Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Your opinion - Most "State of the Art" pistol for military

Sad but true. When you go through SFAUC, you shoot about 5K rds (2K 9mm, and 3K or so 5.56). A combat service support guy might not shoot that much in a 20yr career.

Well, like I said, some Marine Corps units have gone back to them, and their armor is the hardest working SOB in the unit.

S&W M&P with manual safety.

why?? seriously 7 round mags compared to 17 round mags out of a double stack 9mm like a glock 19, its also 1 pound 3 oz less. I know the 1911 is a great gun and all but most guys only play with them on the range nowadays. whats cool at the range is different than whats nice to have carrying around all day and potentially having to fight people its nice to have 250% more bangs available in ONE magazine.

besides special forces who is even issued a hand gun in the military nowadays anyway?? had a buddy in the 101 st and in the infantry and he never had a handgun. it seems like the military just views handguns as another hassle they don't want to mess with. something else they must issue, keep track of, supply ammo for, train people, and otherwise keep folks from doing something bad to themselves or fellow soldiers. we live in a world where the government and the military feels they need to keep all bad from happening to people and as a result alot of freedom and cool things for the majority of the people get lost as a result. its too bad a soldier can't if they so desire purchase their own handgun and even their own ammo and if they show they can be proficient shooting it and operating it be permitted to take it with them in the field. but the way the military thinks is that some idiot guy who works in the back say in the supply chain or as a cook or something will blow his leg off with an accidental discharge.

357sig has a lot of muzzle flash.

Aviation guys still carry sidearms. And train with them.

The Israelis had an interesting adaptation of the Glock that would allow them to select a full auto mode.

FN's and M&P's ..... can't really go wrong with either one.

Forty different nations (including the US and Canada) have adopted the 5.7x28mm FN Five-seveN pistol for military and law enforcement usage. Developed for NATO as a replacement for the 9x19mm pistol round, the US, France, Canada, and the UK found it to be "in all ways superior" to the 9mm and pushed for its NATO-wide adoption until stopped by the refusal of the German government to adopt the P90 side arm that it used.

All in all the 5.7x28 is an excellent personal sidearm round, although somewhat lacking as a rifle round due to its limited effective range of about 475 yards (as opposed to the 800 yard effective range of most modern military rifles). That said, as modern warfare becomes focused on increasingly urban operations, the 5.7x28 cartridge, capable of being chambered in both a pistol and a medium range rifle, may very well become the standard of the US and its allies.

The "5.7" has been around now for 21 years, and the FN Five-seveN pistol probably represents the state of the art for a military or police pistol with its light weight, high capacity, and all round shootability. Yes, there are more powerful pistols out there, but given its intended military purpose, there isn't another pistol that can come close in terms of a 21st century, state of the art, handgun.

Glock 18? A friend has a G34 that has a selector switch, he can own it as a dealer sample legally, but he can't sell it. FAB Defense makes a WAY COOL little stock that inserts into the "plug" recess in the frame, and has a little pistol grip/finger guard that attatches to the light rail. It runs 100% with 33rd mags. A pocket machine gun. The only downside is you can't "drive" the sights 'cause they are on the reciprocating slide. It has such a high cyclic rate though one squeeze and its time to let off the trigger.

Kevin, I too was somewhat skeptical at first, however a couple of things made me change my mind. The first was the penetration of the military round; 11-inches of penetration in ballistic gel, and 8-inches of penetration after passing thru 48 layers of Kevlar at 50 meters (that's the equivalent of two Level Two vests worn one on top of another). In addition to excellent penetration the wound channel created was massive due to the bullet tumbling as it penetrated the ballistic medium.

These two factors swayed me in favour of the FN 5.7 pistol, and after putting 100 rounds thru one, I was sold. I really believe it to be a superb military pistol, and most likely the wave of the future.

M9

I have a Marine Armorer as a cousin, and he would rather work on 10 1911's before one M9, or M11.

In comparison to a Glock, the M1911 is a bunch of work. But that's about the only gun that's easier to work on.

I've seen the reports, I've fired the weapons. The P90 is one of the funnest SMG's I've ever handled. BUT.

Have you killed anything with the 5.7? I haven't. I hit a coyote with a 5.45 which has a whole lot more oomph, and a much more wicked bullet design. I was comppletely unimpressed, completely. So I have a had time believing a much SMALLER round is going to do anything impressive.

With that said, I've shot game with 9mm FMJ and have been completely unimpressed. Perhaps it's no worse than the 9mm??

Not new, just ahead of it's time.

CZ SP01 9mm

Basically the famous CZ75 with even better ergo's for smaller hands, and a touch more muzzle weight. Tailor made for the job asked. The previous -75 is brain-dead easy to shoot well with it's much-copied grip holding 16rds and one of the better DA/SA triggers around. Consider the value of this ease of effective use given the military is not going to train up everyone sufficiently to fire light-weight, striker fired and DAO pistols worth a damm, IMO. For a military-wide sidearm, seems a no brainer to me.

