Posted on 05/24/2021 6:19:29 AM PDT by LuciusDomitiusAutelian
After a two-year, $17 million dollar search involving 12 contestants, the U.S. Army has finally picked its first new handgun in 32 years. The Sig Sauer P320 Compact pistol is now the M17 handgun, replacing the M9 Beretta.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
Beautiful gun.
Sig is top quality.
I own some myself (226 was my first gun that I bought in 1992).
But... wrong gun.
1/5 of the dudes we shot (on the battlefield) during the actual combat phase in April 2003 had primitive body armor that is nonetheless effective against 9x19.
It’s not cool, doesn’t make a big hole but if they were using their frigging brain, they would choose a caliber capable of dealing with the proliferation of body armor on the battlefield today, example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_Five-seven
It is still 9mm. Aka .345 cal, smaller than 1900 era .38 cal that the M-1911 (.45 cal) replaced.
Which makes me wonder why the Army chose .38 cal revolver to replace the single action Colt in .45 cal? Was it wanting a double action revolver?
I was at Fort Wainwright Alaska for 3 years (mid-late 90s).
We still used the 38 revolver and just upgraded to the 9mm really late BECAUSE the revolver will work at -70F, the M9 might not.
Revolvers still have a few distinct advantages:
1. In the cold - revolvers go boom, semi might have the pin/block freeze up.
2. Less malfunctions because of magazine springs failing when stored loaded a long time)
3. If someone pushes on the front of the gun, it’ll still fire (real close in or shooting from inside a coat).
4. Big calibers (why I carried a 44mag) if moose or bear are a concern.
5. Less accidental discharges (it’s the round in the chamber that causes a lot of accidents).
6. More accurate. Yes, a revolver with a fixed barrel is mechanically more accurate even if sights etc. are the same.
Do not discount a revolver.
Pretty much my opinion as well. I have a 226, 229, and 225
Both my 226 and 229 feel like they were custom made from a mold of my hands. For me, they are absolutely perfect.
I should of specified, we were an arctic unit, so cold weather operations were expected and the revolver was simply more reliable.
As the arctic mission faded away (Cold War was over), we switched over to a M9 that had been adopted by the Army 10 years earlier.
This is where your malfunction (in extreme cold) will happen: https://www.handgunforum.net/attachments/my-slide-jpg.13841/
Except if your bullets don’t penetrate.
P226 Legion, saving up for more :)
What country today doesn’t have “soft body armor” for their troops at a minimum?
2017 Iran: https://cdn1.img.sputniknews.com/images/103313/12/1033131282.jpg
2016 Libya: https://api.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/goran-tomasevic-sirt-libya-isis-8.jpg?quality=85&w=804
Iraq 2006 (these are good guys, but guess where some of that body armor we gave them ends up?): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personnel_Armor_System_for_Ground_Troops#/media/File:Defense.gov_News_Photo_060324-A-7969G-020.jpg
Western Africa 2013: https://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/shared/npr/styles/x_large/nprshared/201805/175713844.jpg
***Today, you will find soft body armor on the battlefield even in third world nations.***
20% of the Iraqi troops had soft body armor in 2003. You need something that can penetrate soft body armor, even if this does not give you the ideal effect behind the armor (i.e. lacking massive wound cannel and path).
All the arguments are moot if you can’t penetrate a basic body armor and guess what the trend is? More or less body armor for the bad guys?
Fielding a weapon today that already in 2003 would have been ineffective in near 20% of the situations, is simply put... a great example of government bureaucracy at work.
The Sig is a great weapon, and I think it’s a good weapon for a local PD, NOT the DOD where you are facing a different threat.
The Army/Marine Corps is not the local police.
That makes sense. Perhaps it is why aviators are issued revolvers, plus they may end up in water and the revolver would work after emersion.
I also looked up my question about the Army switching to a .38 cal revolver. They wanted to have a double action pistol and thus switched to a double action .38 from the single action Colt .45 Peacemaker. The AHEC article stated that after the Army found the .38s were mostly ineffective in the Philippines against the Moro’s they sent stored Colt .45s there. And then began the search for a new pistol that resulted in the classic M1911.
Bkmk
I'd prefer a DA/SA hammered .45 for combat. The Sig Sauer M18 that the military contracted for apparently can be converted to different calibers.
From http://www.military-today.com/firearms/m18.htm
The M18 pistol is chambered for the standard 9x19 mm ammunition. However this pistol was designed as a modular multi-caliber weapon. It can be adapted for .40 S&W, .375 SIG, .380 ACP and .45 ACP ammunition. SIG Sauer offers conversion kits for this pistol. Caliber conversions are performed simply by changing barrels, slides, frames and magazines. Both full-size and compact models use the same trigger group. So the M18 could be easily converted to use more powerful ammunition.
I would also suspect 10mm is a future, if not current, option.
