Facts RE SIG P320 Issues?

[drop_point]

To add fuel to the fire, if you're a USPSA shooter, you have certainly heard about the P320 X5 Legions exploding. The chamber isn't fully supported and the guns are able to drop the striker without being fully in battery. Many change barrels to decrease the likelihood of this happening. I had one and tested it out, and sure enough, I could get mine to strike a primer out of battery. I sold mine before all this stuff with uncommanded discharges because I knew it was just a matter of time until a reloaded round would have just enough of a bugle to keep it from going fully in battery.

 

[joshb]

The video does it for me! Thanks Aaron! I wouldn’t touch one of those guns!

 

[Infrequent Shooter]

The Sig 250 is a high quality design. DA trigger pull only.

 

[dryhumor]

I’ve had a lot of Sigs through the years. Had an opportunity to buy a 320 maybe 3 years ago, new, and a very good price for the features. Saw the few reports of unintentional discharge, and decided that I’d pass….

Glad I did.

 

[ELR LVR]

Sometimes you have to turn off the "engineer brain" that tells you "this isn't possible" - and realize that things in fact, are happening.

i believe what he is thinking is
As long as you dont rack the pistol first, it cannot fire
(IE: dry fire it to release the preloaded Striker mechanism, then holster it, which is what I'll now be doing)
So I guess moral of the story now is,
Gun safety Rule #1:Treat every firearm as if its a P320

 

[ELR LVR]

All these P320's looks slightly different than the Xten
The inernals are likely the same - I cant say but could be different for a 10mm X-Ten
After watching this guy that got it to go off by wiggling the slide
I am going to experiment with mine and try to replicate this
In fact, now I have to just out of safety's sake
Dang I'm thinking bout all the times I practiced drawing from the holster
I did Decide on the Blackhawk T-Series Level 3 Thumb release for carry if that makes any difference compared to
the trigger finger style release of the Serpa Holsters
I noticed all the cops that had them go off had the Serpa or Serpa trigger finger style release
I am wondering if that Style of Holster contributes to the problem with where it engages the trigger guard lock to hold the pistol in.
I'm even going to get aggressive with it and slam it against the doorjamb to replicate someone trying to take it from my cold dead hands
-------------------------------------------
Will report back

 

[Thauglor]

I'm a RSO at a military base range that rents many guns. The M-17 is one that sees a lot of use with many thousands of rounds put through them by sometimes inexperienced shooters. These guns don't see the care we would for our personal weapons. Never seen an AD and can't remember any type of malfunction. The 320 is striker fired and can't fire without the trigger pulled. With the gun at rest the striker is blocked and its spring is unloaded to a point it doesn't have enough energy to fire a round. Whoever started these rumors must not know much about the mechanics of the gun.

Here is where you are actually 100% completely wrong, the whole point of the p320 was that you dont cock the spring any on a trigger pull. It does in fact have enough energy to fire a round just sitting there. That is the whole selling point. It is also the reason glocks and other striker fired pistols have a heavier trigger pull, you are actually cocking the hammer spring. Not so in the p320.

You don't even know the gun you have but are raving about its safety

 

[kyotekiller25]

This is the best video I have seen on the matter. He was able to make his go off all the time. It's a 40 min video, but we'll worth the watch.

 

[kyotekiller25]

I'm a RSO at a military base range that rents many guns. The M-17 is one that sees a lot of use with many thousands of rounds put through them by sometimes inexperienced shooters. These guns don't see the care we would for our personal weapons. Never seen an AD and can't remember any type of malfunction. The 320 is striker fired and can't fire without the trigger pulled. With the gun at rest the striker is blocked and its spring is unloaded to a point it doesn't have enough energy to fire a round. Whoever started these rumors must not know much about the mechanics of the gun.

Have you watched any of the videos where they've gotten them to go off on command? Kinda disproves your theory...

 

[muleystalker]

All these P320's looks slightly different than the Xten
The inernals are likely the same - I cant say but could be different for a 10mm X-Ten
After watching this guy that got it to go off by wiggling the slide
I am going to experiment with mine and try to replicate this
In fact, now I have to just out of safety's sake
Dang I'm thinking bout all the times I practiced drawing from the holster
I did Decide on the Blackhawk T-Series Level 3 Thumb release for carry if that makes any difference compared to
the trigger finger style release of the Serpa Holsters
I noticed all the cops that had them go off had the Serpa or Serpa trigger finger style release
I am wondering if that Style of Holster contributes to the problem with where it engages the trigger guard lock to hold the pistol in.
I'm even going to get aggressive with it and slam it against the doorjamb to replicate someone trying to take it from my cold dead hands
-------------------------------------------
Will report back

If I remember correctly the Airman that just died was using a service issue Blackhawk holster.

 

[ELR LVR]

If I remember correctly the Airman that just died was using a service issue Blackhawk holster.

