MPX Price …Going Up!
Word at SHOT was that the MPX versions that are shipping — pistol, carbine, and SBR — are selling well, but that the company was planning to raise prices by $300 a unit, and to delete the accessories that used to come with one: QD sling, cleaning kit, etc. The backup iron sights are still included, as is one magazine. Source of that “word”? The staff at the SIG booth!
In 2015, when MPX pistols began to ship, Max Slowik wrote in Guns.com:
Along with the announcement SIG is publishing the official MSRPs. The base SIG MPX-P is listed at $1,576, the SIG MPX-P-PSB at $1,862 and the SIG MPX SBR at $2,062. While guns often retail for less than suggested prices, we don’t expect that to be the case with the MPX for a while until demand drops off.
The numbers on the SIG website have already changed, although the price increases are less than $300 a unit. Here’s a table of what’s what.
| SIG MPX Models | List Price | |||
| SKU | MPX Model | 2015 | 2017 | Δ Price 2017-15 |
| MPX-P-9-KM | MPX-P Pistol | $1,576 | $1,852 | $276 |
| MPX-P-9-KM-PSB | MPX-P-PSB Pistol with SIG Brace | $1,862 | $2,084 | $222 |
| MPX-9-T-KM-SBR | MPX SBR 8″ Short-Barrel Rifle | $2,062 | $2,123 | $61 |
| MPX-K-9-T-KM-SBR | MPX-K SBR 4.5″ Short-Barrel Rifle | $1,957 | n/a | |
| MPX-C-9-KM-T | MPX-C 16″ Carbine | $2,016 | n/a | |
| © 2017 Weaponsman.com | ||||
Friends asked a SIG rep, “Why?” The booth guy didn’t know, and called someone else over, who said, and we quote: “We’re not making enough profit at the present price.” So presumably they’re making some profit on an MPX, and the $200-300 price increase and the deletion of $50in accessories should drop right down to the bottom line. (They don’t expect many buyers to use the online accessory discount vouchers).
For comparison’s sake, the MSRP on the CZ Scorpion Evo 3 S1 pistol is $849 in black and $899 in FDE. The carbine version is $999 (muzzle brake) and $1049 (fake suppressor). There is no factory SBR.
Humility and a Sense of Honor
That’s what Lee Williams said he found at the SIG booth after the MHS M17 selection was announced. One of the SIG personnel told him the contract was “daunting,” and they’re going to be busy. Read The Whole Thing™ and the rest of Lee’s SHOT coverage.
Humility and a sense of honor today at the Sig Sauer booth
Andrew Branca on the SIG Buy: $207/each
Andrew had an interesting write-up at Legal Insurrection, the most interesting parts of which to us were (1) that he’s been carrying a 320 for a while, and really likes it, and (2) that according to sources of his (how come our sources didn’t have this?) the Army is paying for the SIGs (exclusive, we presume, of such accessories as suppressors) only $207 a pistol.
That might explain where the extra $300-400 per MPX is going.
Andrew is also a rare user of a manual-safety SIG, and that brings us to…
What a SIG P320 Safety Looks Like
Because most of you haven’t seen one in the flesh-and-blood (or steel-and-polymer), here’s an excerpt from the P320 Manual.
4.2 Manual Safety Equipped Pistols
The SIG P320 is offered with an optional ambidextrous manual safety. The manual safety mechanically blocks the movement of the trigger bar so the trigger cannot be pressed to the rear.
To engage the manual safety, rotate the safety lever upward with the thumb of the firing hand. The manual safety is ambidextrous. Pressing up on the lever from either side will rotate the opposite lever upward, engaging the manual safety. The slide can still be manipulated with the manual safety engaged.
And one of our commenters found this fascinating little detail in the manual:
If your P320 is fitted with a Tamper Resistant Takedown Lever, removing the grip module is not authorized. You must evacuate the pistol to the next authorized level of maintenance to have this performed.
