Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1467328
their pistols were already in the government procurement systems, as it became the main handgun of SOCOM units (since 2015 Glock 19's replaced the SIG Sauer Mk25, so modified P226, in US Navy SEAL Teams, US Marines were deploying with M007 version of Glock 19 in- stead of M9). Also, in June 2016, the FBI and other homeland secu- rity agencies awarded an 85M USD contract for modified Glock 17M pistols, which were the predeces- sor to the Gen5 line. (17M includes all of the standard Gen5 features, such as the straight front grip area, flared magwell, nDLC finish, as well as the Glock Marksman Barrel). In March 2016, US Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley openly sug- gested that since the MHS program is delayed, to solve the problem of a new handgun, the US Army should just purchase Glock 19 pistols, us- ing the same contracting vehicle as US Special Forces. But half a year later, during SHOT Show 2017 in Las Vegas, the US Army finally announced ground- breaking news that the SIG Sauer proposal was selected, and the company was awarded a multimil- lion contract for XM17 and XM18 pistols, based on P320 modified to meet the military requirements. In November 2017, the first test batch of 2,000 pistols was delivered to 101st Air-Assault Division. After two years, in November 2019, the total number of delivered pistols passed 100,000. The US Army will purchase up to 195,000 pistols, US Air Force up to 130,000, US Navy up to 61,000 (only in M18 compact variant) and US Marine Corps will need up to 35,000 pistols. That's over 400,000 pistols in 10 years. By 2027 the Beretta M9 will be ultimately phased out after 42 years of service and replaced by M17/M18 (BTW, in 1985 SIG Sauer with its P226 lost to Beretta)a M17 & M18 The P320 pistol design program was started in 2013 by SIG Sauer teams of Adrian Thomele, Thomas Metzger, Michael Mayerl and Ethan Lessard. It was unveiled in Janu- ary 2014, during SHOT Show, when the first Full-size and Carry (com- pact) variants were shown. P320 is a striker-fired short recoil-oper- ated semi-automatic handgun with some very interesting features. One of the innovations was the fully modular approach to the de- sign, so the pistol could be quickly converted to meet different require- ments. The removable trigger mod- ule (aka Fire Control Unit or FCU in short) is placed inside the polymer chassis called the grip module which works as a frame but it is not a serialized part. FCU is the serial- ized part. Initially, there were three sizes of chassis available (grips) in Small, Medium and Large size. This modular approach also allows for caliber conversions. Since the slide rails are built-in to the FCU module, the user can mix the chassis/grips sizes, slides and trigger modules. Each chassis has MIL-STD-1913 accessory rail for weapon lights or laser pointers attachments. Worth mentioning is the fact that P320 is not the first modular handgun of SIG. In 2007-2009 Sigarms (the history of SIG/SIG Sauer/Sigarms www.fragoutmag.com