The Government Accountability Office recently denied Glock Inc.'s protest of the Army's Modular Handgun System decision, but Glock officials believe they still have the best choice to replace the Army's legacy sidearms.
Military.com ran a story today from my interview with Josh Dorsey, vice president at Glock Inc. The retired Marine argues that the Army awarded Sig Sauer the MHS contract despite its poor reliability performance compared to Glock.
Read my story here.
Sig Sauer's bid, which came in $102 million cheaper than Glock's bid, convinced the Army that Sig was the best value for the goverment, according to the GAO's recent findings of its decision to deny Glock's protest of the Army's MHS decision.
Those same findings, however, contain details of how Sig Sauer P320 had lower reliability than Glock 19 in the "incomplete testing" the Army conducted during the MHS competition, Dorsey said.
"Under the factor 1 reliability evaluation, Sig Sauer's full-sized handgun had a higher stoppage rate than Glock's handgun, and there may have been other problems with the weapon's accuracy," GAO states.
To Dorsey, that "says it all."
"When you have stuff in the GAO report that says their stoppage rate is higher than ours -- that's a problem," Dorsey said.
Glock also argues that its Glock 19 entry met all the requirements for replacing the M9 and the M11 pistols, compared to Sig Sauer's two-pistol proposal.
Dorsey is calling on the Army to conduct the more-challenging endurance testing that it decided to cut from the competition. Whatever pistol comes out on top will be the best choice to replace the Army's M9 and M11 pistols.
The Army awarded Sig Sauer a contract worth up to $580 million Jan. 19. Sig Sauer beat out Glock Inc., FN America and Beretta USA, maker of the current M9 9mm service pistol, in the MHS competition.
The 10-year agreement calls for Sig to supply the Army with full-size XM17 and compact XM18 versions of its P320 pistol.
The service launched its long-awaited XM17 MHS competition in late August 2015 to replace its Cold War-era M9 9mm pistol. The decision formally ended the Beretta's 30-year hold on the Army's sidearm market.
