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Coming full circle....actually considering the 45 ACP again. My opinion is they should have never dropped it.

Handgun article

The U.S. Army is moving forward to replace the Cold War-era M9 9mm pistol with a more powerful handgun that also meets the needs of the other services.

As the lead agent for small arms, the Army will hold an industry day July 29 to talk to gun makers about the joint, Modular Handgun System or MHS.

The MHS would replace the Army's inventory of more than 200,000 outdated M9 pistols and several thousand M11 9mm pistols with one that has greater accuracy, lethality, reliability and durability, according to Daryl Easlick, a project officer with the Army's Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Georgia.

"It's a total system replacement -- new gun, new ammo, new holster, everything," Easlick said.

The Army began working with the small arms industry on MHS in early 2013, but the effort has been in the works for more than five years. If successful, it would result in the Defense Department buying more than 400,000 new pistols during a period of significant defense-spending reductions.

Army weapons officials maintain that combat troops need a more effective pistol and ammunition. But experts from the law-enforcement and competitive shooting worlds argue that tactical pistol ammunition -- no matter the caliber -- is incapable of stopping a determined adversary without multiple shots in most cases.

One of the major goals of the MHS effort is to adopt a pistol chambered for a more potent round than the current 9mm, weapons officials said. The U.S. military replaced the .45 caliber 1911 pistol with the M9 in 1985 and began using the 9mm NATO round at that time.

Soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have complained that the 9mm round is not powerful enough to be effective in combat.

"The 9mm doesn't score high with soldier feedback," said Easlick, explaining that the Army, and the other services, want a round that will have better terminal effects -- or cause more damage -- when it hits enemy combatants. "We have to do better than our current 9mm."

The MHS will be an open-caliber competition that will evaluate larger rounds such as .357 Sig, .40 S&W and .45 ACP.

The FBI and several major police departments recently decided to return to using the 9mm round after finding that .40 caliber ammunition was causing excessive wear on its service pistols. The heavier bullet and greater recoil over time resulted in frame damage to well respected makes such as Glock and Beretta, according to Ernest Langdon, a shooting instructor and respected competitive pistol shooter who has worked for gun makers such as Beretta, Smith & Wesson, and Sig Sauer.

"Most of the guns in .40 caliber on the market right now were actually designed to be 9mm originally and then turned into .40 calibers later," Langdon told Military.com.

Langdon served 12 years in the Marine Corps where he was the chief instructor of the Second Marine Division Scout Sniper School and the High Risk Personnel Course. He's been a competitive pistol shooter for 15 years where he has won competitions in the International Defensive Pistol Association and two World Speed Shooting titles.

Larger calibers, such as .40 S&W, have significantly more recoil than the 9mm making them much harder for the average shooter to shoot accurately, he said.

"I don't think anybody would argue that shot placement is the most important for terminal ballistics," Langdon said. "Even though you say a .45 is better than a 9mm, it's still a pistol caliber. Chances are if it is a determined adversary, they are going to have to be shot multiple times regardless of the caliber."

Many law-enforcement shooting incidents have shown this to be reality, he said.

"I talked to a Chicago cop that shot a guy eight times with a .45 to kill him and that was a 230 grain Hydra-Shok," Langdon said. "And that guy now carries a 9mm �he realized that handgun bullets suck. "You have to shoot people a lot with a handgun."

Langdon has trained numerous personnel from all branches of the U.S. military, FBI, Secret Service and other federal agencies as well as state and local law enforcement.

As part of the joint requirement process for MHS, Army weapons officials did a "very thorough cost-benefit analysis" that showed supported the effort, Easlick said.

"We have got an old fleet of M9s right now; it's costing us more to replace and repair M9s than it would cost to go get a new handgun," he said.

The Army spent years on an effort to search for a replacement for its M4 carbine, but ended up adopting the improved M4A1 version used by special operations forces.

Beretta officials maintain that the company has offered to upgrade M9 many times.

"We have submitted numerous changes or product improvements that really address a lot of the shortcomings that are either perceived or real," said Gabe Bailey, Business development manager for Beretta's military division.

The Marine Corps adopted the M9A1 in 2006 that features a rail for attaching lights or lasers, checkering on the front and back of the grip and a beveled magazine well for smoother magazine changes.

Some of the improvements Beretta offered included an enhanced sight system, changing the angle of the slide-mounted safety to avoid inadvertent safety activation and a threaded barrel, Bailey said.

Army officials, however, say the M9 does not meet the MHS requirement.

"The M9 doesn't meet it for a multitude of reasons," Easlick said. "It's got reliability issues; the open slide design allows contaminates in. The slide-mounted safety doesn't do well when you are trying to clear a stoppage -- you inadvertently de-cock and safe the weapon system."

Just read this on Fox

Sounds good

They need one

Snake

Well the 1911 in .45 ACP is still the best weapon and caliber in FMJ but it'll take the Army bean counters many decades to come to that conclusion.

I suppose they could consider a machine pistol something along the lines of an MP 38 or MP 40. Maybe even a Sten type gun.

