BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 10 months ago
Army Times:
Early evaluations of the Army’s new handgun, the M17, last year showed test failures when the pistol was fired with the standard ball ammunition, stoppages, and double ejections.
Those findings were revealed in a recently published report by the Defense Department’s Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation. The office reviews major programs across the Defense Department.
[ … ]
The Pentagon report noted the following problems:
- Double ejections of an unspent ball ammunition round along with a spent round during firing.
- A higher number of stoppages experienced by shooters with both the XM17 and XM18 handguns when fired with ball ammunition as compared to the special purpose ammunition.
- Both weapons failed to meet the Mean Rounds Between Stoppage reliability requirement with ball ammunition.
- Two trigger-splintering incidents that officials believe were related to an engineering change made by Sig Sauer to correct a drop test deficiency in which testers saw the weapon fire when dropped.
- More than half of the stoppages reported were likely caused by use of the Army Marksmanship Unit’s “high pistol grip” method, which can result in the shooter engaging the slide catch lever and cause the slide not to lock in the rear position.
Ridiculous. Everyone should have a “high pistol grip.” They are also having to do this because of the tall slide and high bore axis, and thus the muzzle flip this firearm produces because of the couple, something I pointed out when the Army selected this pistol.
As for not being able to shoot FMJ lead ball, that seems like a real problem. Double ejections are also a big problem, and firing when dropped makes this firearm completely unacceptable. Funny, this. I never have any problems with any of these things or any other failures with my 1911s, or with my new CMMG .45 ACP AR pistol. I just won’t accept failures. It’s a machine, and it can be designed and fabricated properly (although I’ll have to say that it’s hard to beat what John Moses Browning did and I don’t think anybody has even come close yet).
Here is the right way to roll out new software.[1] Set functional requirements, [2] programmers go to work, [3] put high end users in a room with it and tell them to break it, [4] repeat parts [2] and [3] until no more breakages. Only after this do you roll it out to the user community.
The Army should have taken this approach prior to selecting a new pistol. This must be embarrassing for them. It should be.
