This one is for Australia. I believe Rampart is in the process of trying to sue the government to get the RFP rewritten since the verbiage excluded Glocks by design.
Rampart did sue the government, and did win. Which makes me happy. Unfortunately the powers the be managed to rewrite the requirements in a slightly more open and transparent manner that still left Glock as non compliant.
FWIW, I think the CF should just tag onto the US Army order for SIGs at something like $225 each.
That would have been too easy.
The "cheaper, piggyback off the US" argument virtually guarantees that the 320 will never be general issue in the Canadian Forces.
and yet, here we are.
So is it the M17 model they're getting? The 320 certainly comes in a lot of flavors.
Contract specs call for manual safety and chamber indicator. So not exactly like the M17.
FYI, CAF will call this the C22, so the real question is whether SIG will market the C22 as a particular version of the 320 the same way they have with the M17.
Given Sigs attrocious track record serving the Canadian commercial market, I suspect not. But maybe.
I would have thought the latest version of the
Glock GEN 5 MOS would beat out the Sig?
Any thoughts?
TDM
Glock was non compliant from the get go, so no, it couldn't have beaten out the Sig 320.
Too many experts here, IPSC & SF types for my $.02 to mean anything , but I'm just glad they bought something "new" & not used, & this is a real "feather in her cap" for the DND minister .
I have no doubt the Minister will attempt to claim this as a victory with the troops. In a normal world we would have replaced the brownings 20 years ago and we'd be ready to replace those replacements all over again.
I have three comments for the defence minister.
1). Announcements are great, I'll believe it when I see it. The announcement said deliveries in summer 2023. Knowing Canadian procurement I suspect not before Christmas 2025. I'm still waiting for a C6 GPMG that doesn't actually works. At the way we are going our C6s have more air miles than half the lads.
2) 7,000 isn't nearly enough, not by a country mile. The original 20,000 they wanted to buy when they first started this handgun replacement journey wasn't enough either. But like DT said, by the time these actually get delivered it might actually be enough for two each.
3) You want to really make me smile, adopt a BYO Grip and holster policy.
4) Bonus Round. Buy red dots.
I wonder whether accuracy had anything to do with the decision?
In the grand scheme of things, probably not. I'm sure any of the options provided for evaluation would have easily met the technical accuracy requirement. The more important consideration is not the innate accuracy of the pistol, but of the average soldiers ability to quickly learn how to shoot it well enough. We will likely never know the answer to this question as I do not believe a user trial was part of the evaluation criteria. To be fair, i'm sure even Glocks would have done well in that kind of user trial, as would any other of the modern combat-style pistols offered.
At the end of the day, unless and until the CAF takes pistols seriously as a weapon system, and trains everyone properly and continuously, and rationalizes why we even have pistols in the first place, and THEN issue them to the people who actually need them, giving new pistols to the CAF is just putting lipstick on a dead pig.
Condition 3 carry also solves any issues. It’s what 99% of our people should be doing. I certainly will be if issued one in future.
The other 1% I don’t worry about; I suspect they’re more trustworthy with their trigger fingers.
By the Book, condition 3 was the only condition that was every authorized for the BHP, although some units and/or individuals got this waived, others simply ignored it entirely.
The ability to carry better than condition 3 was one of the intents for the new pistol.
The inclusion of the manual safety eliminates virtually all of the concern with the reliability of the internal safeties on the 320.
I wonder what holster they will be going with. I imagine it will be Safariland. Probably the 7series RDS.
Given that DND has not expressed any intent to adopt RDS, I don't think an RDS holster is in the plans. If I am not mistaken MD Charlton has to supply a holster with the pistols, and is probably supplying the cheapest possible Sig brand polymer holster they could find.
Units that care about their troops will probably buy GFS or some other awesome Canadian made holster.
