According to a study conducted in 2017 and released earlier in January, the Army’s new service pistol, a military variant of the Sig Sauer P320, has exhibited a number of persistent deficiencies and reliability issues through DoD testing, including but not limited to the drop test failures Sig has already announced voluntary recalls to correct.

The U.S. Army’s announcement that they would be ordering some 300,000 full sized M17 and more compact M18 modular pistol platforms from Sig Sauer has not been without controversy. Almost immediately after the announcement, Glock (who had a vested interest in the competition for the Army contract in the form of their Glock 19X) levied a formal protest, claiming that the P320 did not meet the standards established by the Defense Department in certain critical tests. Now, with other branches considering adopting the military variant of the P320 as their own general issue sidearm, DoD testing would seem to suggest that Glock may have been right.

The results of a series of tests of the M17 and M18 platforms were revealed in an annual report compiled by the Pentagon’s Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, alongside similar testing on a variety of platforms throughout fiscal year 2017. According to the report, the Sig Saur Modular Handgun Systems (MHS) exhibited a number of issues throughout testing that took place between April and September of last year. Primary among them, the aforementioned drop test issue that made headlines late last year. If dropped from the correct angle (onto the dovetail of the pistol) the M17 and M18 platforms are prone to discharging a round.

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