Air Force plans to keep its M18 pistols

The Air Force’s small arms budget is focused on “older and higher priority weapons,” a service spokesperson said.

Jeff Schogol
Published Aug 5, 2026 10:30 AM EDT

The Air Force plans to stick with the M18 pistol as its sidearm, which the service has been issuing to airmen for the past several years, an Air Force spokesperson said.

Made by Sig Sauer, the M18 pistol is a compact variant of the Army’s Modular Handgun System. Since 2017, all the military services have adopted the M18 and the full-sized M17 to replace the M9 pistol, which first entered service in 1985...

Complete article:

https://taskandpurpose.com/new...istols/[FLASH_VIDEO] [/FLASH_VIDEO]

I'm not surprised. Texas DPS, which I think is Sig's largest LE contract with 6000 sworn members is sticking with their P320's, having not reported ANY incidents involving the platform since they began issuing them.

I'll say this, I'm indifferent to the P320 and their variants. I don't own one, but I'm not opposed to owning one. However there are over 4,000,000 of them in circulation. Now I don't keep up, but it seems to me I've only started to hear about the self firing issues in the last two years. I'm pretty sure the P320 has been around for about 12 years. Have there been incidents reported between then, and two years ago? I feel like we would have heard about it more frequently much prior than all the recent YouTube videos of the last two years.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sig Sauer: For Hire,

I've also not seen anything lately about the 320 having problems.

The 320 is fine. I don't blame the military/TXDPS/etc. for sticking with what they've already invested in.

I just don't use my P320 any more because the new larger format P365s like the XMacro and Fuse do everything a P320 does but better. (And without the associated social media driven drama/stigma.)

So while I don't see many new P320 agency adoptions in the future, with the P365 being a better option for a Sig duty gun, the P320 will continue in service for a while with existing adopters.

I still enjoy the 320 and have several. There's an AXG on my nightstand. Yes, the 365 is better for concealed carry, but I like the feel of the 320 and tend to shoot it more accurately, especially the ones with alloy frames.

Unless a consistently dangerous situation is confirmed ( incidents thus far have been mostly isolated and not reproducible) sticking to your guns pun intended makes sense. In a large organization like the USAF the monumental investment in guns holsters magazines armorer classes spare parts and individual service member training outweighs anything else. Honestly I did two deployments with the M9, and the switch to the 320 seemed like a waste to me. Not really gaining anything that could not be overcome with more training which the military is notoriously weak on pistol training

It's interesting that the Air Force specifically sounded off. Have the other branches said anything different (or anything at all) about the same subject?

quote:

Originally posted by MacGyver:
It's interesting that the Air Force specifically sounded off. Have the other branches said anything different (or anything at all) about the same subject?

The other branches didn’t spread hysteria about the gun.