Comments by "geodkyt" (@geodkyt) on "SIG M18: New USMC Service Pistol (and Little Brother of the M17)" video.

LOL, by that standard, the M1911 was even more rushed, given the 1910 pistol trials that finished in November 1910 were a NEW set of trials. The 2015-2017 MHS program was merely the last iteration of M9 replacement programs that had been going since *1988*. The Army had flat out told industry what they wanted as early as January 2014, which by and large followed the results of the 2008 USAF MHS program, which was a follow-on from the earlier Joint Combat Pistol tests that has been running for years, etc. And since the program goals were NOT to develop an entirely new pistol, but to purchase a slightly militarized version of a COTS offering, it was even less ambitious than the 1911 program.
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If the grip frame was shorter, they would have magazine incompatibility issues. Amd since the frame size chosen for the full size M17 was basically already the compact sized frame, it works out really well for the compact M18 variant of the full size service pistol. It's only a skosh taller than the standard civilian compact frame (½" or so), and just allows my not-particularly-large hands to fully sit on the frame (while my P250Cs - which use the same frames as the 320 series - has half my little finger off the grip and on the front of the floorplate). It's basically the same size as the P228/M11 the M18 was intended to replace. The military didn't want a subcompact or microcompact standard issue pistol for concealed use. For folks who legitimately need even deeper concealment than that, well, that's what "unit discretionary funds" are for.
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Yeah, I'm not convinced the extra 0.8" of barrel provides any noticeable advantage in velocity or sight radius, under combat conditions.
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It's cheaper, more durable, cheaper to maintain, more reliable, holds more rounds, weighs less, easier for inventory control, easier to adapt to individual soldiers (literally, swapping the frame is a user-level task, requiring no tools and no more knowledge than it takes to actually field strip and clean it), etc.
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Yeah, the "sneaky" things Sig did were: 1. Came closer to what the Army asked for in the RFP. 2. Offered it at a lower total price (Sig having learned their lesson from their XM9 loss on price basis). Offering the customer exactly what they asked for, at a price lower than the competition? Such sneaky, so underhanded...
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The bore axis issue is more a theoretical than a practical issue. Grip shape and contours matter more - I find my M18 to be less flippy than my Glock 19, entirely due to the grip frame allowing me to get a better handle on the gun.
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Probably beat the M9, provided we don't see a revolutionary change in pistol ammunition. Certainly could beat it on individual pistol longevity (and likely beat the individual serviceability of the M1911). I suspect that when the M17/M18 pistols start to get worn to the point of it not being cost-effective to swap parts (and note, with the FCG module, it'll be cheaper, longer, than with the M9 or M1911), they'll just hold another "basically COTS" procurement contest and buy whoever meets the then-current requirements for the lowest cost. It is, after all, a handgun, not a stealth fighter. Even the very best feasible pistol is unlikely to affect the outcome of a war compared to a run if the mill design.
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Because if you want to ensure a contractor delivers something that will meet minimum performance needs, you have to define the minimum acceptable performance in a repeatable metric. Otherwise, you end up with something like those silly super lightweight bullets that have ridiculous terminal performance (i forget the main offender on this, but I believe he was all in the Danish and other European pistol trials in the early 20th Century) so they don't have to worry about an expensive locking system or want to promote a super high velocity. A competitor who delivers something that 100% meets spec and - within those specs - is superior to the other competitors (even if they excel at un-specified performance that wasn't in the contract requirements) has a very legitimate case for a contract dispute lawsuit. So, you put performance specs in contracts and RFPs.
