-
If you enjoy the forum please consider supporting it by signing up for a NES Membership The benefits pay for the membership many times over.
-
Be sure to enter the NES/Pioneer Valley Arms April Giveaway ***Smith & Wesson SD9VE 9MM***
Sig P320 in the news again?
- Thread starter zork51
- Start date
He also previously (before Sig fixed the problem) said it was impossible for P320s to fire when dropped.
Then he said the out of battery discharges from a too-short disconnector were actually just all bad ammo.
View: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHEnWNiy6iZ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
@Ultrarunner , just another case of the gun community trying to tear a company down. Glocks go off on their own in holsters too, right?
Me, I just don’t care for companies that know their product is faulty (and dangerous in the fault), and not only don’t do anything about it but deny and gaslight.
dcmdon
NES Member
The simple reality is that any firearm that uses a single action system is much easier to induce it to fire if you fail the right combination of parts.
If there isn't any tension or potential energy in the striker or hammer system then it is nearly impossible to induce a modern gun to fire without pulling the trigger.
Modern market conditions where factory triggers are getting better and lighter are necessitating that hammers and strikers are pre-charged during recoil.
Even something like a LCP Max has a hammer 100% pre-cocked when the slide functions.
Compare the trigger of the Max to an original LCP with a completely uncharged hammer and its night and day. The LCP trigger is much heavier and longer.
Glock triggers are only partially charged. If the striker is released at its resting position then the chance the gun will fire is very low.
The Glock marksman trigger is a different story. It's entirely charged in its resting state after the gun has cycled.
Sig's 365 and 320 both fully charge the striker , so they are effectively single action guns. There is a striker with a tensioned spring inside that slide and you are depending on a series of mechanical safeties to hold it in place.
That will never be as safe as a firearm where the striker or hammer is at rest fully forward at the beginning of the trigger stroke, since the energy to fire simply doesn't exist in the system when the trigger isn't being pressed.
If there isn't any tension or potential energy in the striker or hammer system then it is nearly impossible to induce a modern gun to fire without pulling the trigger.
Modern market conditions where factory triggers are getting better and lighter are necessitating that hammers and strikers are pre-charged during recoil.
Even something like a LCP Max has a hammer 100% pre-cocked when the slide functions.
Compare the trigger of the Max to an original LCP with a completely uncharged hammer and its night and day. The LCP trigger is much heavier and longer.
Glock triggers are only partially charged. If the striker is released at its resting position then the chance the gun will fire is very low.
The Glock marksman trigger is a different story. It's entirely charged in its resting state after the gun has cycled.
Sig's 365 and 320 both fully charge the striker , so they are effectively single action guns. There is a striker with a tensioned spring inside that slide and you are depending on a series of mechanical safeties to hold it in place.
That will never be as safe as a firearm where the striker or hammer is at rest fully forward at the beginning of the trigger stroke, since the energy to fire simply doesn't exist in the system when the trigger isn't being pressed.
The other issue is that all of those safeties have a single point of failure - if the dingus that sticks up from the striker ever fails, all of the safeties would be defeated and the fully-cocked striker would set off a round. Once I learned this, I sold my P365 because I don't trust Sig to come forward publicly if they ever have a bad batch of MIM strikers.
I’ve seen plenty of tests where the “partially” charged Glock striker still had enough energy to ignite primers. Sig has other issues.
But yes, double action (hammer or striker) pistols are considerably safer from uncommanded discharges.
That said, virtually all modern pistols are considerably safer from uncommanded discharges than the P320.
Big document dump of an HSI report. Basically one of their Tactical Divisions calling out there Armory Division and claiming they’re in the pocket of Sig and falsified initial HSI testing of the P320. With cited examples of failures (including completely untouched holster pops)
View: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHI73QxOZky
View: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHI73QxOZky
Yeah, the Armory Division of Ice’s Firearms and Tactical Programs group did the testing of the P320 before ICE awarded the contract, the Armory Division claims they did a 60k round test with zero malfunctions! And they are refusing to provide their testing procedures or results with anybody (not even other elements in ICE).
Also one example they provided was an ICE demo at their range on Ft Benning.
The Special Agent holstered his pistol and was raising his arms (already hands off of the pistol) when it discharged and shot him in the foot. There were various firearm instructors and Army Marksmanship Unit members there as witnesses.
But don’t worry, that all happened BEFORE this all ended a few days ago.
