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Army Picks Sig Sauer's P320 Handgun to Replace M9 Service Pistol
- jasonlingx 10y ago"We are both humbled and proud", what does this mean?
- dajohnson89 10y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13480255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13480255
- jMyles 10y agoSeems 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.
- sornaensis 10y agoThe Sig P320 is striker fired double action only pistol, and has the same trigger pull every shot :)
- jMyles 10y agoWhoa - I was thinking is the P220 / 226. So yeah, this is a big change then.
- rbcgerard 10y agoThis seems like a disaster waiting to happen, modular, different calibers, threaded etc...
- caleblloyd 10y agoFantastic 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...
- microcolonel 10y agoPretty 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.
- TillE 10y agoIt 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.
- rbcgerard 10y agoIt 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
- eigenvector 10y agoUS 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.
- gingerbread-man 10y agoSig Sauer handguns sold in the US are all manufactured in New Hampshire, largely to avoid import restrictions.
- WallWextra 10y agoI remember reading somewhere that the modularity requirement was basically written to make sure the P320 won. No, I can't recall where or cite.
- jeron 10y agoI looked into it and found this article (https://bearingarms.com/bob-o/2016/03/21/army-general-screw-procurement-nightmare-give-glocks/ 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.
- kens 10y agoGiven 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13480255
- dsfyu404ed 10y agoThat was the second thing I though of, right after "darn, no 10mm auto"
- scurvy 10y ago.40 S&W is basically an American 10mm. Both 9mm and 40cal are still on the table.
- jmnicolas 10y agoI'd say .40 S&W is mostly a slower 10mm and is much less interesting than 10mm.
- scurvy 10y agoAll 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.
- gingerbread-man 10y agoThey'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.
- general_ai 10y agoWhy 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.
- gravypod 10y agoThe 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.
- general_ai 10y agoWell, 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.
- fapjacks 10y agoHave 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.
- aplomb 10y agoArticle 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.
- kev009 10y agoIn 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.
- aplomb 10y agoAgreed 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.
- X86BSD 10y agoI would have chosen Springfield armory XDs. I love mine. Outstanding sidearm.
- Surio 10y agoSig 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 http://personofinterest.wikia.com/wiki/John_Reese _Reese's weapon of choice is a SIG-Sauer P226R..._
- cma 10y ago> there has to be some merit in the handgun for the protagonist to fall back to it all the time. Probably product placement.
- NTripleOne 10y agoThe idea of product placement for a firearm just seems bizarre to me... but I'm not American either.
- aphextron 10y agoInteresting 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.
- ComputerGuru 10y agoI 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.
- qball 10y ago>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).
- ComputerGuru 10y agoYeah, 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.
- metaphor 10y agoFor 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=fb3dfb4ce966d2b1b0e017377b27cc1b https://www.fbo.gov/index?id=fb3dfb4ce966d2b1b0e017377b27cc1... [2] https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=04ea995d09f89172f449616ffcf97e7c https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=04ea995d09f89172f449616ffc...
- luckystartup 10y agoI wonder when humans will stop using guns on each other. Maybe 2100?
- jimmywanger 10y agoI 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.
- luckystartup 10y agoSorry, 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.
- em3rgent0rdr 10y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/submit https://news.ycombinator.com/submit
- jimmywanger 10y ago> 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.
- luckystartup 10y agoThat 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/ 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.