Speeding up the process for selecting a new Army sidearm could have spurred the 100-day protest that held up replacement of the Beretta M9 pistol, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) redacted decision.

The Army in January awarded Sig Sauer a contract to build up to 550,000 P320 pistols to replace the M9, which has been the service’s primary sidearm since the 1980s. Glock Inc., manufacturer of pistols in ubiquitous use by U.S. law enforcement agencies and foreign militaries, protested the award to the GAO, contending that the Army had failed to award more than one contract for what was initially a secondary test phase.

Sig Sauer P320 Modular Handgun System (MHS)
Sig Sauer P320 Modular Handgun System (MHS)

A request for proposals for the Modular Handgun System was issued in August 2015. The Army eventually received a total of nine proposals from five handgun manufacturers. Each competitor could submit either a full-size handgun or a full-size model and a compact version for consideration.

The Army’s original acquisition plan called for downselecting to as many as three handguns that would undergo additional testing to determine which design would replace the M9. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley took a personal interest in speeding the program early in his tenure as the service’s top officer. He truncated the program by eliminating the second phase of testing and going straight from testing the five competitors to a single award.

Glock protested “that the solicitation required the [Army] to make at least two awards after the initial evaluation phase is denied, where the solicitation did not require this outcome,” GAO General Counsel Susan Poling writes in the GAO decision issued June 5 but published last week after redactions were made. “Instead, the agency reasonably determined that a single award was in the best interest of the government, where proposals were technically proximate and the protester’s proposed price was substantially higher than the awardee’s price.”

Glock’s submission also came in at a dramatically higher price tag than did Sig Sauer’s, according to the GAO report. Though it does not show per-unit or total cost of competitive bids, the report says Glock’s pitch cost $102.7 million more than Sig’s.

The Army found Sig Sauer held a “slight technical advantage” over Glock, according to the GAO decision.  In deciding to make only one award, when up to three were permitted, the Army found “no correlating superior performance factor for Glock, as compared to Sig Sauer, to support paying that premium.”

“Based upon the technical evaluation and my comparative analysis of the proposals, the Sig Sauer proposal has a slight technical advantage over the Glock proposal,” Poling writes. “Since there were so few other discriminators between the two proposals in most aspects, the least important factor, price, became a significant discriminator. … Consequently, I cannot justify paying a price premium of over 37% for the Glock submission, even as a second award. 

Glock alleges several other inadequacies with the Army’s selection process, including it too-heavily weighted the requirement for a manual safety switch. An elemental feature of Glock’s pistol design is a trigger-safety that is always activated until the shooter puts pressure on a lever integrated into the trigger. It does not have an independent slide-mounted safety switch. The Sig P320 does have such a safety.

The portion of the GAO decision explaining its denial of Glock’s protest regarding the safety is heavily redacted. GAO points out that the Army’s initial solicitation highlighted overall safety as a priority, and stated proposals could be disqualified for ‘safety issues,” as determined by Army testers.

“The Army assigned Glock’s proposal a weakness after [REDACTED], which could result in an [REDACTED],” the decision says.  “In addition, during testing under the early warfighter acceptance subfactor, the Glock handgun [REDACTED] was [REDACTED]. Offerors were informed that the Army would evaluate the ability of the user to operate the safety as part of the joint warfighter ergonomics subfactor. The [REDACTED] on the handgun was reasonably encompassed by the factors disclosed to Glock. Furthermore, [REDACTED], we do not think that the Army placed undue emphasis on the safety in the evaluation. This protest ground is denied.”