Oh yeah, way safer than Glocks for MA consumers.
Gotta love the incident with the Somerville MA detective who got shot by her holstered P320 while she carried things out to her car…. Then the department issued her ANOTHER P320. Daily PTSD.
Dench
NES Member
I remember i did sigs pistol 101 with my wife right when the 320 came out. They were pushing it obnoxiously during the class. I had a G34.
So, at pistol 102 or whatever its called i said f*** it and brought a Glock 17L
![[rofl]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/013.gif "ROFL [rofl]")
Holy shit. It didn’t end. … it continues
Is Sig just messing with us?
View: https://www.instagram.com/p/DHJuG0byui1/
p320truth.com
is there any short synopsis of where the whole story even is?
* Sig released the P320, a rehashed P250
* The P320 was firing when dropped because they refused to put a trigger safety on it like pretty much all other striker fired pistols.
* Sig knew this but said it was safe and tried gaslighting everyone
* Sig eventually admitted it wasn’t drop safe and issued a voluntary recall
* Time passed and more and more people submitted lawsuits for their P320s doing uncommanded discharges (involving holsters, not drops).
* People were skeptical of a problem until videos started popping up of P320s discharging in holsters. There are several public, but we’ll discover later there are more from the DoD and ICE that we don’t have.
* Sig is fighting these lawsuits tooth and nail. Even using lawyers to make some random dude take down a 3D animation of how a P320 functions. Some of these lawsuits are thrown out because the hired experts hadn’t completed broad scientific studies with statistically significant numbers of P320s in a lab (completely impractical).
* Lots of court documents were available showing CT scan pictures of the wiggle room a P320 striker has in the slide, along with pictures of really crappy QC of the striker feet. The strikers are MIM and there was zero machining done to the feet to ensure regular and consistent contact with the sear.
* More instances (with witnesses) start being discussed of holstered uncommanded discharges occurring that aren’t linked to lawsuits
* Then, DoD reports get leaked showing more examples of uncommanded discharges. The Army reports were redacted, but the USAF and USMC blamed the pistols.
* Sig releases a social media post saying “this ends today!” Or some such nonsense and unequivocally says the P320 cannot fire without manipulation of the trigger “this is a fact”, approximately what they said. And they blamed everyone on being anti-2A or social media engagement grifters. They then referenced a select set of court cases in their favor and ignored the ones that found the P320 faulty.
* Major internet backlash and Sig puts a LinkedIn ad out for a new social media person
* Then an ICE report detailing uncommanded discharges is leaked and accuses their procurement people of rubber stamping the tests.
* Sig now posts another thing saying “it continues”, highlighting one court case they seem to have recently won.
Essentially, P320 is designed poorly and when combined with poor QC and stacked tolerances it can lead to uncommanded discharges in holsters. Many lawsuits have occurred, but clearly some of them were unscrupulous and the person actually just had an ND. Now Sig is doubling down against the internet and only highlighting lawsuits they won (some legitimate wins, and some won only because of legal maneuvering).
… I guess that wasn’t too short.
Oooh, and less seriously, but still good to know is the P320’s disconnector is too short and so out of battery discharges are possible and the chamber isn’t fully supported which leads to spicy blow-outs of extractors and frames if a round is a little too hot or the brass is weak (but would be fine in most other pistols).
Last edited:
Yeah, the P320 manual safety doesn’t block the striker at all. Only the trigger. So it does eliminate the notion of “oh, something just got caught in the holster”. While that’s a legitimate consideration for large opening holsters like Safariland, there have also been people with tight holsters designed for no weapon light.
Apparently.
So there has been a lot of discussion about the about the striker.
But one thing I’ve been thinking about is the FCU rails. They are not milled, but rather bent sheet metal. Looking at various P320s, it seems there is some variation in how much the rails are bent down, obviously there are limits to the degree because they still need to fit the slide. But the slide rails have extra vertical space in them so there is some room for variation. I wonder if the less bent FCU rails lead to a higher slide and greater chance of poor striker foot/sear connection.
But one thing I’ve been thinking about is the FCU rails. They are not milled, but rather bent sheet metal. Looking at various P320s, it seems there is some variation in how much the rails are bent down, obviously there are limits to the degree because they still need to fit the slide. But the slide rails have extra vertical space in them so there is some room for variation. I wonder if the less bent FCU rails lead to a higher slide and greater chance of poor striker foot/sear connection.
