United States Government Accountability Office 

Washington, DC 20548 

 

Decision 

Matter of: Smith & Wesson, Inc. 

File: B-400479 

Date: November 20, 2008 

John G. Stafford, Esq., Richard L. Moorhouse, Esq., and David Goodwin, Esq., 

Greenberg Traurig, LLP, for the protester. 

John F. Renuzzi, Esq., Renuzzi Law Firm, LLP, for Glock, Inc., the intervenor. 

Vera Meza, Esq., and Caridad Ramos, Esq., Department of the Army, for the agency. 

Kenneth Kilgour, Esq., and Christine S. Melody, Esq., Office of the General Counsel, 

GAO, participated in the preparation of the decision. 

DIGEST 

Protest of sole-source solicitation is denied where the record shows that the agency 

complied with statutory requirements by executing a justification and approval 

authorizing the use of other than full and open competition procedures, based on the 

agency’s reasonable conclusion that there is only one responsible source that will 

satisfy the agency’s requirement. 

DECISION 

Smith & Wesson, Inc. of Springfield, Massachusetts protests as unreasonable the 

justification and approval (J&A) offered by the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and 

Armaments Command (TACOM) to support the award of a sole-source contract to 

Glock, Inc. of Smyrna, Georgia under solicitation No. W52H09-08-T-0493 for pistols 

for delivery to Pakistani security forces.1

 

(continued...) 

Comptroller General

of the United States

1

 The original protest challenged TACOM’s intent to award on a sole-source basis, 

under the foreign military sales (FMS) program, contracts for the purchase of Glock 

pistols for security forces in Thailand and Pakistan. The agency stated in its report 

that it was deleting the Thailand requirement and amending the solicitation to reflect 

that the pistols for Pakistan were being procured on a sole-source basis not through 

an FMS but with Department of Defense funds. To that end, the agency submitted 

with its report the J&A that is the subject of this protest. In light of the agency’s 

action, the protester has requested that we recommend payment of its protest costs 

related to this issue. Under our Bid Protest Regulations, 4 C.F.R. § 21.8(e) (2008), we 

may recommend that a protester be reimbursed the costs of filing and pursuing a 
We deny the protest.

This procurement is to supply additional pistols for use by U.S. fighting forces in 

Pakistan, the Pakistan Army, and the Pakistan Army Special Service Group. The 

agency states that the Pakistanis use Glock pistols exclusively, the result of earlier 

direct commercial purchases and follow-on sole-source procurements.

2

 Response to

Comments on the AR at 2. The pistols that are the subject of this protest are 

required for additional scheduled training exercises in early 2009. J&A at 2. 

Although the overriding mandate of the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984 

(CICA), 10 U.S.C. § 2304(a)(1)(A) (2000), is for full and open competition in 

government procurements, obtained through the use of competitive procedures, it

permits noncompetitive acquisitions in certain circumstances. 10 U.S.C. § 2304(c). 

The agency’s J&A cites one of the exceptions to the mandate that competitive 

procedures be used, namely, that there is only one responsible source and no other 

supplies or services will satisfy the agency’s requirements. J&A, citing 10 U.S.C. 

§ 2304(c)(1). The J&A must contain sufficient facts and rationale to support the use 

of the chosen exception. See 10 U.S.C. § 2304(f)(1)(A), (B); Federal Acquisition 

Regulation (FAR) §§ 6.302-1(d)(1), 6.303, 6.304; Marconi Dynamics, Inc., B-252318, 

June 21, 1993, 93-1 CPD ¶ 475 at 5. Our review of the agency’s decision to conduct a 

sole-source procurement focuses on the adequacy of the rationale and conclusions 

set forth in the J&A. When the J&A sets forth a reasonable justification for the 

agency’s actions, we will not object to the award. Global Solutions Network, Inc., 

 

(...continued) 

protest where the contracting agency decides to take corrective action in response 

to the protest. We will make such a recommendation, however, only where the 

agency unduly delayed taking corrective action in the face of a clearly meritorious 

protest. CSL Birmingham Assocs; IRS Partners-Birmingham--Costs, B-251931.4; 

B-251931.5, Aug. 29, 1994, 94-2 CPD ¶ 82 at 3. A protester is not entitled to protest 

costs where, under the facts and circumstances of a given case, the agency has taken 

reasonably prompt corrective action. DuraMed Enters., Inc.--Costs, B-271793.2, Oct. 

