Is Detonics dead (again)?

D

D1000

Inactive
Does anyone know if this is dead or if we will ever see the MTX? I've waited for a while and even emailed with the owners a couple times a few years back and it was always just a few months away.

The last I heard they had a deal with STI to manufacture their guns. This was several years after they had a deal with someone else that fell through (if I recollect).

Plenty of mixed opinions on how the guns looked, but just about everyone I heard about shooting one thought it was a remarkable gun. If it's truly as good of a design as it seems I would hate to never get to shoot one.
 
I don't think that's the actual Detonics website.
Read through it, T. O'Heir. It reads like something pumped through a computer translator half a dozen times, before being slightly corrected by someone familiar with, but not fluent in English. ...And it's hosted by Wordpress (a favorite tool for foreign spammers and impersonators).

I would believe this site to be real, long before the one you linked: https://detonicsdef.squarespace.com/
 
FrankenMauser said:
I don't think that's the actual Detonics website.
Read through it, T. O'Heir. It reads like something pumped through a computer translator half a dozen times, before being slightly corrected by someone familiar with, but not fluent in English. ...And it's hosted by Wordpress (a favorite tool for foreign spammers and impersonators).

I would believe this site to be real, long before the one you linked: https://detonicsdef.squarespace.com/
Click to expand...

That site gives an address. Google streetview images for that address do not look promising.

If you want a Detonics micro-45, hit up Gunborker, Armslist of something like that.
 
Last edited:
I hadn't actually noticed the two websites. The squarespace link above is what their site has looked like for the past four or five years or so. The other site I'm not so sure about. Looks like they let their domain expire and someone squatted on the domain. Definitely doesn't look real.

I had heard they sold direct and that's when I contacted them before, but that's when I was told they were just working through a partnership with STI. That was two or three years ago if I remember correctly.

I'm more interested in their MTX. This gun was supposedly so good it was in the running for the army contract before it was awarded to Sig. I'm not entirely sure how true that is. I know they had released a few firearms as prototypes or just early release and there were positive opinions towards it.

Just doesn't seem like they ever actually went to production. And from what I heard about the prototypes there were some details that never really made it to the the finished product stage (mag release, etc.).

That said if anyone has one of the few MTX models they sold and wants to offload it let me know.
 
The site I went to said it was last updated - the News page - in 2016.
A guy on (I thought) 1911forum posted pics of his MTX, but when I searched I couldn't find anything.
That guy may have been associated with Detonics in some way, and trying to give the impression that production guns were shipping.
Sounds a bit like the Vltor Bren Ten debacle of 8-10 years ago.
 
That's quite an apt comparison. Guns that by all appearances seem to be a pretty good product and companies just not being able to make it happen.

Not sure if it says more about the guns or the companies or both.

Or maybe just shows how it's hard to be successful with a new product in a market where the holy grail to a significant portion of the consumers is an 107 year old design.
 
It was supposedly so good that it didn’t even get into the final two, which were Glock and SIG? It was supposedly so good that it was never produced in any serious numbers, despite Beretta, FN, S&W, SIG, and Glock coming out with variants supposedly inspired by their M17 trial experience or submissions? It’s easy for something to be supposedly good. It’s a lot harder for it to be good enough that it actually warrants production. We have a market filled with pistols, and plenty of them aren’t exactly amazing. If this was really as good as is to be believed then the people promoting it failed terribly at their jobs. And to blame people still liking 1911s as part of the reason a design doesn’t see success is flat out silly when the market is awash in polymer framed striker fired pistols.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Easy, chief, you're going to pull something. It was a little observed irony for humor. You're more than welcome to love the 1911. I like it myself. Doesn't change the fact that 1911 was 107 before 2018.

You're right, though. They should totally be ashamed of themselves for losing a competition to the likes of Sig and Beretta. Everyone knows the stuff they make is total garbage...

What's your source on the final two? I was under the impression that Glock was not really a contender and that they didn't really meet all the criteria they were looking for.

And for the record, just in case you also love glocks, I have no problem with them either. I own a Glock. I also own a 1911. I don't own a Detonics MTX, but I would like to, and that's really the point of this entire thread.
 
Another note... I'm not disputing your accuracy. I'm legitimately asking if you have any information about the trials. I know some of the information is published and some is not, but I never was able to find much real information about it other than who entered and who won.

I bought the last army issue sidearm and for all the flak it catches it's a solid piece of machinery.
 
Loving the 1911? Given I have only 1 I don't think so. And the 1911 existing and being old is not stopping plenty of other companies from releasing new non-1911 pattern pistols, as I pointed out.

I didn't say they should be ashamed or anything of the sort. What I pointed out was that for a gun that was "supposedly so good" it didn't seem to have done particularly well in the competition or even make it to the marketplace. You may well have meant it as observed irony, but irony and text don't always go well together.

The source on the final two is based on the appeal by Glock at the termination of the competition and the fact that the GAO released a statement about why they threw out that appeal. You can read a synopsis here: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/06/28/glock-underbid-sig-mhs-statement-glock-mhs-protest-decision-released-gao/. Other articles have claimed that the 3 finalists were SIG, Beretta, and Glock http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/02/27/breaking-glock-protests-xm17-mhs-sig-sauer-win/. Then we have Larry Vickers who has seemed to state in a few different videos that from sources he knows it was indeed between Glock and SIG. That Beretta didn't protest is either Beretta being very gracious or Beretta knowing they didn't come in second anyway. Is there a degree of speculation in this? Absolutely. But it seems safe to say Detonics wasn't a finalist.

As for more information, besides the GAO report I haven't seen much. Part of Glock's protest was that the second phase of the trials, which were meant to test the pistols more extensively, was canceled. The GAO threw out the protest because they say the winner was chosen by the results of the first and the second phase not being completed is irrelevant. When you look at the GAO comparison that we have the major differences between the Glock and the SIG were licensing rights to ammo and perhaps more notably cost. There was a substantial cost difference.

I like Glocks, but I don't love them. I don't love any of my pistols in truth. I have a number of pistols and I own them because I like them, but at the end of the day they're tools.
 
There was a good deal of hoopla around Detonics entering the trials for a new military pistol. Most of that was generated by it's owner Bruce Siddle. You can see a bit of his self promotion here...

https://detonicsdef.squarespace.com/new-page/

You can also see a bit of it here as well from 2015...

http://www.stltoday.com/business/lo...cle_e19508e1-bc8e-57d3-acea-45538a604179.html

And then there’s tiny Detonics, a five-person operation in Millstadt that fashions itself more tech company than gunmaker.
Click to expand...

They are still about a 5 person operation from what I have heard.

What they were hoping for was publicity for a prototype gun they had in concept that would allow them to raise funds for production. That never materialized. Siddle's version of the company did not have the resources to produce what the Army was after.

Almost as problematic would be a bid process requiring a heavy production capacity. It’s something Detonics doesn’t have and might be hard-pressed to come up with, given that many of the largest manufacturers are likely to be involved in the bidding.

Bruce Siddle said the company is in talks with numerous manufacturers — though he wouldn’t offer any names.
Click to expand...

So we are looking at a small company geared mostly to personal defense and security consulting that doesn't build guns that have been seen at SHOT show or sold in meaningful numbers and that you can't get spare parts for.

It seems they haven't been doing much since 2014 in terms of gun production. They were never actually in the running for the Army contract.

In 2016 they announced coming versions of the MTX:

https://www.fieldandstream.com/answ...anticipating-release-sti-detonics-mtx-and-stx

I haven't seen any.

tipoc
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top