiming they were humbled when they aren't, I find it amusing that the article quotes the CEO saying: "We are both humbled and proud that the P320 was selected by the U.S. Army as its weapon of choice."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13480255

That was the second thing I though of, right after "darn, no 10mm auto"

.40 S&W is basically an American 10mm. Both 9mm and 40cal are still on the table.

I'd say .40 S&W is mostly a slower 10mm and is much less interesting than 10mm.

All but the hottest 10mm loads have the same ballistic characteristics as 40SW these days. Sure, the Army could specify a hot load for the pistol but that's unlikely considering past choices.

The hot 10mm rounds are usually reserved for subs like the MP5/10 or special units. Grunts would get regular loads similar in every manner to a 40cal.

They're both American-- the FBI created the 10mm because they wanted more "stopping power" after the Miami shootout. When they realized the recoil made it un-shootable and the grip was too large for half of their agents, they cut it down by a bit and the .40 S&W was born.

Not quite, the 10mm existed prior to the FBI selecting it as their cartridge of choice. After determining the recoil was a little excessive for some of their agents they put out a request to manufacturers for something similar but with a little less "oomph." S&W developed the .40S&W cartridge that was eventually adopted but hilariously they weren't the first manufacturer to put out a gun chambered in their own new round. Glock "appropriated" some of the cartridges that S&W were showing off at a trade show, made some minor modifications to their Glock 17 to accommodate the cartridge, and submitted the new gun to the FBI before S&W. The FBI ended up choosing Glock.

It's believable though. The most powerful military force on the planet chooses something your company makes to become the standard issue. It's hard to believe that wouldn't feel humbling. What a sense of pride that must give them. Do those two feelings cancel each other out? It's important to not try to frame everything you read based on whatever article was recently up-voted here.

>* It's hard to believe that wouldn't feel humbling.*

The parent's point is that it wouldn't feel humbling in any original meaning of the word. You wouldn't feel "lowered in stature" etc for being chosen, but the opposite.

But of course this ignores that the word has shifted in use.

Yeah you're right when you mention the shift in use. Reminds me of people who use "begs the question" incorrectly (basically everyone and all the time) but how most people think of it now. Very pedantic though. (Pedantic is the HN norm though, so, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.)

agreed. Everyone in that company knows the responsibility of quality as the product leaves their hands. They know that they are building for the United States military and that those weapons are now apart of history. So it is in fact bigger than they are as individuals. It's also a polite way of speaking of appreciation when you know that others companies that also produce things of great quality weren't chosen and you were. It means you feel a bigger responsiblity to take on. And that's humbling.

>Given the HN article earlier today about people claiming they were humbled when they aren't

The article was crap -- it's just that humbled, like words often do, has shifted meaning in the last few decades to mean something between "proud to" and "I didn't believe that I'm that worthy, but if you say so", etc.

It happens all the time with all kinds of words, e.g.:

"The oldest meaning of awesome is “something which inspires awe”, but the word is also a common slang expression in English, originally from the United States. As the original meaning of awesome has become somewhat antiquated in general use, the term awe-inspiring is now generally used for the same meaning."

Why not Glock, I wonder. If you're going to go striker fired anyway, Glock is the Kalashnikov of handguns. Simple as can be, and just keeps going no matter what. I have a Sig P226, it's a fine gun, I'm much more accurate with it (shooting stationary paper targets), but if you asked me what I'd take to a war zone, I would take a Glock 17 or a Glock 19. Much less of a chance that it'll crap out on me at the worst possible moment, which is an important feature, when your life is on the line, IMO.

The Glock has long been the standard for reliability but it is far from a comfortable platform. It's also come to a point where they seem to have stalled on good ideas for their product.

The p320 has a great trigger and contours better then the Glock to most people's hand.

It's the same reason why Berretta won out. I wouldn't want my buddy armed with a Glock if they had to shoot at people two to three inches to the side if myself. I also don't want something made of plastic if I'm rolling around in solvents if I'm working some kind of maintenance job.

Well, I'll admit I haven't yet tried the P320. I have no doubt Sig can make a great gun, especially if they decide not to overengineer the heck out of everything.

Have you ever fired an issue Beretta? Those things are not the same beautiful weapons I've fired on civilian ranges. They're Berettas in name only. The same thing will happen to the P320: It will be a mass-manufactured weapon by the lowest bidder, with the name "Sig Sauer" etched on the side. And in fact, most probably Sig will license out the design to other manufacturers, so it won't even be Sig manufacturing. It will be an "okay" sidearm that works in most situations. But it sure af won't be the beautiful weapon most people are expecting. I'm saying this as a huge fan of Sig firearms, but from the realist perspective of a long-time infantry veteran.

