From the M16 to the M9 and now to the MHS (and no doubt legions more I haven’t mentioned), nobody will make a good firearm go bad like the US Military.
One sample of one and all, but I "inherited" a G23 from an 1811 who had rotated to us from a FLETC assignment when she got a new Gen4. The striker tip was about halfway eroded. I swapped it with a serviceable one from a G22 that was deadlined due to the bad rear frame rail thing.
"It's surprising how often you start wondering just how featureless a desert some people's inner landscapes must be."
-Maple Syrup Actual
Can't help but recall that the M18 was subject to even less testing than the M17 (which underwent a curtailed testing process). When initially fielded, the XM18 had some documented reliability problems compared to the full sized model, though neither covered themselves in glory in the ball ammunition testing. I wouldn't have expected shaving a little bit of barrel and slide length could introduce such a dramatic difference...guns can be weird.
During PVT, the XM17 with ball ammunition met its requirement for MRBF but not its requirement for MRBS. The XM18 with ball ammunition did not meet its MRBF or MRBS requirement.
- The XM17 demonstrated 6,944 MRBF (99 percent probability)
- The XM18 demonstrated 3,906 MRBF (98 percent probability)
- The XM17 demonstrated 343 MRBS (75 percent probability)
- The XM18 demonstrated 197 MRBS (61 percent probability)
Last edited by JSGlock34; 01-12-2024 at 05:31 PM.
"When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man."
From the link provided:
" The predominant cause of stoppages was the failure of the
slide to lock (FSLR) after the firing of the last round in
the magazine (60 of 120 stoppages for the XM17 and 63
of 85 stoppages for the XM18).... Many operators stated that the placement of
the slide catch lever caused them to engage it while firing the
pistol, which resulted in the slide not locking to the rear when
the last round was expended in a magazine. Sixty percent
of all FSLR stoppages (75 of 123) were experienced by
8 shooters out of the 132 who participated in the IOT&E."
Fair point, but they were also dealing with the double ejection problem. They provide the stats if you factor out the slide release issue - which is still way off from the standard 2000 MRBS we would expect from a service firearm. Below is still substandard performance, especially say when compared with the Glock testing conducted by FBI...
The MRBS demonstrated during IOT&E is significantly increased if this stoppage is eliminated:
- The XM17 demonstrated 708 MRBS (87 percent probability).
- The XM18 demonstrated 950 MRBS (90 percent probability).
All of this points to the fact that the Army rushed to select the M17/M18 and problems that should've been revealed in the Phase 2 testing that the Army decided to forego instead had to be addressed later.
"When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man."
I don’t consider slides not locking back to be a malfunction. Some people feel that is a feature, and eliminate the slide lock back on their guns, so they never prematurely look back. As we all know, some of the most reliable guns in history ala MP5, AK47, don’t feature lock back.
Also the testers, in some cases, can sabotage a gun in testing by their incompetent gun handling/ firing techniques.