The Army chose SIG SAUER’s big M17 and M18 Guns (also known as the X-17 and X-18) to be the Army Modular Handgun System after years of testing, development, and joint effort with the Air Force.
The MHS program was a lengthy endeavor to create a potential replacement for the Army’s M9 Beretta and SIG Sauer M11 rifles.
The new weapons were found to be modular in nature, which means they were created to be improved and modified as necessary throughout time.
The M17 underwent multiple Engineering Change Proposals to fix a few developmental issues the weapons encountered, despite being hailed as the best direction for Army infantry weaponry in the future.
A 2018 essay from the Office of the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation said that during a drop test of the weapon in which an empty prime cartridge was loaded, the striker contacted the primer, resulting in a discharge.
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Customizable M17 and M18 with Replaceable Hand Grips
Later, during more weapon testing, the M17 and M18 both experienced double ejections, in which an unspent ball round and a spent round were both fired.
Double-ejections, when an unspent ball round was ejected alongside a spent round, were observed in the XM17 and XM18 pistols.
The Army established a root cause analysis team to determine the cause of the multiple ejections concurrently with continuous PVT due to the increased frequency of occurrence during Product Verification Test (PVT), the study explains.
Ultimately, depending on how much the US Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Special Operations Forces procure the weapon, up to 500,000 M17s may be produced for military use.
According to an Army statement on the weapon, the XM17 was developed with replaceable hand grips and is ambidextrous, allowing the user to customize the ergonomics to best fit their hands and enhance their performance, according to a piece on the weapon in Jane’s Defense.
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Source: www.msn.com