Following a fatality of a Security Forces Airman on 20 July, 2025, Gen Thomas Bussiere, the Commanding General of Air Force Global Strike Command has ordered a pause in use of the M18 Modular Handgun pending completion of Air Force Office of Special Investigations and Safety investigations.
In lieu of the sidearm, subordinate Wing Commanders will arm personnel with the M4 rifle in place of the M18. The M18 is manufactured by SIG SAUER and is based on the commercial P320.
While the Internet is rife with rumors, other than the fact that a Security Forces Airman (and by that the AF means a member of the service and not a rank) tragically lost their life in an incident involving an M18, we don’t know much more.
We’re not going to expect official findings for some time. The last fatality in that Squadron was in September 2023 and involved a roll over of an uparmoured HMMWV in inclement conditions and the report was released just last week.
While it would seem at its surface that the pause in use is significant, it has always been Air Force policy to pause training and operational use of systems which are involved in fatalities. This usually includes aircraft or hazardous activities such as diving or parachuting. During the pause, the command’s Combat Arms personnel, who conduct weapons training and maintenance, will wisely conduct 100% inspections of all Wing-assigned M18 weapons systems using:
Technical Order 11W-3-4-32 and additional supplemental inspection guidance in development by AFGSC/A3S. This latter guidance will be interesting to see.
So far, this stand-down is not Air Force-wide and only applies to the units involved in the nuclear enterprise. Aside from collaboration with the Air Force Security Forces Center, there are indications that other Major Commands within the Air Force are also considering a pause in the weapon’s use. This isn’t surprising as they seek guidance at the service level.
We have not yet reached out to the Small Arms program office of the Air Force or PEO Soldier’s Product Manager Soldier Weapons for comment due to this story breaking late yesterday afternoon. Manufacturer SIG provided us with this statement:
“Our hearts are with the service members and families impacted by the recent reported event at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base. We have offered assistance to the U.S. Military as they investigate the incident and remain willing to help in furtherance of their ongoing investigation.”
Below is a copy of the implementing AFGSC memorandum.
As soon as we know more, we’ll share it.
Yea…needs to be fixed!!
Looks like SSD is gonna stop lying on SIG behalf to maintain access. SIGknew about the drop issue for nearly a year and a half before they announced the voluntary upgrade program after the Omaha Outdoors video went viral the DOT&E report illustrated this and Army PEO confirmed what was in the report and SIG didnt dispute the report.
Dude…go ahead and impugn my integrity if helps you sleep at night. What I find is that people who project that kind of behavior on others are giving you a glimpse into who they really are. I’ve been nothing but consistent about this.
Is there a reason this article doesn’t come up when you search for “Sig” or “P320” on the SSD website?
Dear conspiracy theorist, this article shows up on page 15 of the search results for “320”. I didn’t even bother is “sig” because the search function prioritizes titles and then content in posts. However, it’s looks for the three letters “s-i-g” in order so any word with those letters in that rider will show up in the search results. Why? It’s not some grand conspiracy, it’s how WordPress’ search function works.
Eric G, your reputation and integrity is not at play here.
I respect you as a journalist and consider you a friend.
It stuns me to see how we are again so eager to jump on a company, a US one at that, and immediately tar and feather them.
I know folks at Sig and not one is anyone I would call dishonest. They do their best to build useable and reliable gear.
I do not carry a Sig daily, but that does not mean I should jump on this band-wagon of brand-bashing.
If there is indeed a problem, I am confident the team at Sig will do their damndest to correct it.
Looks like DOD needs to take a real look at all the firearms from Sig.
They have. The pistols aren’t going anywhere.
I’m sure the internet will be totally normal and respectful about this.
Go back to the M1911
There are enough other pistols out there that don’t have a reputation of just going off on their own that dropping the Sig just makes sense.
It doesn’t make sense to DoD. With over 550,000 MHS pistols in service, if an issue is identified, they will field a fix. That is how this works.
The problem is inherent to the design of the pistol. The fix is to replace them with a pistol that is not inherently flawed.
ICE has divested themselves of the pistol, numerous law enforcement agencies have removed them from service, the FBI showed that the pistols are flawed, and Sig has lost numerous lawsuits regarding the 320.
At some point the DoD is going to have to admit that adopting the M17/18 was a mistake.
What’s the design flaw?
The FBI did NOT show that the pistol was flawed. To the contrary, they were unable to make the gun fire without pulling the trigger.
And finally, SIG has lost one single suit regarding the P320. In that suit the litigant testified that he pulled the trigger but alleged that if the pistol had had a tabbed trigger, it wouldn’t have gone off. That case was overturned on appeal. The litigant had admitted fault.
