Fort Moore Loses 31 SIG M17s, Army CID Offers $5k For Information on Stolen Pistols

News|Military News

By Drew Bryant
June 7th, 2024, theloadoutblog.com

It appears that the U.S. Army is dealing with another case of missing equipment, this time involving 31 SIG M17 pistols from Fort Moore (formerly Fort Benning) in Georgia. The Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID) is offering a $5,000 reward for any information on the whereabouts of the missing firearms.

Investigators at Fort Moore were alerted to the missing pistols on May 16th. The pistols, which belong to the Crescenz Consolidated Equipment Pool, are believed to have gone missing sometime between March and May, according to a CID flyer posted on Reddit.

As of last Thursday, the reward had not yet been posted on CID’s official website. However, the flyer has been circulating around Fort Moore and shared with local law enforcement, according to a source familiar with the investigation who spoke to Military.com.

The M17, produced by SIG SAUER, won the Army’s XM17 Modular Handgun System competition, beating out Glock to replace the M9 Beretta as the Army’s new service pistol. The M17 is the full-sized version of the modular pistol. On the civilian market, the M17 retails for about $600-$650 MSRP, whereas the U.S. Army pays significantly less. The estimated value of the 31 stolen M17s on the civilian market is around $21,000.

According to Army regulations governing the physical security of weapons, firearms must be accounted for by serial number each month, except for those that are “boxed and banned,” meaning they are sealed in containers for longer periods. Weapons sent to other locations for repair or transfer must also be properly accounted for.

The loss of firearms is an issue that occasionally occurs in the military. In 2021, the Associated Press conducted an investigation and found that at least 1,900 military firearms were lost or stolen during the 2010s, with some later used in violent crimes within the country.

“Government records covering the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force show pistols, machine guns, shotguns, and automatic assault rifles have vanished from armories, supply warehouses, Navy warships, firing ranges, and other places where they were used, stored, or transported,” reported the AP. “These weapons of war disappeared because of unlocked doors, sleeping troops, a surveillance system that didn’t record, break-ins, and other security lapses that, until now, have not been publicly reported.”

In recent years, there have been several notable instances of missing firearms and machine guns. Last year, an M18 pistol disappeared from a Marine unit at Camp Lejeune. In 2022, an M2 .50 caliber machine gun went missing from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, leading to an Army NCO being charged with stealing machine gun parts and a smoke grenade. Also in 2022, an M240B machine gun went missing from an Army base near Fort Irwin.