Good day all. I’m going to write about something I usually don’t talk much about, other then my unconditional support for the 2nd Amendment. It’s about firearms. In this case, I’m going to talk about the Sig Sauer P320 and it’s military equivalents, the M17/M18.
First, the Due Diligence. I do not and never have owned a Sig P320. I do own several other Sig products, not to be named anywhere. I am not a gunsmith/armorer nor am I a lawyer. Undoubtedly I will make mistakes. Please feel free to correct me in the comments.
Now to the Sig Sauer P320. This pistol was originally put together for the United States Military to replace the Beretta M9 pistol, which replaced the good old reliable, M1911 .45. There were a number of reasons for this, and I’ll let others better informed go into that history.
The P320 is a striker fired, 9mm pistol that, among other things, is designed to be modular. The actual “Gun,” the part that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, (ATF), considers to be a firearm is the trigger group, also known as the Fire Control Group or FCU. This is the part that has the serial number on it.
It was designed so that the FCU could be put into different grip modules with different length barrels and slides. Basically you could have the FCU and different grip modules and barrels and go from a full sized pistol to a compact, easily concealed pistol. This is far simpler and cheaper then buying different guns for different circumstances.
When Sig Sauer won the contract to replace the M9/Beretta 92 pistols, people started looking at buying the civilian version. I personally did look at them, but decided it wasn’t for me. It appears I made a good decision. Shortly after the P320 went on the market, reports began coming in that if you dropped a P320, it would go off.
Sig’s response was “No, this can’t happen, it’s user error.” The general response to this was “Hold my beer and watch this!” In fairly short order, people were able to take a standard, unmodified P320 and drop it at a certain angle and BANG!, it went off. Of course, they were using blanks or just primer caps, not live ammo. (Unlike the actual reported incidents)
Sig Sauer finally came up with a “Voluntary” program where P320 owners could send in their pistols for an upgrade. However, Sig still doesn’t admit there was a design problem. Most people thought that this was just an easy to correct teething issue. Then people started saying their P320’s were going off just sitting in the holsters.
Sig Sauer again refused to consider there was an issue and again blamed the users. Then videos started being posted, usually from police bodycams or security cameras where you could clearly see the user had their P320 holster and their hands nowhere near the firearm and in some cases, with their hand occupied carrying other items.
Then came the worst case scenario. Up until last week, there had been people injured by uncommanded discharges but no one had been killed. Then news came out that a service member in the United States Airforce had taken his holstered M17/18 off and put it on his desk. The gun went off with the round striking the airman in the chest. The wound proved fatal and he passed away.
That tragedy has set off the current remarks and investigations. First, the USAF has pulled the M17/18’s from service pending a full review. This is on top of a number of police departments and Federal Law Enforcement agencies also pulling the P320 from service. Then you have Sig Sauer’s general response to the reports of uncommanded discharges. (The gun going off with no action by the user) Initially, prior to the recent tragedy with the Airman, Sig Sauer’s general response was essentially attacking anyone who reported incidents and blaming everything on user error.
After the death of the Airman and the withdrawal from service of the USAF M17/18’s, Sig Sauer changed their tune a bit stating that they were happy to work with government officials to determine the cause of the accident. Then came “The Video.”
The video I’m referring to is by a guntuber called Wyoming Gun Project. He took a Sig P320 and demonstrated that with a very light pressure on the trigger, not even hitting what is called “The Wall” (The point where the trigger pull increases as you pull the trigger back), and just by twisting the slide slightly, would cause the P320 to fire. Here is the video. It’s a good 40 minutes due to the detail the creator put into it.
One of the things you will see and that the Sig “Fan Boys” will comment on is the screw that was put into the trigger. This was simply put into place to move the trigger back about a millimeter. This can happen in a holster if some debris gets into the pistol. There is another video from Digital Armory where he replicated the issue and believes he’s identified the issue. He stated that he believes that there are two to three internal parts that need to be redesigned.
These are just two of the videos out there. I’ll let you decide on their accuracy. What I do know is that a lot of Sig Sauer P320 owners are “Retiring” their pistols. They are being put away, unloaded and won’t be used unless or until Sig fixes the apparent problem. There are also reports that gun ranges are banning Sig P320 from their businesses due to the apparent safety defect.
Now to reiterate, I do not and have never owned a Sig Sauer P320. I have never fired one. I am certainly no expert on the inner workings of the Sig Sauer P320 operating system. However, there is so much “Smoke” out there that there has to be a fire somewhere. I also think that Sig Sauer, the United States division, has not handled this well. If it’s finally proven that there is an actual design defect, the lawyers are going to hammer the company.
Now some will say that there is a law that prevents lawsuits against gun companies. Yes, there is and it was recently used to shut down a case brought by Mexico against gun companies. However, this law is designed to prevent what are called “Nuisance suits.” These are brought by people blaming the company for the misuse of their products by criminals. This law does NOT protect a company if their product is defective in some way.
If it is shown that the Sig Sauer P320 and it’s military variants, the M17 and M18 are defective, and worse, (For Sig Sauer), the company was aware in some way that there was an issue, Sig is finished. Right off the bat, they can kiss their government contracts for the P320 and the new M7 rifle goodbye. (I’ve heard there are some serious issues with the new rifle. I’ll let others better informed talk about those) They may even lose the contract for the new M250 belt fed machine gun.
I don’t know how Sig Sauer climbs out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves. I have little doubt that there is a lot of panic in the “C Suites” in the Sig Sauer corporate offices over all this. Depending on how things proceed, I won’t be at all surprised if there is some major turnover at the highest levels of the company. All I can say is, keep informed, remember the Four Rules of Firearm Safety, and don’t be an Alec Baldwin.
Thatisall
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