I'm assuming they're taking advantage of the fact that these models share a design spec with military models, which both have the same flaws. I would assume the only difference is that the military model is full auto.
Edit: apparently not full auto, man we should have just let Glock take the contract when they started manufacturing in the US instead of Sig, their track record is much more sound.
Ah yes, the secret design of pistols which go off at the slightest bump (its a lottery, only 1 in 1,000 chance!)
Revoke contracts, investigate the leadership who accepted the contract, and hold Sig criminally liable given they have internal documents from years ago acknowledging the fact.
It's so weird that SIG didn't just mandate a recall on this issue and dealt with it. So many other gun manufacturers had recalls for less serious issues than this and just dealt with it. How does SIG somehow deal worse with this situation than fucking taurus? This has got to be some kind of fucking ego trip by someone inside, this kind of response just doesn't make any rational sense otherwise.
These comments are hysterical to me. Why yes, every government contract with a company that tries to obscure the truth should be canceled. I don't know what country you live in. We don't do things like that here. You get the government contract because you obscured the truth.
Not clicking on that at work, but, if it's related to the P320, there's no reason that Congress hasn't ordered an investigation into this.
There's a decent chance that the handgun our men and women are issued is a danger. When the M16 had problems early in Vietnam there was an investigation and they found out it was a powder issue in the cartridges. No (good) reason that there's not something similar for this issue here.
And Sig can dig their heels in all they want, but when you've got ranges banning P320s and they're in the bargain bin at the local gun shop, well, the market has spoken. You can't unring that bell. Stop production of the P320, fire the executives, and do what it takes to repair this issue.
It's a slide action handgun... hard to imagine any part of the design deserving "military secrets" protections when the devices themselves are the most widely available side arm in the US. Anyone can measure, 3D scan, weigh or otherwise capture the design to thousandths of an inch. For that matter, there are thousands of metal and gun smiths that could re-manufacture the design.
I could see the argument in the early 1900's, but today that's absolutely ridiculous on its face.
The P320 XTEN was on my shortlist, but I am skeptical of buying any product of theirs in the future. There are too many good brands with similar price points to choose from.
Somewhat related - are military supplies required to give manufacturing design/specifications to the DoD? Some kind of intellectual property escrow should the company ever go out of business, stop making the item, such that the the defense department could recreate the item if required?
Sig's response to this clusterfuck will be studied in PR classes for years to come. They started with a wildly overagressive social media campaign and have generally refused to admit there is a problem, and are banning, suing and generally trying to cover the whole thing up.
Independent testing at the local, state and federal level acknowledge you can fire a P320 without pulling the trigger. Making sure the gun only fires when the trigger is pulled is requirement #1, #2 and #3 for any gun.
Part of the problem is "the market" wanting duty pistols with match/sport triggers. Anyway the p320 is dead and will taint SIG reputation for years to come.
Worth mentioning that there are ~3 companies called Sig with many name changes over the years:
SIG Switzerland, the original who mainly services the Swiss government and domestic market. They created the original P210, SG 550 series, etc
SIG Sauer Germany, the now-defunct company SIG Switzerland created when it bought German firearms company JP Sauer and Sons in order to develop, market, and sell firearms in a legally easier jurisdiction. They are most famous for the P220 series of handguns.
SIG Sauer USA, the New Hampshire based company that was initially created to make importing easier that is now by far the largest and most well known SIG. They created the P250, P320, P365, SG556, MCX series, etc. They are very well
Overall, SIG Switzerland and Germany have very good reputations for making high quality products (Sig Sauer Germany almost won the competition with the P226 to become the M9, they lost because they were more expensive than the Beretta 92, very similar to what happened between Glock and Sig Sauer USA for the M17...), SIG USA on the other hand does not.
The reality is there may be no real mechanical flaw that leads to an uncommanded discharge. So far, no one has been able to produce evidence of anything specific.
However, if they had addressed the drop safety and added a trigger safety from the get-go, chances are even if there IS something, it would be so rare it would fade into the background.
