If they had tested them head to head, which they DID not do, and the GAO clearly demonstrates that, they would have immediately discovered that the M17 could not run on 124 gr nato ball, forcing the DoD to request a fix, and requesting a fix during testing trials is never a good thing! Currently there are widespread reports of the P320 going bang when it should not be going bang! Nonetheless, I have posted Sigs response to the report in post ten.
They went head to head. The original complaint from Glock was that a second phase of testing wasn’t completed, not that no testing at all was completed. The pistols themselves were compared in a number of categories including reliability, accuracy, and ergonomics. After the first series of tests outlined in Section M of the competition the government chose to end the competition and select a winner based on the results thus far. Glock protested that more than one pistol had to make it passed those first series of tests and that the Section H tests had to be completed. In the GAO report they cover that in the competition up to three competitors were allowed to progress from the first series of testing if deemed necessary, but it wasn’t required. More so the GAO report explains that Section H testing would be completed, but Glock simply wasn’t going to be part of that testing. SIG had to pass the Section H testing prior to being generally distributed.
Glock also complained that SIG’s compact pistol wasn’t tested to the full extent of its full size pistol (SIG submitted a two pistol solution as opposed to Glock’s one pistol solution). 12,500 rounds were fired as part of the evaluation on each of the full size SIG entry and Glock entry. This was to achieve a 90% confidence level of 2,000 mean rounds between stoppages. 1,500 rounds were fired as part of the evaluation on the compact SIG entry. When the Army realized that not enough rounds were to be fired through the compact pistol to match the same requirement as the full size pistols (despite the RFP saying this wasn’t required of the compact pistol) they chose not to score that section (a section Glock wasn’t even competing in as they didn’t have a two gun solution). Given that Glock wasn’t scored differently than SIG in this category the claim of prejudice was dropped.
This article covers the GAO report and provides links to the report itself. It also mentions some of Glock’s protests, though to go into all of them you need to read the full GAO report:
https://taskandpurpose.com/gear-tech/heres-glocks-protest-armys-handgun-award-thrown/
The ammunition problems were discovered during the Product Verification Test in 2017. The pistols functioned well with the special purpose ammunition that was also part of the MHS trials, but as you noted had issues with ball ammunition. Given the manufacturers had been encouraged to optimize their pistols for the special purpose ammunition, it’s not completely unexpected. You can read about that here:
https://www.military.com/kitup/2018...port-criticizing-new-sidearm-reliability.html
I like YouTube and I actually subscribe to Guns and Gadgets. When it comes to the government there is almost always paperwork documenting practically everything. Those reports are often quite long, often delayed in their release to the general public, and not exactly riveting. But you have to read all of it to get to the whole story. What often happens is snippets of the more interesting parts of those reports make it into the news, often without the full context.
This is in part exemplified in the response described in the most recent video you posted. Was a soldier injured? Yes. Does using a holster not intended for the pistol potentially cause a problem? Yes. Now this story may continue to develop and maybe an issue will be found, that possibility always exists.
My point from the beginning was don’t jump on a story just because it fits your already established opinion. Let the full details develop and look into the story (from multiple sources if possible).
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