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Military releases report on Sig M17/18 accidental discharge

For me it has to do with how the grip and trigger reach fit my hand.

If you happen to have smaller hands or shorter fingers, the small hand specific PDP-F is really nice to use.
I also have the PDP Pro SD Full Size 5.1" and the PDP Match Full Size Steel Frame 5".
The steel frame Match is one heavy pistol and is a joy to shoot. I liked it more than my factory CZ Shadow 2 OR, so I sent the Shadow 2 to CGW to see if they could make it have a better trigger.
It competes hard with the current generation SIG P226 XFive, (which costs more)

What I'd like to get next is the PDP Compact Steel Frame 4" and compare that side by side to a CGW CZ Shadow 2 Compact.

Then I'll try sending the P-10 to CGW and see how it is when it comes back.
My current favorite (to shoot) is the Walther PDP pro. I am strongly considering getting the Steel Frame version and switching the trigger to the Pro trigger (I just like it better). My CGW Shadow 2 shows up early August :D
 
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Does anyone have an idea of what’s happening internally on the AD’s with no drop or trigger pull? I’m surprised that this problem extends to the m17-m18 being that they have a safety. Although o confess I don’t own one and have no idea how they work. All my SIGs are DA/SA and I love them.
The only things I can think of, and this is going off of how glocks are built, is that either the sear is bending, allowing the striker to slingshot forward, or the striker lug is shearing. Either way though, I'm not sure how the striker defeats (what I'm assuming) the striker stop plunger (what glock erroneously called a firing pin safety) because if that's not depressed, the striker cant contact the primer. So Im totally confused. If a glock striker's lug sheared, it STILL wouldn't get anywhere near the primer... I am 100% convinced, the sig contract was given the same treatment as the ACU contract. All sorts of "labs", "independently confirmed" through "thorough testing" the superiority of the universal camo pattern... And allllll the top brass and SESes were like "Yea, I see now" while shaking their heads-and not a single one of those cocksuckers raised their hands during testing and said "But....there's no silver or grey in the woods..."
While the Sigs were shitting the bed, the glocks were just running and running, and no one said a thing lol.
 
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100% It was the unit cost for the pistol of something below $350 versus almost $700 for the Glock.
Probably, but just like every program manager that ever lived, they always think of up front costs over total lifecycle costs, and it always backfires. Over all, over the service life of a glock, you'd be way ahead due to RAM (reliability, availability,maintainability) costs (not having to fix any breakages, and if you did, it's super cheap and simple) but no one listens to that.
NOW tell me where they're at in costs, now that all this bullshit with the M17 is going down. Sure it was cheaper, but IS it, when your weapon system's down, and on the deadline report for who knows how many weeks? What good is price savings if you dont have the widget you paid for lol.
 
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Probably, but just like every program manager that ever lived, they always think of up front costs over total lifecycle costs, and it always backfires. Over all, over the service life of a glock, you'd be way ahead due to RAM (reliability, availability,maintainability) costs (not having to fix any breakages, and if you did, it's super cheap and simple) but no one listens to that.
NOW tell me where they're at in costs, now that all this bullshit with the M17 is going down. Sure it was cheaper, but IS it, when your weapon system's down, and on the deadline report for who knows how many weeks? What good is price savings if you dont have the widget you paid for lol.
I am the part owner of a gun range in Houston. We have a rental fleet and just for fun I am going to do some groups of pistols in terms of reliability. We shoot the pistols to the point of failure, they all make money over their life so there comes a point when we just add a new pistol to the display rather than repair a pistol. Keep in mind these pistols are shot hard, treated poorly, rarely cleaned, ect.

Group 1 - Glock we have nine or ten in our rental fleet. We have never had to replace any of them. On our Glock 19 (most rented pistol) and Glock 43X (3rd most rented pistol) They have both gone over 100k rounds without any failures. On our Glock 34, we had to replace a main spring when it was not going fully into battery somewhere around 70k rounds. We field strip and clean every 10 to 15k rounds.