But now the P320 is going to be remembered forever as "that gun that goes off on its own" and it'll be hard to even give them away. And Sig's response to this whole debacle has been terrible. Making the drop safety fix a 'voluntary upgrade' instead of a recall, and now crap like this just makes everyone view Sig in a bad light.
Reputation can be everything for some industries - and for safety especially. (See: Boeing)
Guns, and pistols in particular is a wiiiiiide market with a lot of players. If one reputation goes down the toilet, people will just buy from someone else. They have 0 reason to stick with Sig in particular.
IMO these companies do the bog standard math of (chance of accident * legal cost) vs (cost to recall and repair guns). They don't consider a critical aspect - reputation. Once lost it is very hard to regain and hurts future sales of ALL products, not just this one.
In the military, pistols are carried by people who don't expect to use them. They're carried by MPs, who are cops. Officers, tankers, and flyers carry them, but they're only for emergencies. Those headed into ground combat carry something bigger than a pistol.
Col. David Hackworth was involved in picking the next Army handgun, back in the Beretta era. He remarked that over the history of the M1911A, it had been responsible for more friendly casualties than enemy casualties. They hoped to do better with the Beretta. The main criteria was that it should reliably fire when wanted, and reliably not fire when not wanted. Even with poor maintenance. Accuracy is secondary. Most handgun engagements are in the 3-7 meter range.
> In the military, pistols are carried by people who don't expect to use them.
On the other hand, the units that issue something other than the M17 (special operations groups use Glock 19s, can use suppressed HKs, or presumably even some of the old P226s or 1911s that are still in the inventory) expect to fight with them.
> They hoped to do better with the Beretta. The main criteria was that it should reliably fire when wanted, and reliably not fire when not wanted.
That design was rather a failure in that regard. Great pistols in a lot of ways, it's not difficult to be accurate with them, but there's a slide-mounted safety on it that is easy to accidentally actuate in the heat of the moment when racking the slide. (it's less user friendly than the much older 1911's safety, and weirdly, Beretta will sell you one today with a 1911-style frame mounted safety. I'm not sure when they created that.) When that happens the gun does not fire when the trigger is pulled. Perhaps someone somewhere has estimated how many people died that way over the gun's lifetime.
A modern, striker-fired pistol like a Glock or the M17 is undeniably more reliable when it's dirty, so there's also that.
That Beretta safety was always a bit of a misfeature and the civilian versions of the pistol are available with a simple de-cocker in its place. The safety feature of the Beretta (and of the P226, the pistol the military should have chosen for its standard over the Beretta if we're being honest) which is useful for avoiding accidental discharges is the heavy double-action trigger pull on the first shot.
Just found another guy doing some interesting tests - he compares the amount of trigger pull required in order for input on the slide to cause a discharge across the P320, G19, G26, and CZ P10.
He's ostensibly defending Sig here, but it's obvious that the P10 in particular has a dramatically more robust construction and stands up to this scenario much better.
Obviously all of this comes in the context of nonzero input on the trigger, which is already a violation of basic gun safety. But it's interesting nonetheless.
The state should have no secrets during peace time. Secrets in the state when there's no official declaration of war should be considered corruption and ideally result in formal punishment.
21 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 45.0 ms ] threadEdit: apparently not full auto, man we should have just let Glock take the contract when they started manufacturing in the US instead of Sig, their track record is much more sound.
Revoke contracts, investigate the leadership who accepted the contract, and hold Sig criminally liable given they have internal documents from years ago acknowledging the fact.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOMQOtOQoPk
Handgun design doesn't really get any worse than that.
There's a decent chance that the handgun our men and women are issued is a danger. When the M16 had problems early in Vietnam there was an investigation and they found out it was a powder issue in the cartridges. No (good) reason that there's not something similar for this issue here.
And Sig can dig their heels in all they want, but when you've got ranges banning P320s and they're in the bargain bin at the local gun shop, well, the market has spoken. You can't unring that bell. Stop production of the P320, fire the executives, and do what it takes to repair this issue.
though they should if we weren’t living in a simulation. They’re all culpable.