This has become a narrative, fueled by misinformation like you’ve shared.
https://www.outdoorlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/MSP-M18-Pistol-Evaluation_FINAL_Redacted_Outdoor_Life.pdf
Go to page 30 of the report.
“However, testing did indicate with movements representing those common to a law enforcement officer it is possible to render the Striker Safety Lock inoperable and ineffective at preventing the striker from impacting a chambered round if complete sear engagement is lost.”
And, unless I’m mistaken, there have been at least 2 lawsuits won against the company. One in Philadelphia and one in Georgia.
I stand by my judgement that there enough complaints surrounding this pistol that the government loses nothing but some money by switching to an alternative that does not have the same reputation, and has the benefit of not putting service members at risk from an apparently badly designed handgun.
Have you referenced the addendum from the FBI that corrects their test procedures? It is an add-on to the initial report to the Michigan State Police and is floating round the internet just like the report. For some reason, people don’t want to share it because it debunks a narrative.
They tested 19 different P320 striker assemblies resulting in zero failures in over 500 attempts.
Consequently, the Michigan State Police chose to issue the P320. The FBI Ballistic Research Facility has made no claims or published anything regarding the safety of the P320 or any of its variants. They simply offered their findings.
I will do some additional research on court cases. I do know that the Georgia case was overturned on appeal because the litigant admitted to pulling the trigger.
As for just replacing 550,000 pistols in DoD, it doesn’t work like that. You’re looking at a five year process to generate a new requirement, hold a selection program and begin fielding them. It’s not even going to make it off the ground. The services are concentrating on new capabilities. If an actual cause for the issue is identified, DoD will field the fix. It’s the same thing they do with all of their systems. Jeeps roll over? Add a cage. F22 oxygen generators don’t work? Replace them.
They don’t run out and buy something new everything there’s an issue. If that had been the case, the M16 wouldn’t have lasted past its initial fielding.
The M14 was rapidly replaced by the M16 when the 14s limitations became apparent.
The Army didn’t have any compunction with ditching the OH-58D when sequestration hit, even though the Echo model was ready to go.
The ALQ-144 was ditched in favor of CMWS on the UH-60.
The GWOT is full of examples of things that were pulled from service when they were found lacking. Body armor, helmets, camouflage, vehicles.
As far as the “corrected testing” by the FBI, I am leery of a test that shows no fault in Sig’s products when Sig had to sign off on the test procedures.
That said, going forward I suggest the DoD start teaching the Israeli draw till the problem is figured out.
Your choices of historical record are not quite what you think. Getting rid of a capability because you thought you’d be able to replace it with something better isn’t the same as throwing out the baby with the bath water when you haven’t even figured if the water is even dirty.
SIG didn’t have to sign off on anything. They answered questions from the lab and identified that the FBI’s testing was moving the trigger and offered a test device. Oddly enough, when the trigger is pulled, the gun fires. When the trigger doesn’t move, the gun doesn’t fire. That’s the way it was designed.
We replaced the M9 because we wanted to go to a new caliber. If that hadn’t driven the requirement, the military would still be using an M9.
Maybe you ought to wait before OSI and the Safety Center file their reports on this incident before getting way out over your skis.
It’s obvious there are serious issues with the 320.
The drop safety issue from years ago was the canary.
Then there was the CANDOF discharge.
Now there is the litany of uncommanded discharges and proven QC issues that Sig explains away as operator error, up to and including their ridiculous assertion that the Montville PD discharge was caused by and upholstered firearm….their evidence being an “open hood” that was actually a CAT tourniquet holder.
Seriously, there are dozens, dozens, of events of different variations of 320’s discharging after relatively minor impacts to the bottom of the magazine of a holstered firearm, or minor movement consistent with holstered 320ms being jostled.
This is an issue, and it’s both sad and tragic that a service member had to be hurt (killed in this case) by a holstered firearm before someone somewhere in the DoD took it seriously.
I would love to see your fix for the issue. No one is able to replicate the issue you claim to be present.
The fix is not cutting corners on the procurement process, and not favoring a company in return for post army career jobs. The fix is to use Glocks.
Federal LE has now began the switch back to Glock(the agencies who erroneously went to Sig), who should have been awarded the MHS contract to begin with. But Glock didn’t offer favors or jobs, so they were shown the door.
Precisely what corners were cut? And what favors and jobs did SIG provide?
Replicating the issue is a numbers game. You can test the pistols for 100 million cycles and fail to get what you’re getting out of however many hundreds of thousands of pistols used daily. It’s a low probability high criticality failure and unfortunately it’s going to kill the pistol in the civilian world( best case) if not the company. Personal feelings are that it’s a symptom of the edge-riding cost, engineering ,and manufacturing trends that we see in so many products today.