Really I didn't know they subcontracted the manufacturing out. That doesn't make sense at all to test the pre-pro sample and then choose based on that.

If they were going to do that then Glock would be the cheapest option. The best Glocks are 0% original Glock parts so I'd assume they'd have an easier time finding manufacturers that could do quality at a lower price point.

>That doesn't make sense at all to test the pre-pro sample and then choose based on that.

Welcome to the Kafkaesque nightmare that is military procurement.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/03/books/corrupt-from-top-to-...

> Have you ever fired an issue Beretta? Those things are not the same beautiful weapons I've fired on civilian ranges.

Is that the design or the use? I assume that the average civilian weapon probably goes through orders of magnitude less ammunition.

Yes, you're right, Army firearms go through a ton of rounds, but I've pulled brand new Berettas out of the plastic and they're just not the same weapon. I mean, they're the "same weapon" but they're just not the same. The Berettas I've fired in the civilian world are virtually night and day compared to the ones manufactured for the Army, the ones I've seen and used. It isn't fraud, but it isn't the same sidearm. Sig Sauer firearms are beautiful and built to some pretty tight specs. I think the only Sig firearm I've ever had problems with was the P250 subcompact, which had a weird problem with the ejector. They fixed it for free, though, and I haven't had a problem since, many rounds later. This P320 is going to have the same "problem": It's going to be a P320, but not really the Sig Sauer most people are expecting it to be, and probably not even manufactured by Sig Sauer.

Glock was out of the running because lack of a "real" safety and their unwillingness to add one

They have the only "real" safety: keep your finger out of the trigger guard. :-)

or for conceal carry...don't catch your shirt on the trigger...

Glocks have triggers that are pretty heavy, and you don't have to carry with a round in the chamber unless you're in _really_ bad places. Safety has its own issues: what if you don't completely disengage it or forget to do it at all? What if you forget to engage it and do something stupid because you thought your gun was on safety?

Who carries without a holster?

Both Jules and Vincent. Don't movies reflect real life?

Plaxico Burress as well. I did notice the little things in Europe, though; that part of the movie reflected reality.

Dude. I've been daily carrying a Glock since 2006, never had a negligent discharge.

Survivor bias - someone who has is less likely to post.

You can't just say "survivor bias" and think you have a solid argument. Let's examine your objection more critically.

I mentioned I'd carried every day since 2006. Suppose this isn't quite true, and I've only carried 330 days per year (this is too low, but still). Further, we just started 2017, and I started carrying in August 2006. This means I've carried roughly 3,437 days. If my carrying a Glock on any given day is as high as 99.9% safe (i.e., I have a 0.01% chance of a negligent discharge), then I should have a "survival" probability of only 3.2%. If my daily safety probability drops to only 99.7%, my probability of getting to now with no ND is 0.0%. Decreasing my daily safety probability to only 99% means my probability of no ND is 9.95e-14.

Now think about what this means. Either:

1. Carrying a Glock is very unsafe, and I'm incredibly lucky. In this case your claim of survivor bias would be warranted (assuming there weren't many others like me, which there are).

2. Carrying a Glock is very safe, and the chances of an ND are substantially less than 0.01% per day, in which case the charge of survivor bias is unwarranted.

It strikes me that #2 is the clear winner here.

I think the main thing you've demonstrated with your calculations is that a 0.01% chance of negligent discharge per day is in fact rather unsafe. In particular, a 0.01% chance of discharging per day means that with daily carry for two years, you are more likely to have experienced a negligent discharge than not.

Agreed! Which is why I stated that I think scenario #2 is the correct one, and we don't in fact have a legitimate case of survivor bias. Remember, this discussion began when I said I do it safely. The charge was made that this is survivor bias. By putting numbers to it, I think it becomes clear that the determining factor is not my bias but real, quantifiable safety.

Sadly, this comment of mine is incorrect. I meant 0.1%. My error comes from the same error in the comment I was responding to:

> 99.9% safe (i.e., I have a 0.01% chance of a negligent discharge)

I keep hearing this about Glocks. While kind-of true (if you're not prepared to shoot something, why is your finger in the trigger guard?) I also believe in safety-in-depth, so my first pistol was a revolver (very heavy trigger pull, hard to make a mistake), and my second was an HK USP with a positive safety.