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There were several cases where a number got skipped because it had been reserved for a developmental program that got cancelled, or special purpose pistols that never saw use as general service pistols. M10 was reserved for (and bever issued) for the expected eventual winner of the cancelled JSSAP program. I believe the USAF also logged some of the S&W M&P K-frame .38 revolvers as "M10" after S&W changed the commerical catalog designation to Model 10. M11 was the Sig P228 - the compact pistol partner to the M9. This probably should have been designated the M10, because its the gun they bought when JSSAP couldn't decide on a compact pistol to team with the Beretta. M12 - USAF carried aluminum frame snub nose .38 revolvers on the books under M12 for the S&W catalog designation of Model 12. The M13 was a USAF designation for the Aircrewman.38 revolvers that were even lighter than the Model 12. M14 - again, the USAF logging handguns based on their S&W catalog designation. In this case, the target sighted .38 K-frames for the marksmanship teams. M15 was the formal designation for the "General Officer" custom pistols made by Rock Island Arsenal (the government arsenal, not the civilian gun company) made by cutting down and pimping out 1911s after the Army ran out of Colt Hammerless 1908s to present to new generals). The USAF also called their Model 15 S&W .38 revolvers "M15", but that was again using the S&W designation rather than a formal DoD assigned model number. M16? No frickin' clue. Probably a failed program or some subcaliber training insert, much as the Pedersen Device was officially designated a "pistol" because it was a separate firearm (albeit one that had to be installed in a modified 1903 rifle) with a short barrel and no stock. But I also wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't another case of the USAF using a commercial designation on the property books for a COTS gun.
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Well, don't stuff the gun into your pants gangster style, and you won't have a problem.
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The military had been running pistol replacement programs a lot longer than the official start date of the MHS. Two years before the official RFP was issued, the Army had issued an RFI (January 2013) and let industry know pretty much what they wanted. They also held an "industry day" to give industry feedback in January 2014. By the time the Army actually issued the August 2016 RFP, the development work was mostly complete, and really all the Army had to do was test the final pistols being submitted. Two years RFP to delivery, for what was basically a COTS acquisition of something already (by the time the RFP was issued) in mass production isn't actually that fast. Contract award in January 2017, and first deliveries in November 2017 - for a gun that Sig had ALREADY sold more units on the police and civilian markets than the initial military order was. This is like being shocked that the military puts out an RFP for 4WD COTS trucks (like the M880 series or the CUCV) with a few minor military requirements, and the first trucks are delivered two years later. And the MHS was basically a reboot (under Army leadership) of the MHS program the USAF had started in 2008 and cancelled a few years later. And the USAF MHS program was the last gasp of the earlier Joint Combat Pistol program. Which was a follow-on to the earlier Army Future Handgun Series. So, the official timeline is a bit misleading, as it pretends the US military hasn't been evaluating M9 replacements since literally the M9 was adopted. By the standards you're holding the M17/M18 procurement to, the 1911 program was even more rushed*, as they went straight from the fall 1910 test program (which is where the Model 1910 Colt first pops up, which was significantly different than the Model 1909) to follow testing (with significant internal revamps to the Midel 1910 Colt) and formal adoption in March 1911, to full production in 1911 and deliveries beginning in February 1912 (with *half of the initial order delivered in 1912). If you want to credit the years of failed Army semiauto pistol procurements running from the late 1890s until the 1911 was adopted, you have to allow the M17/M18 the same consideration. And, yes. The M17/M18 was better refined, with far more real world experience with the design, and more thorough testing, than the M1911 received.
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Well, and they had nearly 15 years of continuous M9 replacements programs running before this one "started", this program was explicitly not a developmental one, and the US Army flat out told the industry publicly what they were going to ask for two full years before they even issued the RFP. And they bought what was basically a very slightly modified COTS gun, that already had more pistols "on the street" than the initial Army purchase orders would be. This wasn't exactly the Joint Strike Fighter program, or even the Light Rifle program. This was more like a program to select new laptops.
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FN - all production for US military contracts is by FN-USA, in South Carolina. And while FN did produce Colt and Browning designs before WWII, none of the US guns came from FN. Its just that FN had the license rights for European sales. Beretta M9s were made in Accokeek, Maryland, by a US controlled company. The US branch of Sig has been in the US, under US control, for decades. In fact, it was the US Sig guys that developed the P250 and P320, and they had to jump through ITAR hoops to even give the data to the European Sig company- that's how separate they are. 100% American made, by American companies, under American control. And if, say, a conflict broke out between the US and the "origin" countries of any of the companies, or theygot overrun by an enemy if the US, do you know what would happen? The companies would continue to produce the same guns for the US military without even a wobble. Even if the majority ownership of such a company was held by the enemy power - just as we did in WWI and WWII, when we seized the US located assets of "enemy aliens".