Group 2 - Not a Glock but pretty close. S&W M&P 2.0, CZ P10, Walther PDP, HK VP9. These pistols are right there with the Glock, almost. Extremely reliable and trustworthy.

Group 3 - Almost anything ever made by HK. The P30, the USP, the MK23 HK 45. They are all tanks. They all have variants that are designed to be suppressed and they function flawlessly. They never break. We do have to clean them to keep them functioning more often then Glock. We do not have a 2000 in the fleet so I can't vouch for that pistol. The SP5s last forever, there are some pins that break and need to be replaced in the 10 to 12k round range but this was by design apparently (they are sacrificial).

Group 4 - CZ hammer fired pistols like the 75 and Shadow 2, Various Sig pistols like the 226 and family derivatives. Again these are kind of like the HKs in that they last a really long time. The metal frame guns require more cleaning then the polymer but if you do it, they are just as reliable think cleaning every 2k rounds or so.

Group 5 - High end 2011s - Our second most rented pistol is the Staccato P. We are at 70k rounds through it with no failures due to breaking. We have had to replace the main spring every 6 to 8k rounds and you have to clean them based on the weight of the main spring. By that I mean if you have a 2011 from someone like Atlas, Staccato, ect to achieve a soft felt recoil they will put in a lighter main spring. The lighter the spring the more you need to clean it so that it won't get gunked up and not go into battery. As an example we can go 2 to 3k rounds on the Staccato P before cleaning compared to sub 1k on the Staccato XC.

Group 6 - Everything else made


Group 1 and 2 are in my personal circle of trust. If you need a pistol that is going to go bang no matter what the circumstance, these are my picks. Group 3 and 4 are in my circle of trust but you need to maintain them more then group 1 and 2. Group 4 and 5 are also in the circle of trust but again with more maintenance then groups 1 through 4.

I am certain that someone here has a pistol that I did not list and has had phenomenal results with them. I do not doubt that for a second. I am simply listing pistols that go through extremely high rates of fire and how they do over time. If you think that the average pistol owner shoots a couple of hundred rounds a year then the list of acceptable is probably much longer. At the end of the day, for pistols and for ARs, anything that I might use to defend myself with I value reliability over everything else.
 
I am the part owner of a gun range in Houston. We have a rental fleet and just for fun I am going to do some groups of pistols in terms of reliability. We shoot the pistols to the point of failure, they all make money over their life so there comes a point when we just add a new pistol to the display rather than repair a pistol. Keep in mind these pistols are shot hard, treated poorly, rarely cleaned, ect.

Group 1 - Glock we have nine or ten in our rental fleet. We have never had to replace any of them. On our Glock 19 (most rented pistol) and Glock 43X (3rd most rented pistol) They have both gone over 100k rounds without any failures. On our Glock 34, we had to replace a main spring when it was not going fully into battery somewhere around 70k rounds. We field strip and clean every 10 to 15k rounds.

Group 2 - Not a Glock but pretty close. S&W M&P 2.0, CZ P10, Walther PDP, HK VP9. These pistols are right there with the Glock, almost. Extremely reliable and trustworthy.

Group 3 - Almost anything ever made by HK. The P30, the USP, the MK23 HK 45. They are all tanks. They all have variants that are designed to be suppressed and they function flawlessly. They never break. We do have to clean them to keep them functioning more often then Glock. We do not have a 2000 in the fleet so I can't vouch for that pistol. The SP5s last forever, there are some pins that break and need to be replaced in the 10 to 12k round range but this was by design apparently (they are sacrificial).

Group 4 - CZ hammer fired pistols like the 75 and Shadow 2, Various Sig pistols like the 226 and family derivatives. Again these are kind of like the HKs in that they last a really long time. The metal frame guns require more cleaning then the polymer but if you do it, they are just as reliable think cleaning every 2k rounds or so.