I wonder if all this is slide wear over time, or slide fit and the slide getting loooser on the rails
This would make a lot of sense if the rear could tip up enough to allow the striker to release
Might be why mine hasn't done it yet
-------------
The answer would be to use the 220/227 SA/DA trigger and hammer and decocker
Now that would make a Sweet Safe Pistol for the P320

 

[muleystalker]

 

[ELR LVR]

 

[AccelR8]

I have taken the time to study this issue as much as possible, watching and reading everything available and a couple things become evident. One, there are things being stated by people with self-righteous confidence, assertion and apparent certainty and they are absolutely incorrect. These people don't know what they're talking about and yet they get others, who also don't know, to believe the “expert's” false information. This is not how problems get solved.

The other thing is I see people say Sig is the absolute worst, evil, despicable and deserves doom and damnation because they sell an unsafe pistol. Then the same guy will turn around a say, I couldn't trust mine to be safe so I sold it!

This debacle is bringing out the some of the worst of human nature, proudly displayed for all to see via the internet!

If I were to have a profile pic here it would be the surprised-monkey-face these guys make in their videos.

Here's where I stand; I've had a P320since they were first released. I have carried it nearly every day for almost 11 years without trouble. I like it, a lot. But there definitely is an issue with safety as evidenced by all these incidents. The solution for me is an easy one. Since I have other pistols I like equally as well, the P320 hasn't been out of the safe for months now and it's duties have been taken over by a Beretta 92 or sometimes a Beretta 84. Same as before I got the P320.

I thought I would never buy any striker fired pistol but kind of succumbed to the “The Future Is Now Old Man” way of thinking and thought, hey this one doesn't have horrible ergonomics and a trigger like a staple gun. Live and learn I guess. Should have trusted my instincts. If I think it's not safe I'll just take my licks to the tune of what I paid for it 11 years ago, and not sell it to some unsuspecting poor soul who maybe just wants a gun for protection but is not an enthusiast.

 

[nicholst55]

From my research, it seems that there are a couple of things going on here: 1) a flawed design, 2) poor or nonexistent quality control on offshore sourced parts (India), and 3) a CEO who has a history of cutting corners and cheapening things up to show a larger profit margin. Ron Cohen is flipping the bird to everyone concerned about the safety of the P320-series. He's essentially saying that it's completely impossible for this pistol to fire without the trigger being pulled. As we've seen, it most definitely IS possible. Cohen was CEO of Kimber after they moved to New York. He is the one who got them to build their 1911s, and he introduced MIM parts to the industry. At that time, MIM parts were held in low esteem; they tended to be very poor quality, and fail quickly. After Cohen gave Kimber a bad rep, he moved to Sig. Their legacy pistols (the P200s) were a dated design, and he wanted to introduce a polymer frame pistol to compete with Glock. Eventually the P320 was born. Cohen is sourcing the Fire Control Unit parts for the P320 from India. It appears that the manufacturer there has zero QC checks in place. There are reports of pistols ordered on police contracts that wouldn't even fire on delivery, because the FCU parts were not finish machined to final spec. Well, the genie is out of the bottle, and I honestly don't see how Cohen and Sig USA can survive this debacle.

 

[46and2]

All pics if p320 I've seen have the curved trigger not the straight X trigger which all mine have. I can not make mine discharge the way I've seen in videos.

Can anyone find one that accidentally discharges with the straight blade X trigger??

 

[David Milisock]

So our Glocks have a internal safety that these 320’s don’t?

The Glock stricker requires that the trigger be fully pulled to provide enough energy to fire the primer.

 

[ELR LVR]

All pics if p320 I've seen have the curved trigger not the straight X trigger which all mine have. I can not make mine discharge the way I've seen in videos.

Can anyone find one that accidentally discharges with the straight blade X trigger??

I'm thinking same, The Earlier M-17/M-18 may have had a design flaw
that got corrected later with the X-ten design (Hopefully)
The flat trigger change may have been Sig's own way of being able to distinguish between the two designs

 

[drop_point]

All pics if p320 I've seen have the curved trigger not the straight X trigger which all mine have. I can not make mine discharge the way I've seen in videos.

Can anyone find one that accidentally discharges with the straight blade X trigger??

We don't really know which trigger is in the holstered guns, but one of the first examples (that wasn't on video but was witness) was indeed a straight trigger on an X5. It was a USPSA/Steel Challenge competitor at an event.

 

[drop_point]

I'm thinking same, The Earlier M-17/M-18 may have had a design flaw
that got corrected later with the X-ten design (Hopefully)
The flat trigger change may have been Sig's own way of being able to distinguish between the two designs

The X-Ten is the same design as the other Sigs more or less. Sig has been making rolling changes all through the lifecycle of the P320. I've had four P320s and internally, they were all different. The problems occur between the interface of the sear/safety/lifter arm I believe and it doesn't necessarily occur with any single generation of P320 pistols.