"I talked to a Chicago cop that shot a guy eight times with a .45 to kill him and that was a 230 grain Hydra-Shok," Langdon said. "And that guy now carries a 9mm �he realized that handgun bullets suck. "You have to shoot people a lot with a handgun."

Atta Baby,..8 shots with a .45 and moves to a 9mm for more ammo...

I wonder how many servicable 1911's the army still has on hand. I'll bet they have enough to arm everyone who carries a handgun.

Would be nice to see them back with the .45, but I see them going with a .40. No real reason other than they will use the excuse that they could use LEO's ammo, which around here seems to be predominantly .40 cal.

some of the article is right on, some is just not credible. There is a video floating around I think on youtube of a guy taking three or four rounds of .40s&w in mesa, and then walking himself to the gutwagon. 8 rounds as above, ah, lets see that again.
The beretta m9 dates itself back to the 30's as i remember as to the basic system, and that open top does allow for debri collection, not to mention the safety/decocker mechanism. Friend of mine was a doorknocker in iraq, said they would remove the ball ammo and replace it with winchester jacketed hollowpoints they could buy in the village bazaars, then it worked a lot better. Against the rules tho, you know.
I would suspect there are few, if any, traditional 1911's still around, given they were last produced during WWII.

Sometimes even big, powerful guns aren't instant. Some years ago, we had a drug bust go bad in the next county over. The perp's live-in girlfriend let the cops in. The guy came out of the bedroom with a 44 mag and shooting. The 1st cop in took one to the chest. Even with that, he managed to get off no less than 28 rounds from his 9mm carbine before he died.

Especially when they miss, as cops seem prone to doing when shooting at something other than a dog.

I don't buy the Chicago cop shooting a guy 8 times with a 45 and Hyda-Shok, more like 7 misses and one hit. The 45 has a long track record of ending a fight right quick, the only thing is that you have to be able to shoot in the first place. An updated 1911 would be what I would look at. But this gets very very political, the last time they Adopted the Beretta, and from what I understood at the time, the Europeans bought more F-16's or said they would. It this current war, the rules really don't apply since the enemy is a stateless combatant, the last thing I would worry about is offending The guys in Geneva or The Hague! The object is to kill the enemy and not die ourselves.

If only such a thing existed...

If they go 45 it'll need to be double stack.

They went to the nine because the 1911 .45 was too big for all the new female soldiers to hold or shoot well. They picked a pistol that was STILL too big for most females to hold properly, but did hurt less - on both ends.

Now they claim they want a cartridge that does more damage - and my bet is that they'll pick a pistol to fire it that is once again too fat for small hands.

If they pick a .40 S&W, the conspiracy crowd will bellow that the real reason is because every other goobermint agent from the FBI to FDA meat inspectors are armed to the teeth with .40s and a bazillion rounds of ammo. "One more step to a police state!"

(They may be right, you understand.)

SF CIF companies went to Glocks, both 9mm and 40 S&W, quite a while back. They can access Army inventory 9mm for training and carry the 40's for combat.

As you stated, the gun NEEDS to be a double stack. A Glock 21 is too big for many.

Going back to a 1911 would be like going back to Cocoran Jump Boots and cotton shelter-halves. They both sucked way back when, and they would suck even harder today. The Quantico-built 1911's the MARSOC guys had broke constantly. Their new guns cost over two-grand each, and the one MARSOC guy I talked to recently said he'd swap it for a Glock in a heartbeat.

THE answer, IMO, is a Glock 37 in 45 GAP. That by-passes the large frame issue (G19/17 frame size), has adequate capacity (ten rounds) is cheap, and most importantly, won't break. The Army doesn't have much 45acp ammo left, or 9mm for that matter. Current ammo stores could be quickly depleted by current service guns as the new guns/ammo were brought on line.

And that makes for a lot of steel to carry around, with everything else they are already carrying.

one of the interesting things about my friend that was in iraq, among other things, he was a registered gunsmith. Which led into all kinds of fascinating things. There were a LOT of .45acp devices floating around for testing purposes among the higher brass, some of them pretty cool. They have started procuring for special ops units some versions of .45's.
I do remember a conversation about handguns with a special forces type just back from the stans. He said he started with a m9, ditched it not because so much he disliked the weapon, but reliability issues in the talcum like dust, went to a hi power, and spent half his tour with a glock 17. His comment was it worked all the time, that was more important than anything else.
course he also did not have ball ammo in it either.

45 GAP would make a lot of sense, I just wouldn't do it in a Glock.

I would not do a 45 GAP no way Jose. The 45 ACP is the logical choice in a +P loading.

I'm sure the armorers would be thrilled.



Travis

I don't know what the answer is, but do know the M9 is a large, heavy beast for what it is, with a safety that flipped itself off in my holster often not to mention placed too high, with a grip too large for me and many. More important than the round, IMO, is the ergo's. I sincerely hated that POS. Something like the cz sp-01 makes more sense to me as a service pistol design. Nor do I care if it's 9mm or 45acp, as either are well-handled when housed in an appropriate design; the .40 and others, not so much, if they are to be used by "the masses".