4, 1996, 96-2 CPD ¶ 135 at 2. Here, even if TACOM’s actions are regarded as 

corrective action in response to the protest, we do not consider them to be “unduly 

delayed” because they were taken by the due date for the agency report; this is so 

even where, as here, the due date for the agency report was extended. TRS Research 

and Transp. Planning and Servs., Inc.--Costs, B-290122.2, July 25, 2002, 2002 CPD 

¶ 126 at 2. 

2

 The protester disputes the agency’s claim that the Glock is the only pistol currently 

in use by the fighting forces in Pakistan; Smith & Wesson asserts that Pakistani war 

fighters also use one of its own pistols, as well as a Beretta firearm. We need not 

resolve this issue, because the protester does not dispute that the fighting forces use 

the Glock as their primary weapon and, for the reasons discussed below, we find the 

agency’s rationale in support of this weapon standardization reasonable. 

Page 2 B-400479 
B-290107, June 11, 2002, 2002 CPD ¶ 98 at 6; Diversified Tech. and Servs. of Virginia, 

Inc., B-282497, July 19, 1999, 99-2 CPD ¶ 16 at 3. 

We conclude that the rationale advanced by the agency in the J&A--in essence, the 

critical benefits from weapon standardization--is sufficient to support the decision to

procure the Glock pistol on a sole-source basis. Specifically, the agency asserts that

prior wide use of the Glock pistol by the fighting forces mentioned above has created 

“a baseline of standardization of operations and support that is critical to be 

continued.” J&A at 1. Procuring more of the same pistol would lessen the logistical 

burden on the Pakistan Army, the agency states, in part by reducing the effort 

required for spare parts administration; retraining the various forces also would be 

unnecessary if the same pistol were procured. 

In its challenge to the agency’s rationale, the protester points out that the J&A does

not support a conclusion that the Pakistanis cannot effectively defend themselves if

they procure a pistol other than the Glock that they use now. The protester also

maintains that the disassembly and cleaning of the Glock and the proposed Smith &

Wesson firearms are identical; that, given its worldwide popularity, there is no 

shortage of spare parts for the protester’s pistol; and that personnel are typically 

trained to service and repair or replace the parts for many different types of semiautomatic weapons. The protester also asserts that the difference between the 

trigger pulls of the two weapons--the protester’s pistol has a heavier trigger pull and 

a longer trigger travel--are at best minor distinctions that would have no impact on

the war fighting capabilities of the Pakistani forces. 

As an initial matter, to the extent that the protester argues that the J&A is inadequate 

because it does not show that the Glock pistol is indispensable to the forces who 

would use it, its argument is based on a flawed premise. As discussed above, the 

standard is not whether the item being procured is indispensable, or even whether 

the Glock performs better than the selected pistol, but whether the agency has 

offered sufficient facts and rationale to support the decision to procure it on a solesource basis. The protester’s claim that many organizations with armed personnel 

train them on several different firearms is unpersuasive; what is at issue here is the 

level of training received by the Pakistani fighting forces and not, as in one example 

offered by the protester, the training regimen of metropolitan cities in this country. 

There is nothing in the record to suggest that the forces that would be supplied with

a different pistol than the current Glock would easily adapt to a change in firearms. 

It is undisputed that the parties using these weapons do so under extremely 

hazardous and unstable conditions. Under these circumstances, we conclude that

the benefits to the fighting forces cited in the J&A from procuring the same pistol

currently in use, such as avoiding the need for retraining on a different model or the 

Page 3 B-400479 
need to stockpile spare parts for different models, are sufficient to support the 

agency’s decision to procure the pistols on a sole-source basis. 

The protest is denied. 

Gary L. Kepplinger 

General Counsel 

Page 4 B-400479