Who Will Replace the Beretta M9 as the Official U.S. Army Sidearm?

For nearly two years now, the U.S. Army has been trying to replace its Beretta M9 service weapon — and believe it or not, the Army is finally starting to make some progress. Slow progress, to be sure, but progress nonetheless.

From these, the Army expects to “downselect” just three finalists in August. It will then spend a further nine months evaluating how well the finalists actually produce weapons matching the designs they have submitted. At that point, nearly three years after the process began, the Army thinks it will be ready to pick a winner.

And the winner is …

Who will that winner be? That’s hard to say, because even at this late date, we still don’t know precisely who is competing. Janes believes that the 12 competitors who submitted bids include:

• Beretta, offering its new APX model handgun
• Czech gunsmith Ceska Zbrojovka offering the CZ P-09
• FN Herstal and its Five-Seven Mk 2
• Sig Sauer with the P320
• Glock, bidding the Glock 17 and Glock 22
• Smith & Wesson and General Dynamics , bidding the former’s M&P polymer handgun paired with the latter’s ammunition

The good news, however, is that as far as we can tell, Smith & Wesson and General Dynamics are still in the running.

Read More: Fox Business

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