This certainly seems like something put in place for police agencies and military services, to prevent the Incredible All Destroying Lance Corporal from monkeying with the pistol. The Tamper Resistant Lever needs a tamperproof spanner screwdriver or bit to be removed, marking it as an armorer job rather than operator maintenance. (It would be a rare gunsmith who doesn’t have a set of these screwdrivers, these days. Several manufacturers use them on non-user-maintenance parts). No idea if the military’s M17 pistols will be equipped with this feature, but it would not be surprising.
Kevin was a former Special Forces weapons man (MOS 18B, before the 18 series, 11B with Skill Qualification Indicator of S). His focus was on weapons: their history, effects and employment. He started WeaponsMan.com in 2011 and operated it until he passed away in 2017. His work is being preserved here at the request of his family.
50 thoughts on “Some More SIG Updates: MPX, M17 (P320) Pistol”
I was under the impression that SIG would make their money on the parts and service contract, a standard practice. Would that explain the price?
They’re also expecting to make a bundle off of civilian and police sales of the same model of gun, as the “New Army Issue Handgun”. Pretty much the same thing happened with the Beretta 92. Having a military contract come through is a great form of advertisement.
Part of it. The contract also includes spares and many accessories such as suppressors and holsters, which presumably are not within the $207 number.
Like that tamper resistant screw is even going to slow down the destructive tendencies of the E3.
As the old tale goes…
Put a private in a sealed room, naked, with an anvil and a bowling ball. Come back in an hour and the anvil will be broken in half and the bowling ball will be completely missing.
A pair of scissors makes an OK field expedient for those style screws, by the way.
$207 per gun to SIG.
PLUS whatever $millions spent making that decision / number of guns bought.
“You must evacuate the pistol to the next authorized level of maintenance to have this performed.”
Um, “evacuate?” Is that militaryish? Because I can hardly think of a more awkward word to use for that.
-John M.
The guy in charge of the writer probably used it a few times so it became a buzz word of sorts.
We had a plant manager roll through who used the word “evolution” to describe a step in a procedure and it was instantaneously entered into the vocabulary of seven other boot lickers beneath him.
The other phrase he brought with him was “going forward” and going forward that’s all the morons could say.
At the end of the day, it is what it is, going forward.
Trone,
We might work for the same company.
That sentence encapsulates the three sayings the I most despise. I knew “it is what it is” had reached its nadir when my troglodyte, drug dealing neighbor down the street started using it.
That happens in the military, too. The first commander and deputy of the Army’s HR (Hostage Rescue, not Human Resources… HR is now called PR, Personnel Recovery) unit were both former exchange officers with the Brits. For the CO, COL Charles Beckwith, it was his terminal assignment before retirement, but the DCO, Richard W. Potter Jr., went on to command a Special Forces Group, a theater Special Operations Command, and a two-star command (SF Command? USASOC? I forget. But he was in charge of SOF during the Haiti boondoggle). A key lower officer in that same unit, Dick Meadows, also did a tour with the SAS, but he was an NCO at the time, IIRC.
All of them had picked up a lot of slang and British usages, Beckwith and Meadows with the SAS and Potter with the Parachute Regiment. It spread through SF but doesn’t seem to have back-infected the Ragnars very much… but for a while the suckups were always saying “backbrief” (the US term is “briefback”) and “recce” (“reconnaissance”) and the really far-gone ones, which included Potter Himself, called the think on their back a “bergen” (“rucksack.”) But somehow, a mild affectation for someone who did the exchange tour seems like the phoniest sycophancy in one who didn’t.
But on the gripping hand, I think Potter always liked me in part because I have to work hard to keep British spellings out of anything I write, and I sometimes lapse into an accent under stress. (Like, briefing back Col. or Gen. Potter). Teammates ribbed me about this, and started a rumour that I was an East German spy, that actually got me asked if I was during a clearance review. “We’ve developed information that…” No. Not only am I not an East German spy, I don’t think there were many. The East Germans had their hands full spying on each other, the losers.(Imagine how bad a politico-economic system must be to make Germans hopelessly idle and inefficient).
How does one pronounce “recce” in American? I keep seeing it in print and puzzling over it.
-John M.
Wreck-y is the way Potter and Beckwith used to say it. Which is, I believe, how our British cousins say it.
[Files “recce” under words never to use.]
-John M.