I could see the argument in the early 1900's, but today that's absolutely ridiculous on its face.
Independent testing at the local, state and federal level acknowledge you can fire a P320 without pulling the trigger. Making sure the gun only fires when the trigger is pulled is requirement #1, #2 and #3 for any gun.
SIG Switzerland, the original who mainly services the Swiss government and domestic market. They created the original P210, SG 550 series, etc
SIG Sauer Germany, the now-defunct company SIG Switzerland created when it bought German firearms company JP Sauer and Sons in order to develop, market, and sell firearms in a legally easier jurisdiction. They are most famous for the P220 series of handguns.
SIG Sauer USA, the New Hampshire based company that was initially created to make importing easier that is now by far the largest and most well known SIG. They created the P250, P320, P365, SG556, MCX series, etc. They are very well
Overall, SIG Switzerland and Germany have very good reputations for making high quality products (Sig Sauer Germany almost won the competition with the P226 to become the M9, they lost because they were more expensive than the Beretta 92, very similar to what happened between Glock and Sig Sauer USA for the M17...), SIG USA on the other hand does not.
The reality is there may be no real mechanical flaw that leads to an uncommanded discharge. So far, no one has been able to produce evidence of anything specific.
However, if they had addressed the drop safety and added a trigger safety from the get-go, chances are even if there IS something, it would be so rare it would fade into the background.
But now the P320 is going to be remembered forever as "that gun that goes off on its own" and it'll be hard to even give them away. And Sig's response to this whole debacle has been terrible. Making the drop safety fix a 'voluntary upgrade' instead of a recall, and now crap like this just makes everyone view Sig in a bad light.
Reputation can be everything for some industries - and for safety especially. (See: Boeing)
Guns, and pistols in particular is a wiiiiiide market with a lot of players. If one reputation goes down the toilet, people will just buy from someone else. They have 0 reason to stick with Sig in particular.
IMO these companies do the bog standard math of (chance of accident * legal cost) vs (cost to recall and repair guns). They don't consider a critical aspect - reputation. Once lost it is very hard to regain and hurts future sales of ALL products, not just this one.
Col. David Hackworth was involved in picking the next Army handgun, back in the Beretta era. He remarked that over the history of the M1911A, it had been responsible for more friendly casualties than enemy casualties. They hoped to do better with the Beretta. The main criteria was that it should reliably fire when wanted, and reliably not fire when not wanted. Even with poor maintenance. Accuracy is secondary. Most handgun engagements are in the 3-7 meter range.
On the other hand, the units that issue something other than the M17 (special operations groups use Glock 19s, can use suppressed HKs, or presumably even some of the old P226s or 1911s that are still in the inventory) expect to fight with them.
> They hoped to do better with the Beretta. The main criteria was that it should reliably fire when wanted, and reliably not fire when not wanted.
That design was rather a failure in that regard. Great pistols in a lot of ways, it's not difficult to be accurate with them, but there's a slide-mounted safety on it that is easy to accidentally actuate in the heat of the moment when racking the slide. (it's less user friendly than the much older 1911's safety, and weirdly, Beretta will sell you one today with a 1911-style frame mounted safety. I'm not sure when they created that.) When that happens the gun does not fire when the trigger is pulled. Perhaps someone somewhere has estimated how many people died that way over the gun's lifetime.
A modern, striker-fired pistol like a Glock or the M17 is undeniably more reliable when it's dirty, so there's also that.
That Beretta safety was always a bit of a misfeature and the civilian versions of the pistol are available with a simple de-cocker in its place. The safety feature of the Beretta (and of the P226, the pistol the military should have chosen for its standard over the Beretta if we're being honest) which is useful for avoiding accidental discharges is the heavy double-action trigger pull on the first shot.
https://www.youtube.com/@Thinkingman615
He's ostensibly defending Sig here, but it's obvious that the P10 in particular has a dramatically more robust construction and stands up to this scenario much better.
Obviously all of this comes in the context of nonzero input on the trigger, which is already a violation of basic gun safety. But it's interesting nonetheless.