Don't get me wrong. I love the Glock 19 and 26, they're great. But I wouldn't recommend them as first pistols. There's a hell of a lot going on in an autoloader, and another level of "this thing won't go off" is pretty reassuring in the beginning.

Considering the number of trained LEOs who have given themselves Glock foot it can't be seriously considered as a service weapon.

Yeah, but the way a typical city PD discharges firearms makes the Mujahadeen look like professionals. The armed forces are much better at things like not having negligent discharges and, shooting what they're aiming for and finding a reason to shoot before opening fire. The police might not be able to handle a gun without five redundant safeties but a 18yo in a combat situation with a few months of training and an incentive to do their job seems to manage just fine.

the number of trained LEOs who have given themselves Glock foot

Here's a youtube video of exactly that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw-jTCNZSmY

As one of the comments said: "Just another example of a police officer shooting a black man for no reason."

The almost-ubiquitous Blackhawk SERPA retention holsters are a big contributor to this. The button you have to press to release the weapon from its holster makes it all too easy to hit the trigger before you intend to.

you really think safety toggles are to protect against fingers?!?

For a sidearm that you're going to leave in its holster until you intend to use it, the holster's retention mechanism sort of takes the place of a rifle's manual safety.

There isn't much detail in the article on how the decision was made, and I see no mention of a manual safety in particular. Do you have a reference that provides more information?

Check the image of the P320 on Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIG_Sauer_P320

Now look at the image of the Army handgun in this article. You can see a difference at the back of the slide, just about where a thumb safety should be. So it appears Sig added one. Wikipedia says (without attribution):

   The Modular Handgun System (MHS) or M17
   version of the P320 has an ambidextrous
   thumb safety.

That makes sense. For most soldiers, a handgun is a backup weapon. If you're expecting trouble, you bring something bigger. To the military, handguns need to take minimum attention when not in use. Hence the requirement for an explicit safety.

When not in use a handgun will be in its holster. When it's needed, you'd arguably want less to think about, such as worrying about disengaging a manual safety.

They may well have been a requirement for a manual safety. If there were, I'm surprised that there hasn't been an explicit mention of this. There are rumors that it was down to Glock or Sig:

While a number of companies submitted guns, rumor has it that it came down to Glock and SIG.

https://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2017/1/19/the-keef...

If Glock was disqualified for not having a manual safety, why wouldn't it have been eliminated earlier? Also, Glock did include in models submitted for Austrian trials (see comment by 'mrbill upthread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13489074). For a contract as large as the US Army, I would imagine Glock would be willing to add a manual safety if it meant they'd get the contract.

Regardless, any of this is speculation unless there are definitive references out there that speak to why Sig was chosen over the other submissions.

Description of experienced firearms user shooting himself in the butt with a holstered firearm.[1] "I went to go get in the car and just heard a loud bang." The US Army reported in 2004 that about 10% of their casualties in Afghanistan were due to accidental weapons discharges.[2] The military wants guns that don't go off unexpectedly.

[1] http://concealednation.org/2016/02/when-bad-holsters-turn-wo...

[2] https://www.stripes.com/news/disturbing-trend-seen-in-neglig...

Wow. This all starts with me asking for a reference to support a comment by 'aplomb (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13488853):

Glock was out of the running because lack of a "real" safety and their unwillingness to add one

Sure, there's some albeit circumstantial support for this claim. But so far, that's what it is, and definitely not conclusive.

(As an aside, general arguments comparing the safety of firearms with and without external safeties are all over the internet and not something I'm interested in re-litigating here. I'm interested in knowing whether this played a role in the Army's decision.)

The references you provide here don't do much to further this circumstantial support. [1] is explicitly an argument for better holsters, not safeties. It's not clear that a similar issue would arise in the military. I'm not aware of how frequently the Army uses concealed carry holsters, and poorly designed ones at that.

[2] doesn't break down what weapons were involved with the negligent discharges. Of the two that were described, one was a 9mm pistol, the other an M16 which was on safe. There's a possibility that the pistol was a Glock (or other pistol with no manual safety). The article is from 2004, and the Marine who was killed was part of 3rd Battalion, 6th Regiment, which later became part of Marine Special Operations Command (if I'm reading Wikipedia correctly), which approved the Glock 19 for use only in Marsoc in 2016. It's more likely that it was a Berreta M9, which features a manual safety, given that this is has been the standard issue 9mm pistol for the Marines. Neither of these examples show that safeties prevent negligent discharges.