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The military is not LEGALLY by the 1968 GCA (including the reauthorization of the 1934 NFA), but they've been using the "pick a single component, mark it with manufacturer info and a serial number, and call it 'the gun'" to track weapons for decades longer than anyone in the US thought about mandating serialization on civilian guns. From a military inventory control perspective, it totally makes sense. And given the availability of spare parts on the civilian market in the US, following the US civilian standards makes it easier to maintain control - if the military used a different part as the core of the gun than the law says for the civilian market, it would be guaranteed troops would "lose" unserialized parts (that happen to be the serialized part on the civilian market) and people could assemble conplete guns from zero parts that anyone is tracking. And no, you don't want to treat every part on the gun as a "sensitive item", because it really complicated inventory, inventory control, inventory security, etc. Because each of the tracked parts has to be individually tracked and secured throughout the system, from factory until final disposal out of service.
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Pistols are numbered in different series ranges than rifles. Amd carbines are in a different series than rifles (which is why the M4 is an M4, and not an M16A-something or, say, an M17... the M4 follows the .30 M3 Carbine of the 1940s as the next officially adopted US Army carbine.)
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They allegedly found the brown coating on the controls for the initial batch of M17s wasn't durable enough in actual service. Note the requirement (and spec) for the brown crap was set by the Army. So the Army modified the contract to omit the brown coating and just use the durable as Hell black finish Sig had for their commercial line, and sent the affected pistols back to Sig for refurb to the new standard. Rather than replace the brown parts with the new contractual black ones, Sig just sent back brand new pistols and decided to resell these at a ridiculously profitable markup as collectibles. (And while I say "ridiculously" I will dully admit they were worth every last penny to the buyers. So win-win-win - the Army got the guns "fixed" faster and at not additional cost by getting new production guns back instead, Sig made more money than they otherwise would have by reselling them, and collectors got a chance at genuine "surplus" US Army pistols.)
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Watch the M17 video. Basically the Army discovered the brown coating they demanded on the controls for the pistols didn't stand up in service. So they changed the contract specs to black and sent the affected guns back to Sig to refit them to the new spec. Sig just sent back brand new guns, and kept the affected ones to resell at a huge markup to collectors. The Army got the guns back sooner and at no extra cost, Sig managed to make some extra money from civilians, and collectors got a chance to get a "real" M17.
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There is brown crap pretty much everywhere. Jungle? Brown crap mixed in with the green. Temperate forest? Dirt, dead leaves and bark - brown. Desert? Brown everywhere. Black really stands out. In fact, the Vietnamese used to spot US patrols in hiding by looking for the "long black sticks" of their M16s (which is why, even 20 years later, we were being taught to put random lines of OD green 100mph tape on the stocks and handguards of our rifles for extended recon patrols).
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Pretty much EVERYONE uses Italian magazines these days. MecGar is the "OEM" source for most decent pistols made in the West, because they can literally supply your major gun manufacturing company with your proprietary design metal magazine, to your factory specs and QA, cheaper than you can build them yourself in house. Simply due to efficiencies of scale.