Did you re-read mote recently? “gripping hand” has popped up quite a bit recently.
No, it’s just too useful a construction to let lie fallow for too long. You will occasionally be asked to “Think of it as Evolution in Action!” around here as well.
Pedro Augustin
Comes for the Quiet Professionals, noisy machinery, and stays for the lore. Love the coverage and the stories!
Cheers,
PA
I gotta see that movie about the Stasis that come out a few years back. I hear it’s good drama
LRS in Germany also picked up several words from the Brits, i.e. recce, belt kit and backbrief.
Most of it came from going to courses at ILRRPS. They had instructors from all over NATO. The terminology stuck when you went back to your unit. I used those terms my whole career and would get odd looks or questions from people because of it. Still use them.
In the USAF recce is sometimes used in context of surveillance/recon aircraft and/or associated sensors. An airplane might be a “recce bird” or a “recce pod” may be hung off a wing.
I have personally used the word backbrief in the context of telling my boss about stuff he missed at a meeting or a brief. I probably stole that from some of the active and retired fighter and test guys. A few of them spent a lot of time in the UK probably flying with the RAF back in the day. I wonder if that is where they got it? I wonder if that makes me a terrible poser?
Briefback is totally foreign to me. My fist instinct is to assume the word is similar to the pro-word readback. I assume that one is supposed to summarize whatever you were told to do to make sure you have the gist of it. If that is not the case, I wonder if there is a word for such a task? I find it really a useful tactic for technical work.
“Evacuate to the next echelon of maintenance” is a phrase that has been around for decades. Words come and go out of popular usage but the TMs are copied and recycled over and over and not just for small arms.
Term of art used throughout the Army maintenance system, meant to be indicative of the need to turn the weapon over to the higher echelon of maintenance, rather than have them send out a contact team to perform the work in situ.
I’m gonna go out on a limb, and suggest that from this, we may presume that ain’t nobody gwan be takin’ much avantaaage o’ that-there mod-jewell-arity thang, in actual practice.
I can imagine a world where even if Big Green is cutting the end users off from the benefits of the modularity, that the supply/logistics chain could benefit from it. I take it from your experience and overall tone of cynicism that you don’t see that world coming into existence?
-John M.
You have no idea.
I see this “modularity” thing, in regards to the frame of the pistol, as reaching an end state where the commander is stuck with the itty-bitty version of the frame nearly forever, ‘cos that fit the itty-bitty lady hands of the dude or dudette that was in command three years ago, when the pistols were first issued, and now that the “new” is all done wore off, there ain’t no monies in the parts budget to pay for getting him a frame that fits…
Issue every pistol with a set of frames, they will lose most of them. Buy one size only, they won’t fit everyone. Make the swap a third-shop option, the swap won’t happen, ‘cos third-shop ain’t got the time to custom-fit every fucking pistol to every fucking hand, every time a weapons assignment changes.
Logistically, a deaf, dumb, and blind Corporal could tell you it ain’t going to work out very well, in actual practice. Units that do a lot of shooting with pistols, and who have the PLL money? Yeah, maybe… Line units? LOL…
Good news then! I don’t think they’re going to be buying many more frames than serialized parts.
The vast majority will be the full sized gun with a scattering of the others.
Look at the proportions of M9 to M11 today and that’s probably going to be about the ratio the M17s will be bought at.
It’s why I laughed at the modular requirement. The way they’re going to be purchased would have gained the same “modularity” if they’d bought Glock in three different sizes. It’s just the Glock guts aren’t a self contained module.
I can tell you from the small arms side we saw it with the M4. At first, it was just a carbine with a removable carry handle. No big deal. Then some of the SOPMOD started flowing down to us unwashed masses. We had cases upon cases of handguards from when we installed the RAS kits. Can’t do anything with them [original handguards], it was still technically a basic issue item. What about the absolute chaos of rail cover kits that come with them. In one unit of around 650 troops nowadays you’d be lucky to piece together a dozen complete kits from what’s left. Then the BUIS and M68 showed up.
The MA compliant seems to only come in compact version for now.
