Commentary
The Swiss-German firm SIG Sauer (the acronym stands for Schweizerische Industrie-Gesellschaft, e.g. “Swiss Industrial Company”) is one of the world’s most venerable and respected gunmakers, dating back to 1853. Founded in Switzerland and currently headquartered in the city of Neuhausen am Rheinfall—with a U.S. subsidiary in Newington, New Hampshire—the company has won many law enforcement and military contracts around the world in its proud history.
(As a personal side note, I myself carried a .40 caliber SIG Sauer P229 DAK [Double Action Kellerman, in reference to the trigger system] when I was a U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement special agent from 2009 to 2011. It was accurate and reliable.)
SIG’s relationship with the U.S. military began in 1989, when the elite Navy SEALs chose the 9mm P226 to replace the Beretta M9 (Model 92F) after one of their troops was injured when the rear portion of a Beretta pistol slide broke off, sending the slide crashing into the sailor’s face. Twenty-eight years later, SIG would pull off an even bigger coup when they won the contract to dethrone the M9 as the standard issue pistol for the U.S. Armed Forces as a whole, via the 9mm SIG P320 aka the M17/M18; this is no small feat when you bear in mind that Beretta is the world’s oldest industrial firm of any kind.
Not content to rest on those laurels, SIG also set it sights on the U.S. military rifle contract, looking to replace the venerable M16/AR-15/M4 infantry rifle series, which in one variant or another has served with the U.S. Armed Forces since 1963. Which brings us to the XM7 rifle.
Enter the XM7
The XM7 was designed in 2019 and entered into production phase in 2022. Under the rubric of the U.S. Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapon competition, it was envisioned as not just a replacement for the 5.56x45mm NATO caliber M4 carbine but the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) light machine gun in the same caliber as well. (The SAW dates back to 1984.) SIG won the competition, and accordingly, in April 2022 the Army awarded the company a $4.5 million contract.The weapon is chambered for the 6.8x51mm Common Cartridge, a.k.a. the .277 SIG Fury, which is intended to split the difference between the 7.62x51mm NATO (.308 inches) and the aforementioned 5.56mm (.223 inches) rounds; still lighter in weight and less punishing recoil and muzzle blast than the former caliber, but providing improved stopping power, range, and tactical penetration against intermediate obstacles than the latter caliber. In other words, a happy middle.
XM7 Specifications
Among the tech specs and “vital stats” (so to speak) of the XM7:- Mass: 8.38 lb. (3.80 kg); 9.84 lb. (4.46 kg) with sound suppressor attached
- Overall length: 36 in (914 mm) with suppressor
- Barrel length: 13 in (330 mm)
- Muzzle velocity: 915 m/s (3,002 ft/s)
Trouble in Paradise?
In March 2024, the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment of the legendary 101st Airborne Division (a.k.a. the “Screaming Eagles”) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, became the first U.S. Army unit equipped with the NGSW. Alas, fast-forward to the present day, and the XM7 is encountering the proverbial trouble in Paradise.
As noted by Peter Suciu in a May 9 article for The National Interest titled “The U.S. Military’s New XM7 Assault Rifle Might Be a Dud”:
“While speaking at the recent Modern Day Marine exhibition in Washington, D.C., Captain Braden Trent, U.S. Army, presented evidence gathered on the XM7 and offered the very blunt conclusion that it is ‘unfit for use as a modern service rifle.’… According to Trent, the XM7 suffered from several serious issues, which caused questions about its reliability. The officer’s 52-page report noted that among the shortcomings is the 20-round magazine, which limits the amount of ammunition a soldier can carry. At the same time, it is heavier than the M4 without any notable benefits. Testing also found that the military drills occurred where a potential adversary was within 300 meters, which negated the XM7’s longer-range accuracy. In addition, the barrel was found to have excess wear after just 2,000 rounds were fired.”
In rebuttal, Jason St. John, SIG Sauer’s senior director of strategic products, stated that “We are highly confident that we have provided the U.S. Army soldier with a robust weapon system that is not only safe, but performs at the highest levels” and added that “Most of them [Trent’s claims] are patently false.”
P320 Pistol Controversies
As if that weren’t enough of a public relations nightmare for SIG Sauer, they’re also contending with a spate of horror stories about the aforementioned P320 pistol being prone to accidental discharges in the holster in spite of the trigger being untouched. The pistol’s legions of fans insist that these discharges are entirely due to operator error rather than any inherent structural defect, but that that hasn’t stopped the lawsuits from rolling in.Time will tell how SIG Sauer weathers these twin storms. But then again, they’ve survived for 172 years, and they wouldn’t have made it this far if they lacked the ability to fix problems and bounce back from adversity.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.