Sig P320 to replace M9 for the Army

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Saw this last night. Love the look of the P320... I really wanted to like the way it shoots too; haven't been able to so far though. The only people I see shooting this gun well are professional competitors. That being said, I haven't been around a ton of people shooting it. Opinions??
 
In my experience SIG has a big problem in delivering. New announced products or parts to support products already out there. Then they do things like changing the p320 slide stop (good thing) and the grip module (to correctly surround the stop), yet don't change the part number for the grip modules. So they don't know what is going to ship when ordered. Old style or new style. WTF? It took them 5 months to ship me the correct one. If you are going to brag on the ability to change grip modules, then you need to be able to supply the same in a timely manner. Similar issues with the MPX line.

The P320 I own is ok, nothing to make me want to use it as my primary gun or buy another. Many have a "double click" when dry firing which can be annoying.
We'll see how they support both this contract and existing customers in the next year or two.
Based on past experience, I'm not too confident it will get better.
 
The 320 is a great gun, I've got one with the red dot. Biggest downfall is aftermarket parts.

Only two 'smiths publicly working on them to lighten triggers and smooth the action. Cost is approximately $300 with an indeterminate wait time.

For a carry gun, I really like the stock configuration.


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I love the P250 model feel in my hand and performance downrange. I think I would like the P320 when I have a chance to fire one. As for delivering on promises, I guess we shall see if SIG can perform as well as it promises, yes?
 
Between the news of the Army contract and the hype building up around the P320X5--Sig will likely sell a lot of pistols to the civilian market (myself excluded). My Glock RTF2 with Wilson Combat Sights and Vanek trigger is my polymer gun of choice.

All hail the new hotness.

P.S. Didn't the FBI chose the G17M because of issues with the P320 during testing? Interesting that the Seals chose the G19, the FBI the 17M, and the Army a Sig.
 
I know that a bunch of the P320s that OHP got broke extractors pretty quickly. w/e, lots of new designs (and updates to old designs) have teething issues. The M9 had its own problems early on.
 
As most of us are heavily invested in the practical pistol sports, we forget sometimes that for the vast majority of the Army, pistols are seldom fired and are typically used by officers and senior NCOs as chowhall weapons. Yes, they are issued to machine gunners, medics, and snipers as backups, but they are not generally used in this capacity. Basically, if you have an M4, you really don't have much use for a handgun at all. MPs aside, the change ain't a big deal at all.

As a rule, the GPUs don't practice transitions to handguns as a result of a malfunction with a rifle. You basically are taught to find cover, perform immediate or remedial action and get back in the fight.

The process of picking the P320 is what made people mad, but congress specifies how solicitations and awards are made for contracts within certain monetary thresholds, and due to the expense, and importance of the contract, the Acquisitions process can get really drawn out. If you were to skip any part of the process as stated in the Federal Acquisition Regulation you open yourself up for protests and potentially to starting the entire process over again. People can point fingers at the Army, but they're just following the rules at this point. There are efforts to create a Rapid Capabilities Office to fastrack projects but it's still in the early phases and is more focused on cyber where time is critical (Moore's Law).


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The Beretta did have some problems. Shortly after we were issued the 92's in 1985 there were reports of slide breakages. There were some investigations and the usual bad press. It caused problems for a few years.

I have more trust in the older Sigs than the new ones. I could be wrong, but I think there was a change of ownership or managers a few years back and there were some changes in what was produced and quality control.

Sig Sauer is disappointing a LOT people in recent years with their rifles. They make a good gun, make promises for modularity and caliber changes then drop the entire line and move to something else for a couple of years and repeat. Look at the 556, 556xi and they are now pushing the MCX/MPX really hard.

Another problem is the proprietary parts and repairs. If anything breaks on it, they want you to send it back to them, not fix it yourself. I tried to get some extra parts for my 556. When I contacted Sig, the reply was "I'm sorry sir, all parts and support have been dropped for that line".

I know, I got off track from the subject of the pistol, but there are a lot of people dropping big bucks on the MCX/MPX line right now with the same promises of modularity and caliber changes and I haven't seen any promises fulfilled yet.
 
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