Don't get me wrong. I'm fine with legitimate discussion about why the Army chose Sig over Glock. I'm by no means arguing that the decision was wrong. I think it's interesting to learn about what criteria come into play and how these decisions are made.

I can see that my comment could be interpreted as questioning whether the P320 has a manual safety, which was not what I intended. I was asking for a reference that supports that Glock was dismissed for not having a manual safety. The fact that Sig apparently added one is circumstantial.

What do you mean by a real safety? Does the sig 320 have a manual safety?

They built one for Austrian govt. trials.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/08/25/thumb-safety-g...

Looks like the Marines might be taking the first steps in that direction

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story/military/2015/02/17/g...

After over a hundred years of iteration on the semiautomatic combat pistol, the top tier offerings from the respected manufacturers are all equivalent and fit for purpose. They pass the stress tests. The various pistols I've owned from Sig, CZ, Walther have all gotten up into the low thousands of rounds with zero malfunctions. Boring!

The only interesting development has been the convergence of all the major players on the Glock-style striker fired system, due mainly I think to the consistent first-round trigger pull which is a big deal for practical shooting, and a cultural shift towards accepting the... shall we say, less idiot-proof design. Although, everyone except Glock seems to agree that it's a bad idea to require a trigger pull as part of the takedown procedure.

e: And the "low thousands" is because I got tired of spending so much money on ammo

I thought that too initially, regarding the takedown procedure. There are even videos on YT of people shooting their walls. Nowadays removing the mag and racking the slide is muscle memory. It also happens to be the only way to make sure the gun is well and truly safe.

Yeah absolutely, they're called negligent discharges for a reason and I wouldn't personally hesitate to buy a Glock.

However, there is a distinction in that the essentially safetyless, essentially SAO trigger system is fundamental to the performance of the gun's function, whereas the takedown procedure is more of a peculiar wart of the design. So those idiots end up shooting their walls (and potentially other people) for no reason other than that Gaston Glock didn't want to compromise on the parts count. Typical engineer, I suppose.

I keep waiting for someone other than the Maryland PD to appreciate the Beretta PX4 Storm.

Anyway, I think the decision to search for something "more potent" than 9mm is pointless. There's a real reason we ditched the .45 for 9mm, and there's a lot to be said for smaller, cheaper ammo that everyone in the army can shoot all day without breaking their wrists. 9mm isnt .22, and it's more than enough to stop just about anyone coming at you.

>I keep waiting for someone other than the Maryland PD to appreciate the Beretta PX4 Storm.

I should mention that the Slovakian army is adopting the Grand Power K100; the action is very similar to the PX4 Storm (the barrel rotates).

Yeah, the rotating barrel is actually very neat and effective. I had my reservations about it, but it's actually a pretty solid mechanism that all but eliminates recoil and improves subsequent shot accuracy. Thanks for sharing the info about the K100.

Article touched on the subject at the very end, but the decision was pushed across the finish line just before inauguration. Tremendous waste in the program and would have been easy fodder for Trump.

In the follow on procurement or the contract competition? The M9 is pretty old school and should be replaced. The p320 is a pretty nice side arm at a reasonable price on the civilian market.

Agreed m9 was due and the p320 is a great weapon. But $17mm and two year trials is silly for pistols that were largely already on the market.

Sig sauers prominently featured in person of interest as well... Giving some leeway for the fact that it's a TV serial, there has to be some merit in the handgun for the protagonist to fall back to it all the time.

http://personofinterest.wikia.com/wiki/John_Reese

_Reese's weapon of choice is a SIG-Sauer P226R..._

> there has to be some merit in the handgun for the protagonist to fall back to it all the time.

Probably product placement.

The idea of product placement for a firearm just seems bizarre to me... but I'm not American either.

Interesting to see this on HN. I know there has never been any love for the M9 from it's inception, so this is long overdue. Having a .357 option is going to be really popular I'd imagine.

For anyone else interested in the acquisition side of this, here's the .GOV-official award notice[1] and PDF of RFP[2] that drove this competition.

[1] https://www.fbo.gov/index?id=fb3dfb4ce966d2b1b0e017377b27cc1...

[2] https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=04ea995d09f89172f449616ffc...

It seems a little odd that Germany has so many of the world's leading small arms manufacturers. I guess it's mostly the general manufacturing expertise.