Group 5 - High end 2011s - Our second most rented pistol is the Staccato P. We are at 70k rounds through it with no failures due to breaking. We have had to replace the main spring every 6 to 8k rounds and you have to clean them based on the weight of the main spring. By that I mean if you have a 2011 from someone like Atlas, Staccato, ect to achieve a soft felt recoil they will put in a lighter main spring. The lighter the spring the more you need to clean it so that it won't get gunked up and not go into battery. As an example we can go 2 to 3k rounds on the Staccato P before cleaning compared to sub 1k on the Staccato XC.

Group 6 - Everything else made


Group 1 and 2 are in my personal circle of trust. If you need a pistol that is going to go bang no matter what the circumstance, these are my picks. Group 3 and 4 are in my circle of trust but you need to maintain them more then group 1 and 2. Group 4 and 5 are also in the circle of trust but again with more maintenance then groups 1 through 4.

I am certain that someone here has a pistol that I did not list and has had phenomenal results with them. I do not doubt that for a second. I am simply listing pistols that go through extremely high rates of fire and how they do over time. If you think that the average pistol owner shoots a couple of hundred rounds a year then the list of acceptable is probably much longer. At the end of the day, for pistols and for ARs, anything that I might use to defend myself with I value reliability over everything else.

So it sounds like if you want to use and abuse your pistol like a cheap hooker then the Glock 17/19/43 is the way to go.

If you want a bit more class and are willing to treat them a tiny bit nicer, the H&K VP9 and Walther PDP are excellent.

If you like taking good care of your guns and keeping them clean and lubed and such, then pretty much everything CZ and H&K and hammer fired Sigs and such are great.

If you like treating your guns with lots of care and taking really good regular care of them and swapping out springs on schedule the 2011 style would be a good choice for you.

Have you tried any experiments to see how using standard gun oil / lube as opposed to some of the higher end grease stuff affects things?
 
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So it sounds like if you want to use and abuse your pistol like a cheap hooker then the Glock 17/19/43 is the way to go.

If you want a bit more class and are willing to treat them a tiny bit nicer, the H&K VP9 and Walther PDP are excellent.

If you like taking good care of your guns and keeping them clean and lubed and such, then pretty much everything CZ and H&K and hammer fired Sigs and such are great.

If you like treating your guns with lots of care and taking really good regular care of them and swapping out springs on schedule the 2011 style would be a good choice for you.

Have you tried any experiments to see how using standard gun oil / lube as opposed to some of the higher end grease stuff affects things?
No.

The 2011s get actual prescribed products, so specific oil, specific grease. Everything else gets blasted with CLP.
 
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And thus begins the yearning for the simple days of the early M9s when slides cracked and locking blocks broke.

-Stan
Yea, but that shit was taken care of and it never happened again. But THESE sorts of malfunctions that the M17s are experiencing are inexcusable. I understand things breaking, but firing and ending some people's careers? That's just wrong. Not enough R and D in my opinion.
 
Yea, but that shit was taken care of and it never happened again. But THESE sorts of malfunctions that the M17s are experiencing are inexcusable. I understand things breaking, but firing and ending some people's careers? That's just wrong. Not enough R and D in my opinion.

It seems in any of the handful of events, they have not been able to replicate the event with the same pistol.
I wonder if it has something to do with cleaning/maintenance/assembly or such where something like dirt or too much lube or something is getting in somewhere and causing it or some seating problem because of very close tolerances?
 
Yea, but that shit was taken care of and it never happened again. But THESE sorts of malfunctions that the M17s are experiencing are inexcusable. I understand things breaking, but firing and ending some people's careers? That's just wrong. Not enough R and D in my opinion.
Seems like SIG uses the end user for R&D and issues and 85% solution that is constantly “improved”
 
@ut755ln

Any Sig 320 or M18/17 at your facility?
Yes, we have 3 iterations of the 320 in the fleet. We have a M17 and two or three 365s.

To get to the point of the article, we have not had a gun discharge in a holster but the rental guns are never in a holster. What we have had is cracks in the polymer frame develop (several times, Sig frames not aftermarket). We had a slide stop break, a firing pin break, there have been some other failures.