I started my firearms journey with a Colt .22 revolver my grandpa gave me and entered my automatic era with a Colt 1911. I like my 1911’s and Glocks and I do carry a SIG365 occasionally. But I went back to revolvers and carry a SA .44 magnum around my property for unexpected beasts and two legged varmints. In the summer I switch to a .357 magnum with a snake load and JHP’s just for snakes I am called on to dispatch by my wife and mother-in-law. Come winter it’s back to my Glock 29 or Rock Island .45 ACP.
The Colt 45 had -A LOT- of accidental discharges and is more intimidating for someone not familiar with guns. It is also not the NATO 9x19 standard and costs more for ammo. Finally, the 15 round magazine on a 9mm is nice.
The 45 was superior when it hit someone, but the move to a 9mm did make sense.
However, the move to the Sig 320 does not make sense. Maybe in so far that many of the 9mm are old and worn out, and the Sig is a superior weapon, but we are replacing the M9 with another gun that is essentially marginally superior to the M9 when it was fielded in 1985/6 and with some serious issues on todays battlefield where “soft body armor” has proliferated.
I know I sound repetitive, but this is a case where one single variable/consideration is a show stopper and all the other things do not matter past that point. It does not matter that the Sig is more reliable, more accurate, comes with a rail system, is lighter, more ergonomic, easier to maintain by the soldier... all great things. It cannot penetrate simple body armor and is obsolete before fully fielded because it’s the wrong caliber (9x19 doesn’t penetrate body armor well).
357 Sig would be the only one that would have the potential if you use a sabot type round.
There are several calibers out there that were specifically designed for this application:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_5.7%C3%9728mm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56%C3%9730mm_MINSAS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7mm_Penna
If you want to penetrate armor, you need a higher velocity, small diameter, longer projectile, that will not easily break up or deform on impact.
If you want to make a heavy fat projectile penetrate = massive recoil and a giant/heavy bullet.
The ultimate outcome will be a smaller diameter, lighter, and higher velocity projectile. The day of the big macho gun are over, at least from a practical military sense.
I have no preference, I just want anything that can deal with the proliferation of soft body armor today, otherwise your gun is about as effective as a club.
I’m guessing that you are referring to the Colt .45 revolver regarding accidental discharges rather than the Colt
M1911.
How does the M1911A1.45 ACP do with penetrating the types of body armor you are familiar with?
45 APC is fat and slow: ~900 ft/sec Even 9mm does better (~1,100 ft/sec).
With the enemy having no body armor years ago, 45 was very destructive and it was in fact designed to have “just enough” penetration to ensure getting into the vitals at close ranges.
It would create a big hole, transfer all its energy into the body, and still hit vitals. Perfect!
Since you’re in the “low velocity” range and don’t get the effect of shock wave as with “high velocity” penetration, with hand guns the idea of bigger hole = better. However, all of that changed when every banana republic today has body armor for their troops.
Drug Cartel: https://preview.redd.it/716f2of5tz661.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=bc40361c474ce799a841467d5223107b6749bb69 (cops might see it on rare occasion, but in military operations body armor by threat actors is common).
IMHO, today if you’re buying a new weapon for troops that may use this in ground combat, you simply need something that can get through soft body armor and that means going over to these smaller but high velocity calibers. I do not claim these have the same effect on the target like a 45 APC, but if you don’t get through body armor, it’s all pointless anyhow.
Also, the pistol is a secondary weapon. The primary weapon will be your battle rifle. Hopefully it has enough stopping power to go through armor.
“...but if you don’t get through body armor, it’s all pointless anyhow.”
I totally agree. When I retired from they Army (1993), it had deployed Kevlar vests to the infantry during Desert Storm, but I think it still had Vietnam War era “flack vests” in its inventory.
Cartel: https://www.mexicanist.com/_files/200002634-a7e16a7e19/700/mexican%20cartels.jpg
The problem is that body armor on the bad guys is no longer rare.
Yes, 556 actually penetrates very well with the SS109 based round we use today (M855). It’s a smaller diameter, longer projectile, with high velocity, and a bullet designed to give you good penetration (hard steel penetrating tip). This is actually a good example. The original 556 rounds fielded were not made for troops that had any sort of body armor, and the M855 replaced the M193 because the 855 can deal with body armor (Even the Warsaw Pact/Soviet troops saw the wide spread use of body armor already in the 80s).
HOWEVER!!! Because 556 is a smaller caliber and a high velocity (~3,150 ft/sec), it did very well when we married it to a penetrating round, but if you try to do that with a 30-30, that won’t work (big and slow) = poor penetration.
It does not matter the the Sig is nice. I agree that it’s a nice gun. All the performance measures (accuracy, ergonomics, reliability, ease of field stripping and cleaning, magazine capacity, weight, incorporated rail system, ambidextrous design, rust/corrosion resistance) do not matter if the weapon is ineffective at penetrating body armor commonly found on the bad guys today. It can’t do what it’s supposed to do.
“Theoretical” more damage on a guy without armor, does not offset “practically” not being effective because it can’t get through the body armor. A little 5.7x28 in this case accomplishes more than a big 45 cal.
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