It is, also when you think about it though it's really only a couple countries that make decent pistols (Germany, U.S., Italy, and Belgium) add in other military small arms and maybe the list also includes Israel and Russia is sort of an odd list as well

US manufacturers have the benefit of a large domestic law enforcement and civilian market for small arms, but also have to contend with relatively stringent export controls on weapons.

Germany is the opposite. Small domestic LE/military market, minimal to non-existent civilian market, but they'll export to anyone who can pay.

Sig Sauer handguns sold in the US are all manufactured in New Hampshire, largely to avoid import restrictions.

Seems sensible. Fairly conservative switch from one DA/SA to another.

edit: I was totally wrong. I was thinking of the P220, not the P320. This is actually a huge change.

The Sig P320 is striker fired double action only pistol, and has the same trigger pull every shot :)

Whoa - I was thinking is the P220 / 226. So yeah, this is a big change then.

I remember reading somewhere that the modularity requirement was basically written to make sure the P320 won. No, I can't recall where or cite.

I looked into it and found this article (https://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2016/03/21/army-general-screw-...) about a US Army General that was tired of waiting for the MHS competition (which is the competition that the P320 won) and was gonna try to bypass the competition and just get Glock 19s. However, he did not succeed and the P320 was chosen.

Fantastic although interchangeable grips are going to be a pain in the ass to keep track of. Not to mention I sure hope they settle on a single caliber across the force.

Can't wait to see how many models wind up on the property books if the Army decides to go for different options. Which knowing the Army that will happen...

Pretty sure 9x19mm is still the standard handgun cartridge across at least the U.S. military, if not NATO as a whole.

I also suspect they'll standardize around the full size P320. I don't think there will be such a sad explosion of combinations.

"We are both humbled and proud", what does this mean?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13480255

This seems like a disaster waiting to happen, modular, different calibers, threaded etc...

I wonder when humans will stop using guns on each other. Maybe 2100?

I wonder when people will stop making unsubstantive comments to hacker news articles that contribute nothing to the conversation? Seems like it sure won't be 2017.

But in regards to the Sig, I never really liked any of the Teutonic handgun styles (Glock, HK, most Sigs). They all seemed kind of blocky and sterile to me. With the noticeable exception of the sig P210.

I know there are good reasons, but I still think a nice revamped 1911 would be a fine choice with a lot of history behind it.

Sorry, I spend a lot of time on Reddit, and no-one really complains if you start a new conversation on a related topic.

There's plenty of other top-level comments if you want to talk about different handguns. I'm more interested in talking about a distant future where no-one needs guns.

Maybe not 2100, but definitely 3000.

> no-one really complains if you start a new conversation on a related topic.

The only way these two topic are related are because they both have the word "gun" in them.

It'd be like having an article on encryption and then posting a comment wondering how long we'd have to continue using encryption.

That sounds like it could be a reasonable tangent. A less extreme example would be talking about how much longer people can use SHA1 until it is completely insecure: https://sites.google.com/site/itstheshappening/

I think Hacker News could relax a little bit. I see the same thing on StackOverflow. They can be very nit-picky with their rules and guidelines. I don't think I've ever been helped by a StackOverflow moderator who closed a question because it was "off-topic". I found that page because it was one of the top results on Google. I know they're just following the rules, but those rules have left the market wide open for Quora, which is now worth approximately twice as much as StackOverflow.

I'm sorry, I'm doing it again.

> I think Hacker News could relax a little bit

Please try to conform to the rules of the community as they are, not as you wish they were. Your tangents really aren't helping the signal to noise ratio here.

This is not reddit or Quora.

> Please try to conform to the rules of the community as they are, not as you wish they were.

Ah yes. If there's anything Hacker News readers are known for, it's conforming to the rules.

(Sorry, just a joke.)

But yes, I will accept my reprimand, and now I shall stay on topic at all times. From this moment forward, we shall talk about the article, and nothing but the article.

Maybe we'll have such a long period of peace that we forget how to do the war?

Who am I kidding, we can't even go a few years without another conflict arising.

When humans have an alien species to use guns against.

In all honesty, I watched Arrival last night, and I've been thinking about it all day. It's actually the main reason I posted my comment. I highly recommend watching it.

The guidelines ask us not to introduce flamewar topics without anything new to say:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I would have chosen Springfield armory XDs.

I love mine. Outstanding sidearm.

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