Lets set the safety issue aside for a minute and I will explain why the 320 is a group 6 pistol from my above post. To me the reason to have a polymer framed striker fired pistol revolves around weight savings, reliability, and ease of maintenance. The 320 with its FCU has almost twice the number of parts compared to a Glock. A lot of really small pins and springs and forgings that are difficult to replace. We have never had a 320 make it past 30k rounds. We usually have maintenance issues with them and our gun smith hates them because they are difficult to work with. Because of the cost of repair, we just decommission them and put in a new pistol. We have had relatively few issues with the 365, in my opinion it is a better pistol then the 320.

When it comes to sales, we are not Sig direct because Sig is a giant asshole company and to work with them you have to carry everything they sell including things like air rifles so we buy from distributors. The 365s sell really well, anything we get in from that family of pistols sells. The 320s also sell well.

I have always been more pistol guy and ar guy, I come to this forum and have been learning about precision shooting but I have picked up some things on ARs, software, gear reviews, handloading, ect. This place is an incredible storehouse of knowledge.

When it comes to pistols I currently own:
6 Glocks 34 x2 17 x1 45 x1 47 x1 43x x1,
2 Walthers PDP Pro x 2,
5 HKs SP5 SP5K VP9 P30 USP 45,
2 Beretta two Langdon Tactical M9s
2 Staccatos a P and a XC
1 Les Baer .45 because Murica
I have an Alchemy double stack 1911 on order

My daily carry is the Gen 5 Glock 45, on occasion it is the 43X. I shoot something like 1500 plus rounds a week, more when I go to competitions. Because of the number of rounds fired I really value reliability over everything else. I think that almost any modern striker fired pistol is probably okay for most people. I think that most of our customers spend too much time hopping from pistol to pistol, or tricking them out one way or another. I think that they should buy one of the really reliable pistols and spend their time and money practicing and on lessons.
 
I've owned Glocks thru gen 4, but once the striker pistols came out from H&K, Sig, CZ, I just don't have any interest in Glocks. I'n sure the Glock gen 5 are great, but I feel the above three have out-Glawked them. People like what they like. The striker pistols from Walther and Beretta look good too.
 
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I'm not arguing that incidents have occurred, but the article seems written to continue the narrative the author prefers. The USAF incident at Tinker happened after the weapon had slide issues at the clearing barrel, was field stripped, had a function check, put back in service, then discharged in the clearing barrel. In another incident (Army), the troop could not recall if he had chambered a round as during the preparing for duty process he took a facetime call.

So, of the nine incidents, maybe two are suspect? Maybe more? My point focuses on the USAF security forces being early adopters and fielding the M18 soonest. In active, reserve and guard units there are 20,000 security forces troops. Each has an assigned sidearm they draw each time they go on shift and get ready to assume a post. There are thousands of sidearms issued daily across the USAF and each is issued by the armorer, loaded at the clearing barrel, safety dis-engaged and then holstered for the duty shift. The process is reversed when the troop comes off duty. Rinse and repeat 24/7 and you have thousands of "transactions" daily and probably hundreds of thousands since the USAF Sigs were fielded.

Every discharge or injury is serious, I'm not disputing that fact, but I would have thought there would be many more discharge reports given the amount of weapons issued and their daily fielding.
 
I'm not arguing that incidents have occurred, but the article seems written to continue the narrative the author prefers. The USAF incident at Tinker happened after the weapon had slide issues at the clearing barrel, was field stripped, had a function check, put back in service, then discharged in the clearing barrel. In another incident (Army), the troop could not recall if he had chambered a round as during the preparing for duty process he took a facetime call.

So, of the nine incidents, maybe two are suspect? Maybe more? My point focuses on the USAF security forces being early adopters and fielding the M18 soonest. In active, reserve and guard units there are 20,000 security forces troops. Each has an assigned sidearm they draw each time they go on shift and get ready to assume a post. There are thousands of sidearms issued daily across the USAF and each is issued by the armorer, loaded at the clearing barrel, safety dis-engaged and then holstered for the duty shift. The process is reversed when the troop comes off duty. Rinse and repeat 24/7 and you have thousands of "transactions" daily and probably hundreds of thousands since the USAF Sigs were fielded.