And the safety on the MA compliant model at least from the pics looks nothing like the safety on the Army model, no thanks
That is quite a price jump on the Sig. Hopefully CZ reaps the benefits.
I was wondering how the Army was going to stop everybody from taking apart their pistols. The special screw is at least a nod in the right direction. Really only a nod.
Just wait until some genius realizes he can customize his pistol’s grip with a Zippo and a spent 5.56 case. It will be all the rage with the PX rangers.
Here’s hoping that SIG learned their lesson about bending Uncle over the bollard on spare/repair parts.
Sign me up as one who will likely buy a “civilian M17” for a lot of reasons; Andrew’s endorsement kinda cementing the deal.
A shooting buddy has the CZ Scorpion Evo
He paid the $200 to legally put the folding stock on it
With a red dot it is a fun little carbine
He is waiting for the hearing protection act to pass before buying a silencer for it
Raising the price of the competing product from Sig will definitely drive more buyers to choose the CZ Scorpion
Sig does make a nice gun
Maybe I want a 320 with a safety?
Did anyone else read this like a poem?
The external safety version is the only way to get it from a dealer in mass. If you want it without you’ve got to go grey market and pay those jackals a $200 premium.
That sort of “tamper-resistant screwdriver” is pretty standard in most gunsmithing sets. They’re used for tightening the cross-bolts in stocks. Look at a heavy-recoiling game rifle for these cross-bolts in the area of the box magazine in the stock. They’re there to keep the magazine area of the stock from blowing outwards under recoil.
Same screws you see in shitter stalls to keep the tweakers from making off with ’em. Joe will try though. On another note I just don’t get the same make-the-grass-grow american shoot em in the face warm fuzzy with this gun… I’ll take a 1911 and a trench knife thank you.
You know, I have a set of these specifically (actually a number set and a metric set, IIRC; I use a metric one on Tokarev rifles), but I also have a generic standard gunsmithing screwdriver set, with interchangeable bits. I just went down to the shop to check and see if it had these bits, and wound up sidetracked into shifting some aircraft hardware into a parts sorter… came back up, saw this unfinished comment. So let’s try that again. Down to the shop again. Try all the drawers that are big enough to hold the green plastic case. This time, turn off the overhead lights I forgot last time. Maybe it’s in the garage, aka airplane shop overflow? We used it for something out there a couple of months ago, but I thought I put it back. Out to the airplane project, nope, no box-o-screwdrivers.
Start with an idle question, end with a locked-room mystery.
Lol, what did I come into this room for?
If it’s alzheiemers I hope I have the presence of mind to eat my gun before I’m drawing with crayons.
The way you know that it’s Alzheimer’s is that you are the only one who doesn’t know it.
The civvy version of the 320 has three grip frames to choose from. So far, and this could be solely that those were the only two test articles available, the M17 appears to share a common frame with only slide & barrel length differing. I searched for the contract or the SOW but couldn’t find anything. Has anything official come down the pike on configurations or specifics as of yet? I’m wondering if what is commercially available for the 320 isn’t clouding what is actually going on with the M17 with some of the news snippets I’ve read.
I don’t think that the XM17’s purchase description (AR-PD-177) was ever openly released for the the general public. Vendors had to request a copy.
From what I can determine from the original USAF MHS documents (which were subsequently adopted by the Army), the size specifications were very generous. Basically, the M9 and M11 would have the passed the size and weight limits.
The following was pulled from the USAF’s sources sought notice for the MHS released back in 2008. (Sources Sought Notice MHS 20080424.doc)
The mandatory weapon system requirements follow. Any vendor not meeting the following mandatory requirements may not be considered a potential source.
System Performance.
• System Accuracy. Accuracy will be assessed by two measures:
a) To a range of 50 meters, when the weapon is mounted in a machine rest or manufacturer’s design rest with a human shooter, dispersion will be no greater than a 4” Circular Error of Probability (CEP).
b) When in the hands of a shooter, the weapon must enable the shooter to successfully engage E-type silhouettes and:
1) Hit each target with 2 shots to the upper torso and one to the head within 7 – 10 seconds at 15 meters.
2) Hit the target with 2 shots at 7 meters within 4 seconds.