That is an interesting take and probably the most intelligent comment I’ve seen on this issue. It’s unfortunate that the cause can’t be isolated but with so much noise, it’s difficult to ascertain which events might have actually been caused by an issue such as you suggest.
It might actually be easier to research as a sociology/psychology problem at this point. Something like” In low trust systems, the feedback loop is broken to the extent problems become unsolvable.”
I think you are on to something.
How can you state there isn’t an issue? A man just died. There are reports of P320s unintentionally firing almost weekly at this point. Reports of unintentional discharges from Glock, HK, Beretta, FN, etc. COMBINED don’t come anywhere close to this. Do I know the exact issue? No, but to claim there isn’t one just because you don’t yet know it while ignoring a mountain of evidence is willful ignorance.
So what’s the issue? Seriously. Tell us what is happening. Then it can be fixed. Despite internet rumors to the contrary, no one has been able to replicate the issue. Even the FBI ballistic lab has attempted and was unable to replicate the phenomenon. You can’t fix it if you can’t identify it and no one can identify it. Most of what you, and others, consider evidence is just someone telling you something happened and you believing it because you’ve embraced the narrative.
We have hit the level of hysteria. The internet has conflated the negative 60 degree drop issue, with everyone going with the crowd anytime a SIG firearms is mentioned and saying, “does it go off?” with claims the gun now goes off just sitting there. Add a bunch of ambulance chasing lawyers suing SIG everytime a cop has an ND and doesn’t want to admit they messed up. Most of those sort themselves out in court, but no one hears that. That doesn’t fit the narrative and this narrative is being stoked on the internet. Some do it for clicks but most are just people going along with the crowd, dunking on SIG for fun.
There aren’t even any facts regarding this tragedy aside from a fatality and an M18 was involved and yet, the internet is in full effect, assigning blame and filling in the details based upon the hysteria.
We’ve got pro-gun people repeating the anti-gun mantra that guns are dangerous and will just go off and kill people. People are exclaiming, they’ve got to do something!” Sound familiar?
It’s a contagion. It’s gone from the P320 and now every SIG product gets the same level of hate.
So you want SIG to do something. What would you have them do?
I was in Afghanistan when the decision was announced to go with SIG, meanwhile the organization I was with was 95% Glock 19s with some SIG 226s, a few HK pistols, and I saw a 1911 or two floating around. Do you work for SIG? Seems to be more than just a handful of incidents where fingers were not involved (on or near the trigger) and here we are. I don’t think this counts as hysteria….
Considering the amount of misinformation out there, yeah, there’s loads of hysteria. People are repeating and sharing incorrect information and get angry when you correct them. They make accusations about my integrity when they are corrected, just as you have done.
It takes a man with no honor to accuse someone of malfeasance but hide behind an alias.
Eric, honestly, if you could have advised you on this, I’d have told you to disable comments.
Failing that, after addressing XERXES036’s feckless attempt to insinuate that you had an agenda, that you just stop responding to the trolls. Honestly it is beneath a Man of your professionalism.
This is a hot button issue, I doubt anyone on here has run a program, can even spell PSPEC, or knows that award based on LPTA isn’t even permitted.
The fact is that during the source selection both pistols were found to be equal, and Sig was awarded because it was the best value.
At this point, the comment section on this post and Sig’s response to the Florida law maker has devolved to such a point that I wouldn’t be surprised if someone violates Godwins Law.
There’s millions of these pistols in circulation and more importantly, many in the hands of units that fire a plethora of rounds through them with no issues.
Am I saying there is not an issue? No, because at this point in the investigation of this event, no one knows.
OSI is investigating this, and one would be remiss to not acknowledge that the various program offices associated with the pistol are also.
I would caution you all to not speculate, of give credence to speculation from your cousin’s hairdresser’s brother’s “inside knowledge” because no one involved in this is going to risk a career by violating an NDA.
Finally, to those of you who think that in the realm of equipment provided to our warfighters is driven solely by cost, let me politely say: “Fuck you”.
Has that happened in the past? Yes. No one who had it issued can forget the “Combat Spelunking Kit” from the early days of the RFI “Drive By Fieldings”
Those days are gone. Procurements are driven by validated requirements from the operational forces, or derived from them in the cases of ECPs. These provide KPPs, KSAs, ASAs as to what the end item SHALL DO, WOULD BE NICE TO DO, and “IT WOULD REALLY BE COOL IF”. And each of these have thresholds and objectives based on reality.
Many of the military and civilian personnel who are involved in procuring these systems will at some point have to use it, or have a friend or loved one that will. To imply that this isn’t considered shows your ignorance.
Be patient, let the process play out. The important thing is that a Service Member has passed, and everything that needs to be done to identify the cause, will be done.
If it is found that there is an issue, rest assured, corrective action will be taken.
Someone list the “other” 320 self-fires.