Seems the new M17 isn't doing so hot

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Originally Posted By: billt460
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
The intent of a sealed bid is to force best and final upfront.


That never happens. These companies all know how to play this game. Especially Sig and Glock.

...

But without knowing what the other guy is bidding, Glock, (or anyone else for that matter), can't come back and undercut their first bid. It then becomes a game of, "how much can we get away with charging". Instead of, "How low can we go and still make money".



IMO, youre essentially presupposing that Glock should win. That's not an objective analysis, nor what the contracting officer is supposed to do.

"gee only if I had known" is not an acceptable response in a sealed bid situation. Again, best and final upfront...

I state that youre presupposing that Glock should win because of this: Sig did bid a low number. Glock apparently didnt. Why not? Why didnt they offer a better number upfront? Fear of not maximizing a profit?

If Glock had won, and Sig was $x higher, would you be saying the same thing? Youre showing bias in my view (yes, big assumption on my part, and you DID say about "anyone else for that matter" in the above quote), by bringing this up in the context, as opposed to looking at final cost and pure technical facts associated with the test results (which Im not sure if they are public record or not, and I know they werent fully completed). The real world is chock full of shoulda, woulda, coulda... Including the best and final price that Glock should have offered, which would have provided them with an acceptable level of profit on their product. If they were too proud to offer a better price on an established contracting strategy and methodology, whose fault is that?

The other option would have been to not had a sealed best and final, used data and an initial cost basis to source select, and then have the contracting officer negotiate down on fee. But even in that process, the CO would have been negotiating with one company.

What youre really asking for is a reverse auction, to the rock bottom price... An interesting concept, worth considering, but not what is done, ever, and I doubt that even major corporations do this. Heck, very few people even do this when buying major items for themselves, other than a bit of comparison shopping.

Also, again, not relevant to JSF, because JSF was already source selected. An evaluation board already evaluated LM vs Boeing's (and IIRC M-D as well) offerings, and picked the LM one. TO equate:

JSF in the 90s had a LM, a Boeing and an MD offering. That's like Sig, Glock, and Beretta offering options for which was selected. LM was selected, and Sig was selected.

Now, 20 years later LM gets a call from POTUS. In 20 years from now, the Army will probably be looking for a replacement for the M17; doubt POTUS will call Sig, or Glock, or anyone over it.
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
IMO, youre essentially presupposing that Glock should win.


No, that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying sealed bids do not allow for the lowest price, because it eliminates the back and forth negotiating that allows for the lowest price to be achieved. Why are you having such a difficult time seeing this?
 
When you attend a classic car, or a firearms auction, the bidding is open and back and forth. This is done to achieve the highest possible selling price, by pitting the buyers against one another. Why wouldn't the same apply to achieve the lowest possible contract price? These companies know what the lowest possible cost per unit is they would bid. So why not allow for a format that would help in pushing that price to it's lowest possible point? There is no way a sealed bid could possibly accomplish that.
 
There's not a matter of seeing what you're saying or not. As I mentioned, your concept is like a reverse auction, as you confirmed. But that's not how DoD acquisition works. Contracting is done with a clear and defined cost basis for materials, labor, engineering, overhead burden and fee. Those things should be defined to a final level. Saying the cost is x when it's really y, and padding that and not the fee is somewhat fraudulent. You could think it should be that reverse auction way all you like, I think it is a great idea for buying packages of goods. But it doesn't change that there are federal and defense acquisition regulations.

And that's my point.

- It was known upfront that Sig had a few reliability issues in the testing that was done. GAO acknowledged that and still found no basis of Prejudice in the source selection.

- Sig underbid Glock in sealed best and final bids by a good amount. $169M vs $272M for the initial contract.

- Apparently Sig was also rated higher on manufacturing plan and ammunition licensing.

- Glock themselves stated that cost was not as high a ranking criteria in the RFP as others (I haven't read the RFP). They claim it was emphasized over other criteria, and testing 25k rounds instead of 12.5k would have made them more competitive. I disagree. The reliability issues were known, other aspects were found in Sig's favor, cost included. There is a holistic picture that unfortunately isn't just firearm reliability numbers (which were still high for the Sig).

- The full rate production decision has NOT been decided yet. In theory, this could all go back to the drawing board. Question is if it will cost the government more than the $100M difference in initial contracts, plus higher subsequent per unit purchase price, to fix the M17/18/320's ills. If it is, then there is no basis that Glock would have ever been sufficiently competitive (again, see my initial paragraph - reverse auctions are not the way source selection and contracting is done). If Sig is eating the costs themselves, no cost for engineering to the government, then there's even less basis that anyone else could have provided a better value to the government.

- Even if a reverse auction was held, and glock bid down, sig could have bid down further and still won. A race to the bottom may still have selected Sig.