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1. They do issue expanding ammo for situations where even Hague signatories aren't restricted (and while the US isn't a Hague signatory WRT to expanding ammo, we do voluntarily comply). For instance, the Hague Conventions only apply in international wars where all combatants in a particular theater are either Hague signatories or formally agree to abide by them for that theater, and everyone is actually complying. Anything else (such as combat involving non-state actors like terrorists, or a war where a single participant isn't a Hague nation - even temporarily), the FMJ restriction doesn't apply. 2. Hague doesn't apply where the purpose of using "non-Hague" ammo is for legitimate mikitary purposes other than increasing wound channels. Such as when used to limit collateral damage in built up areas by limiting penetration. 3. Most rounds fired by these pistols will be in "non-Hague" environments anyway, such as MPs standing guard outside combat zones. Thus, the majority of Real World use will be the "non-Hague" ammo... so it would be nice if the pistols were designed for a steady diet of that. And if they are, might as well tune up the FMJ to similar pressures to ensure reliability and maximize penetration. 4. Even with (especially, actually) the ball ammo, penetration is key, becayse the targets will generally be farther away than typical civilian CCW or police encounters, and more likely.to be wearing a bunch of crap other torsos you have to get through (like web gear with things in the pouches). You don't LOSE anything with FNJ pistol ammo making it pemetrate *more*, and you might just gain an advantage if it turns out you need a skosh more "oomph" to blast through to the juicy bits than standard pressure ammo (and US SAAMI specs for.9mm are laughably weak - SAAMI pressure ammo is well known for sometimes having reliability issues in European 9x19mm guns due to low power). US SAAMI spec is practically Glisenti pressures, due to fears of liability (like someone running 9x19mm Parabellum through a ratty Italian pistol never spec'ed for real 9mm Parabellum) That's why standard military 9x19mm ammo around the world tends to run near SAAMI +P or +P+ pressures - just like the new rounds selected with this program.
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Ian covered that in the M17 video. Basically, a bunch of the early shipment guns were sent back to Sig for refurbished, and Sig decided it was cheaper overall to just replace them and resell the returned pistols on the commercial market as collectibles. The issue was probably the FDE finish on the initial batch metal controls, and the suspicion is the FDE coating on the small bits like trigger and controls simply wasn't abrasion resistant enough in service (which is why the contract got changed to "all black little bits" before the M18s delivered... and why the early M18s weren't sent back in any substantial numbers).
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@sigmasquadleader Funny, what @grbdevnull5611 describes is pretty much exactly what all three of my Sig P250s (two purchased NIB, and the third I picked up on consignment less than two months after the original owner bought it from the same store - the original sales receipt was still in the box). Triggers on all three are much like a NIB S&W K-frame, and superior to My Sig P2022 or any M9 I ever handled (but not quite as good as my well worn Beretta M96D DAO). While longer and heavier, the P250 triggers are more precise than my M18.
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@itrorev They did, sadly. I actually prefer the P250. But then, I'm not afraid of DA revolvers, either, and tend to judge triggers equivalent to a SA (including striker fired guns) against my 1911s (which isn't really a fair comparison to ANY striker fired pistol).
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And only the Sig actually fulfilled all the base requirements of the actual RFP. In addition to be significantly cheaper and still exceeding performance requirements on all metrics.
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Glock also didn't actually provide what the Army asked for in the RFP. Sig did.
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Nope - it was due to the well documented phenomenon of Glock Leg. The manual safety had NOTHING to do with the drop safety issue, which was solved even before the first pistols were delivered to the military (and Sig brought both the issue and the solution to the Army's attention, and said, "Hey, we found this unusual failure mode... and we also have a fix for that issue that we would like permission to incorporate at no cost to the government*, if you will give us a variance from the contract language to deliver something that isn't *exactly like the approved design. Yes, even when it is an improvement, it is illegal to vary even a hair from the contract language... that's why M4s today still use some specs that industry has improved upon years ago - the contract and TDP still.mandate M4s be delivered with the older specs.)
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Well, other armies have managed to do it with rifles quite nicely, like Britain with the Lee-Enfields and L1A1. Keep in mind this is a swap that doesn't even require an armorer. Literally, "swapping the frame" involves the same exact actions and knowledge as field stripping for cleaning, and NO tools. Take the slide off, pop put the FCG, pop FCG into new frame, put slide back on. It's literally easier than swapping an Mlok accessory on a rifle.
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Except it wouldn't have met the minimum requirements the military already knew they wanted, and would have ended up being significantly more expensive than the M17/M18 program and procurement ended up being... But other than being less capable of meeting the needs and being more expensive, yeah, just buying a bunch of Glock 19s would have been better...
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