• Projectile characteristics. The Handgun System should enable the shooter to produce a wound channel larger than an M882 projectile when firing standard ball (FMJ, non-expanding) ammunition into ballistic gelatin from a distance of up to 25 meters where the cavity is measured from 0-14 inches deep.
• Reliability. The Modular Handgun System shall demonstrate 2,000 Mean Rounds Between Stoppage (MRBS) (operator clearable/correctable stoppages), and 5000 Mean Rounds Between Failures (MRBF) (nonoperator correctable).
• Service Life. The Modular Handgun shall have a minimum service life of 25,000 rounds.
System Characteristics.
• Ergonomics. The Modular Handgun System must accommodate the 5th to 95th percentile of users. Determination will be made based on width, length, grip circumference, location of controls, ambidextrous controls, etc.
• Target Acquisition Enablers. As a minimum, Mil-Std-1913 rails shall be incorporated on the weapon to enable rail mounted accessories to be attached. Integrated aiming /pointed devices are of interest and will also be evaluated.
• Physical Dimensions: With sights attached and empty magazine inserted in weapon, the following dimensions are not to be exceeded:
a) The full size version shall be no more than 8.7 inches long, 5.8 inches high, and 1.6 inches wide. Weight shall not exceed 36 ounces.
b) The compact version shall be no larger than 7.5 inches long, 5.8 inches high, and 1.6 inches wide. Weight shall not exceed 34.5 ounces.
• Detection Avoidance: Weapon shall be of a non-reflective neutral color. The MHS shall be operable with sound and flash suppression kit in place.
• Safety Mechanisms: As a minimum, the handgun shall have internal safety mechanisms in place such that a loaded cartridge will not fire if the weapon is dropped from a height of 5 feet onto a concrete or other hard surface. The weapon shall also have an external, manually operated safety button/switch operable with one hand.
Fascinating detail. Never knew “2 to the chest, 1 to the head” was a milspec!
Why is there a “freak-out” in some circles ref. the 1911 style manual safety? I cannot wrap my brain around resistance to it. It is an easily hardwired skill to swipe it off and it does offer advantages. I understand that many MIL users do not get a lot of training with handguns, but off-range repetitions are easily accomplished.
With me, it’s being forced to have it in the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts.
Besides, I’d rather have a trigger safety, ala Glock than a frame safety.
Aren’t Glocks contraband in the PRM?
It’s kinda screwy, second gens can be sold by a dealer, as they were manufactured and registered in state before 1998.
Most, not all, as some were registered before 1998, gen 3 are not able to be sold by gun dealers. All gen4 can’t as they definitely were made after 1998.
There is no proscription on ownership of 3rd and 4th gen Glocks, just on dealers selling them. If someone has a 3rd or 4th gen they can sell it to you because the Attorney General’s consumer protection regulation, not law, doesn’t apply to private sales.
So, that’s why a Second gen at a dealer costs $700.00, and a 3rd or 4th gen on Armslist goes for $800 or more.
Most foolish crap in the world, and our thin lipped dyke Atty. Gen. ain’t gonna fix it anytime soon.
^^ because she’s running for Governor and wants to look like she’s doing something about “gun violence”.
And most low info welfare recipients will believe it.
I personally consider manual safeties to be a possible failure mechanism between me and firing my sidearm in self-defense. I realize they come with some benefits, but IMHO the benefits don’t outweigh the potential costs. Better gunfighters than I am have neglected to disengage their safeties in combat.
Perhaps I’m not your huckleberry, though, as I’m not freaking out about it. And the 1911-style safety is a 300% improvement over the Beretta safety.
-John M.
Ironically the original Beretta 92 had a frame mounted safety, but someone was obsessed with slide mounted safeties and wanted that. So Beretta complied and made the customer happy.
That is actually something that Beretta should have put back on their A3 offer. (or make it decocker only, then I don’t care where the switch is)
I took the armorer course about a year ago, and they covered the tamper resistant screw. I don’t recall if it was available on the parts list at that time, or if it was only something the instructor mentioned was an option for agencies. The units we used in the course did not have the screw.