- if Glock's claim is that testing wasn't run sufficiently long, I'm not terribly sure that running longer would have changed the outcome. They seemed to have found the loading challenges amongst other things upfront. The drop tests were done to MIL-STD if I understand it correctly. So the results wouldn't have changed.

- to that point, the issue, root cause analysis and engineering efforts are described here, including some test results:

http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2017/pdf/army/2017mhs.pdf



Point is, you may think you know better on how to do source selection, but it's not how it works, and even if you had your way, it may not have worked out differently, since the contract included other items and an evaluation of acquisition cost, lifecycle cost, etc. it's not something for me to get. It's something for you to understand that there are laws and regulations for defense acquisition. They may be lousy, they should be scrutinized.

As someone involved in DoD technology and acquisition, ill say it's never the tech, it's the contracting. But if anyone thinks for one second it's more the bureaucracy at large than the "efficient, able to do things cheaper private sector" it's horribly misinformed. It takes two to tango in causing these bloated and hassled processes. Acquisition reform in the 90s did nothing good. There are issues with the system indeed.

But to think that any other process would have changed the outcome, well, let's agree to disagree. There's no plausible basis I see to indicate based upon source selection criteria, GAO audit, cost basis, etc., that Glock would have had a sporting chance even if they could rebid. The technical findings were not sufficiently severe to justify consideration of the other contender. There wasn't bias, elements of other parts of the source selection criteria were superior for Sig, and their cost was superior. If Glock was willing to rebid at a substantially lower cost, it should have been stated as such in the Lawsuit/etc. Ive. It seen any commentary from Glock indicating that they would consider bidding down.

Not trying to fight you on this. Just trying to share the basis of the realities of acquisition processes and why it has gone how it has, in my view/opinion.
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Originally Posted By: JHZR2
As I mentioned, your concept is like a reverse auction, as you confirmed. But that's not how DoD acquisition works.


I fully understand that. All I'm saying is perhaps it's time that it should. I don't think you will argue with me, that the American taxpayer has been getting screwed long enough. If there is one thing the government has proven over time, it's the well established fact they are not the best managers of either a budget, or the money contained in it.
 
... and now for the rest of the story. As I suspected, the original story was fake news and sour grapes from the losers.

http://soldiersystems.net/ (Scroll down for the article titled: "Modular Handgun System – Things Aren’t As Bad As The DOT&E Report Implies")

It's a long article and worth the read. But for those without the time or interest, here's the bottom line:

In Summary

What we’ve learned:
-MHS is safe and passes drop standards
-MHS is reliable
-The trigger works
-Stoppages can be mitigated with training
-It introduces a jacketed hollow point ammunition capability
-The Army is working to improve its performance with Ball ammunition
-No one knows what a “double ejection” is except PEO Soldier, and they’re not telling

But this is the most important at part of this whole story: The Army is very confidant in MHS.
 
Originally Posted By: billt460
Originally Posted By: twoheeldrive
There are 100's of thousands of these guns in civilian hands... it is a solid platform.


This gun hasn't been out that long compared to other guns like Glocks and the like. And most civilians, even one's who carry, are lucky to run 400 rounds a year through their pistols. This gun has issues. Serious ones.


Serious issues? Just your opinion or do you have a source you can share?

Here's a guy running 1000 rounds though a P320 in 13 minutes. No problems, other than it got too hot to hold.
 
Originally Posted By: twoheeldrive
Serious issues? Just your opinion or do you have a source you can share?


http://www.alloutdoor.com/2018/02/02/xm1...ekly+Newsletter

"The full size XM17 and compact XM18 reportedly also experienced routine double-ejections — when an unspent ball round ejects alongside a spent round. The problem was persistent in both pistols, enough so that the Army stood up a root cause analysis team to trace the issue. The DoD reports the investigation is still underway.

In addition to ejection deficiencies, stoppages also seemed to be a common theme between the pistols. The Army defines a stoppage as “any deficiency that prevents the pistol from operating as intended, but is corrected through immediate action."
 
Originally Posted By: twoheeldrive
Originally Posted By: billt460
Originally Posted By: twoheeldrive
There are 100's of thousands of these guns in civilian hands... it is a solid platform.


This gun hasn't been out that long compared to other guns like Glocks and the like. And most civilians, even one's who carry, are lucky to run 400 rounds a year through their pistols. This gun has issues. Serious ones.


Serious issues? Just your opinion or do you have a source you can share?

Here's a guy running 1000 rounds though a P320 in 13 minutes. No problems, other than it got too hot to hold.






