Screwball said:
With any government contract, cost is the final deciding factor. Same with vehicles.
Of course, but it's not the only factor as your later comments illustrate.
Screwball said:
While it may be Glock keeping their prices high, they are in a fair market range for guns of their type. It based other designs at the $500ish price point. SIG's classic line is an outlier... when you look at so many other offerings at $200 less.
Besides Beretta, what other aluminum alloy framed American made pistols are there? S&W and Ruger both stopped making their options. I'm not denying SIG is more money than Beretta, but there aren't that many US based manufacturers in that market these days and I think we can agree polymer frames should be cheaper than aluminum alloy so it makes sense to compare like material with like. There are foreign manufactured options, but often some effort is made to buy US, even if the company is foreign owned but the pistols are made in the US. Plus with foreign made we get into issues of labor cost.
I don't think I ever claimed Glock's prices were as high as SIG's for their niche, I merely stated some reasons why companies newly entering the striker fired pistol market may be able to offer similar prices.
Screwball said:
Actually, that was the request more than Glock not meeting them. INS/ICE have a long history of going with hammer fired pistols. Glock didn't offer, nor would they spend that amount of money to design one, so what are the options in a polymer pistol? The Beretta was released around the time the contract was finalized. FN released theirs after.
ICE was formed in 2003, so I'm not sure you can say they had a long history of hammer fired pistols. INS had certainly been around a long time and you can use their history, although now they're called USCIS with ICE and CBP taking over roles that were previously part of INS.
It's also not out of the realm of possibility for government agencies that have used hammer fired handguns for decades (I'm including revolvers in that time estimate) to switch to striker fired handguns, i.e. the FBI in 1997 (although there I admit that you get into the desire to adopt the 40SW). My point is the precedence for a switch does exist, but you're right that it will depend on the agency and whether those writing the contracts for bidding have something particular in mind.
For that matter what information I can find would certainly indicate that Glock was involved in the competition for this particular contract.
As part of this press release
http://www.defensereview.com/sigarms-and-heckler-kochhk-defense-win-major-pistol-contracts-with-dhs/ we see:
Approximately three million rounds of ammunition were fired through 690 handguns of 46 different models during the testing, which took almost four months to complete.
Given the number of models tested my guess is Glock did compete in the ICE contract as well, which makes sense as from what I can find for information right around when DHS was formed the US Customs Service, which would go on to become CBP, was using Glocks. You could argue that it was merely a formality and the testers were biased but that's more information than is presented (although I can accept that as possible). Some of the requirements seem right up Glock's alley:
*DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY, PERFORMANCE DESCRIPTION FOR A SERVICE PISTOL PROCUREMENT
3.2 Operation: The pistol shall be an action that provides smooth and consistent trigger pull for the first shot and all consecutive shots
3.3.7 Manual external safety lever: The pistol shall not be equipped with a manual external safety.
3.3.8 Decocking lever or device: The pistol shall not be equipped with a decocking lever or device.
3.3.9 Cocking lever or device: The pistol shall not be equipped with a cocking lever.
3.3.10 Grip Safety: The pistol shall not be equipped with a Grip Safety.
Screwball said:
Don't know if SIG submitted theirs... if they did, H&K underbidding them really puts it in perspective.
SIG did win a substantial contract from DHS for $23.7 million at the same time as HK
http://www.defensereview.com/sigarms-and-heckler-kochhk-defense-win-major-pistol-contracts-with-dhs/
They also won a contract with the Coast Guard as well
http://www.shootingtimes.com/handguns/handgun_reviews_sig070606/