EVERY pistol is a compromise:
Portability vs firepower.

The S & W M& P's are great. ( Iown a compact 9 and it is a very good carry piece )
So are CZ's ( my son is a CZ fan and his 75 does the job, all day long )

I can't come to grips with the 5.7. Granted, I've only shot one (the local Federal rep is a friend and let me shoot about 100 rounds)---and granted, it's been 34 years since I was in a Marine Corps line infantry unit. Perhaps the role and mission of the military has changed since I was in and altered the TO&E---I doubt seriously that the laws physics have changed however.

Correct me where I'm wrong---when I was in the Corps, handguns (the sainted 1911) were issued to officers, Staff NCO's and enlisted men with MOS's that required that their hands were otherwise occupied during potential combat--namely radiomen, assistant machine gunners, mortarmen, 106RR rifle, 6.5 rocket launchers (bazooka), LAW's, etc. as well as a host of REMF's. It played a defensive role for those in Final Protective Fire (FPF's) and never held an offensive role at all. In an FPF when "Charlie is inside the wire" to use a dated term, the ability of a handgun round to penetrate body armour and gelatinize an adversarie's internal organs may be serendipitous, but it's only a side benefit to stopping them immediately. A hopped up enemy high on the adrenaline of being in an assault and/or aided by pharmaceuticals may or may not notice their impending death. It's worth noting that the single most devastating handgun wound that Sykes and Fairbairn report observing was with the 7.63 x 25 Mauser. It's been years since I read "Shooting to Live" but I seem to recall that it was a leg wound that flipped the perp in the air and left a shattered, dangling shread where his leg had been. That Mauser round delivers very close to the same ft/lbs that the 5.7 provides. Why didn't we switch to the 7.63 and why did the Shanghai Constabulary stay with the .45???

Bottom line is that shooting defensively is about probabilities. What's the probability of your enemy wearing armor?? What's the probability that you'll strike bone or something solid enough to keep the energy of the round in the body of the aggressor? What's the probability that you'll need in excess of 8 rounds? 10?, 16?

Maybe the answers to the above all indicate that the 5.7 is the way to go, but I still can't come to grips with it.

My vote would still go to a well built 1911 WITH it's users trained properly, and those who can't be trained don't get 'em. But assuming things must be dumbed down for the weakest link in the chain, then realistically I guess a .45acp polymer/striker------Glock or M&P. IMO the Glock is a better, simpler mouse trap, but the ergos of the M&P are superior for the wide variety of hand sizes the pistol would be issued to. Especially when compared against the large G21.

A pistol version of the AR-15 with a collapsible stock so you can shoot it like a rifle.

I have spoken to several agencies who have fielded the P90, and who have used them in deadly force situations. None have been happy with their performance. I will not name agencies for obvious reasons, but one large Texas department's SWAT team has had several OIS with the gun, and found it to be extremely ineffective, even when compared to their 9mm MP5s fielded previously. When one considers these incidents were each a result of several rounds fired in bursts, a semi auto pistol is less confidence inspiring.

The 5.7 is a niche round, and does its job very well, within its parameters. These parameters do not include typical anti-personnel use, and when pressed into this role, it fails miserably.

Actually the victim of the shooting was shot in the arm; to quote from their account of the incident:

"Though he was in hospital within half an hour of being shot, nothing could be done to avoid amputation, so badly were the bone and tissue lacerated. Perhaps "pulped" would convey our meaning more exactly. Yet in theory at least the bullet should have caused far less shock than it obviously did."(emphasis added)

I suspect that we may very well be switching over to 5.7 as a light, medium range rifle for use in urban warfare. That being the case, and since the 5.7 is an interchangable round with the FN Five-seveN handgun, it would seem probable that the military might adopt a two-gun, one-round policy at sometime in the future.

As far as switching to the 7.63 Mauser round was concerned the US Cavalry was in charge of the Ordnance Board at the time of the trials that led to the selection of the Model 1911 Colt pistol. First and foremost in their stated requirements was that the successful pistol had to be in .45 caliber. Had the Navy been in charge of the Ordnance Board they might very well have chosen a 9mm or 7.65/7.63mm round for adoption by the US military.

When Fairbairn and Sykes took over training the Shanghai Police the department was in disarray, and morale was at an all time low. Fairbairn and Sykes chose to arm and train the Chinese policemen with .45 caliber handguns as a morale booster; something to overcome the frankly superstitious fear the Shanghai police had of the C96 Mauser pistol favoured by criminals and war lords alike.

Two years ago, at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009 Major Nidal Hasan killed 13 US soldiers, and wounded another 32, with an FN 5.7mm pistol.

As far as my personal shooting experiences are concerned, I've dispatched four groundhogs with the 5.7 and would have to say that it did the job and, all things considered, probably did it better than a 9MM.

According to NATO test results, the 5.7mm was deemed to be better, in all respects, than the 9mm.

Whatever happened to Desert Eagles? I liked the idea of blowback actions?