Even Tim at MAC pokes fun at the P320 a bit now. And as Sig Sauer is so keen to point out, the M18/18 and P320 are close but not the same pistols as there are apparently differences in the guts. Especially between the M17/18 and the pre recall P320 that Tim did the 1,000 round testing on. The gun is having some teething problems. Thank god that it is not a crucial part of our inventory like a rifle and that we are not in a MAJOR war where the change over would possibly cost lives like when the M16 variants were put into use before it was ready. I am sure they can fix the gun and make it serviceable, but it really should not need fixing by time it is issued to soldiers.
 
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It just seems to me that the people who made the decision to go with the Sig just weren't "gun people". If they were, they would have understood the inherent advantages of choosing a pistol that had a proven track record...as well as all the inherent advantages that a Glock has over pretty much every other pistol in its class.

Should have just gone with a danged Glock 19!!! Made absolutely no sense NOT to.
 
Originally Posted By: john_pifer
It just seems to me that the people who made the decision to go with the Sig just weren't "gun people". If they were, they would have understood the inherent advantages of choosing a pistol that had a proven track record...as well as all the inherent advantages that a Glock has over pretty much every other pistol in its class. Should have just gone with a danged Glock 19!!! Made absolutely no sense NOT to.


I agree completely. And NOT because I'm some type of Glock "fanboy". I own several of them, but that is not why I think the government should have chosen it. It's because it has proven reliability, and an excellent track record. Reliability is EVERYTHING in a military sidearm. With the Glock they would have had it for all but certain. With the Sig, not so much, if at all.
 
Originally Posted By: billt460
I have 3 Sig's and 7 Glocks, and there is no way I would ever chose a Sig over a Glock.... Especially for the military.


The only thing the P320 has over the Sig as far as features is that chassis system, and that really has limited benefits. It just means the guts are easy to swap into a new grip frame faster if the grip frame is damaged. The grip angle is a little better on the Sig also(for most shooters).

If I was the military though, I probably would have just went with the M9A3 and spent the time and money on finding a better rifle platform.
 
One of my Sig's is a P-226 SCT. (Super Capacity Tactical). The gun ships from the factory with 4, 20 round, (18 +2), extended magazines. The pistol will not cycle properly if the gun is rested on the magazine, or if hand pressure is applied to the bottom of the mag when firing. This occours with all 4 of the magazines that Sig supplied with the weapon. As well as with 6 other extended magazines I've purchased on the aftermarket. (Mec-Gar). I'm sorry, but that is unacceptable in a $1K+ combat pistol. I know 2 other 9 MM Sig pistol owners who have had the exact same issue with their Sig's involving the use of extended magazines.

On the other hand, I have a total of 8, CZ-75 9 MM pistols in various configurations. (Standard in both Polished Stainless, Matte Stainless, Polycoat, and Polycoat Single Action. SP-01 in both Shadow and Tactical Models. And a Compact. All of them run perfectly with +2 extended magazines. Regardless if there is pressure on the ends of the magazines or not. I experience much the same reliability with 33 round extended magazines in any or all of my 9 MM Glocks, including my Mini Glock 26. Based on that premise alone, either CZ or Glock would have been a better, and far more proven choice for the military service pistol than Sig. There seems to be too many loose ends with out of the box Sig reliability.

Yes, our Special Ops and Navy Seals use the P-226. But they never touch a weapon until it goes through their armory, and is completely gone through, and reliability tested by their armorer's. Standard issue military sidearms are not afforded that type of individual attention. They should, and they have to run reliably right from the box. Obviously this Sig isn't getting it done. As a civilian I'm fortunate enough to be able to choose what I carry and use. A serviceman is not. My choice based on my 3 Sig's, 8 CZ's, and 4 Glocks, would NOT be Sig. As always YMMV.
 
Originally Posted By: billt460
I have 3 Sig's and 7 Glocks, and there is no way I would ever chose a Sig over a Glock.... Especially for the military.

I own ZERO (0) Glocks and plan to keep it that way, MAYBE. I would choose a SIG, or any other quality name brand pistol, over a Glock all day long.
Now, a G32 sparks my interest, ONLY if someone were to give one to me. But, I would make NO effort to go out and buy one.
 
I own seven (7) Glocks.

Just bought my first Sig. P227 (10+1 .45ACP). A traditional metal gun, with steel slide and alloy frame.

I'll take it to the range and let you know what I think.
 
Originally Posted By: BlueOvalFitter
I own ZERO (0) Glocks and plan to keep it that way, MAYBE. I would choose a SIG, or any other quality name brand pistol, over a Glock all day long. Now, a G32 sparks my interest, ONLY if someone were to give one to me. But, I would make NO effort to go out and buy one.


That's fine. And it is your choice to do so. However, it doesn't change their forged hammer like reliability over the last 30+ years. And that is what's needed in a military service pistol, above anything else. This new Sig is thus far showing doubtful traits in that department.
 
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