Every discharge or injury is serious, I'm not disputing that fact, but I would have thought there would be many more discharge reports given the amount of weapons issued and their daily fielding.
DoD said they're issuing M17/m18 pistols even to NCO squad leaders, which is a big change from the past. It appears most if not all the claimed p320 UDs were involving holstered pistols, or those being holstered or unholstered. Not a single report of a p320 firing while on a rack in a gun safe, or on a shelf in an armory.
 
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DoD said they're issuing M17/m18 pistols even to NCO squad leaders, which is a big change from the past. It appears most if not all the claimed p320 UDs were involving holstered pistols, or those being holstered or unholstered. Not a single report of a p320 firing while on a rack in a gun safe, or on a shelf in an armory.
Seems they should look at the level III retention holsters for pinch points or if the act of holstering and de-holstering moves the slide a significant amount that then introduces another variable. Adding lights with a Level III might also be something to explore.
 
I've owned Glocks thru gen 4, but once the striker pistols came out from H&K, Sig, CZ, I just don't have any interest in Glocks. I'n sure the Glock gen 5 are great, but I feel the above three have out-Glawked them. People like what they like. The striker pistols from Walther and Beretta look good too.

I'd say the Sig striker pistols are for the most part kind of not super inspiring in how the trigger feels if put up against the H&K VP9, CZ P10 and Walther PDP
 
I'd say the Sig striker pistols are for the most part kind of not super inspiring in how the trigger feels if put up against the H&K VP9, CZ P10 and Walther PDP
Not super inspiring is an understatement. Everyone likes to bag on the Glock trigger, but the 320 trigger is way worse.

But, as it is unmolested by any recall, my 320 might be a collectors’ item.

And, it has never dropped the striker except when the trigger was pulled.
 
I was issued a Glock in the USAF for 5 years. At first I hated it.

Then, after durability and reliability that cannot be adequately described, I warmed to it significantly.

I bought a 320 about a year ago, and it was the absolute worst pistol I have ever seen. No one who shoots pistols seriously would accept the shit manufacturing techniques and design of that pistol. Slop and complexity all throughout it like they think those are selling points. Also, sig designed the slide and frame size so that they could put bigger calibers than 9 in the same molds and forgings. Thus, if you are carrying a sig 9, you are actually carrying something closer to a 10mm size pistol than a 9.

I have a friend at the Tier 1 unit and I asked him about 3 months ago if they had the new 320 yet. He had no idea what the pistol even was and said "No man, we aren't giving up our Glocks for anything."

That should tell you all you need to know.
 
So about that.
Carry a H&K USP P30 or HK45 setup in the DA/SA configuration with the decocker and manual safety.
1. You can safely decock it.
2. You can then put the safety on while it's decocked

In my opinion carrying one of those H&K pistols decocked and on safe is "more safe" than trusting the safeties on a 1911

Or just get an H&K P7
Too bad all HK triggers suck ass
 
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Too bad all HK triggers suck ass
The p320 trigger is good compared to Glocks but that's not saying much. I prefer that it doesn't have a bladed trigger like my VP9. I think it was on another forum that a guy posted DEVGRU has been issuing P320 X Five models since 2019 and were using them without issues, but you'd probably have to take polls to know what they're carrying on missions because they have a variety in their equipment rooms. There was also something about the "p320 X Five with an X Carry kit" as a more recent change.
 
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The p320 trigger is good compared to Glocks but that's not saying much. I prefer that it doesn't have a bladed trigger like my VP9. I think it was on another forum that a guy posted DEVGRU has been issuing P320 X Five models since 2019 and were using them without issues, but you'd probably have to take polls to know what they're carrying on missions because they have a variety in their equipment rooms. There was also something about the "p320 X Five with an X Carry kit" as a more recent change.
My son is not with DEVGRU, who is stationed west coast but they use Glock 19s for the most part.