Sig Sauer citing national security to keep documents from public

281 pointsposted 20 hours ago
by eoskx
(practicalshootinginsights.com)

246 Comments

lenerdenator

18 hours ago

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.

shepardrtc

18 hours ago

A few notes:

- Sig has known about it for years[1]

- A company recently filed a patent for a fix[2] and they offered Sig the rights to it before filing, but Sig refused.

- The Air Force has cleared the 320 for use[3]. In my pessimistic opinion, they probably determined the cost to procure new weapons would exceed the cost to replace lost airmen.

[1] https://smokinggun.org/court-records-reveal-sig-sauer-knew-o...

[2] https://www.wearethemighty.com/military-news/patent-says-the...

[3] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/08/25/m18s-cleared-...

WillPostForFood

17 hours ago

They didn't just clear the gun for use, they arrested the airmen who shot the guy and lied about it. It totally changes the framing of what happened.

In a Friday statement, a Department of the Air Force spokesperson said that the unidentified arrested person is accused of making a false official statement, obstruction of justice and involuntary manslaughter.

In this case, the whole "it want off by itself" claim was a lie.

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/08/08...

runjake

17 hours ago

> In this case, the whole "it want off by itself" claim was a lie.

I think we need to await the facts of the case and the judgement. The only public information I've seen strikes me as unusual.

The accused airman is being charged with involuntary manslaughter, which coupled with the extensive issues with the P320 brings up more questions than it answers.

I could come up with my own conjecture based on that information, but there's enough people doing that already.

The fact remains that the P320 malfunctions. There's been countless documented cases, and numerous recorded demonstrations of the issue on YouTube and elsewhere.

dlachausse

16 hours ago

Even if the Airman’s firearm did fire on its own without them pulling the trigger, it begs the question, why was this loaded handgun pointed at anyone that they didn’t intend to kill.

It can be both Sig and this Airman’s fault at the same time.

mothballed

14 hours ago

Try conceal carrying or outside the waistband without ever pointing a loaded handgun at something you don't want to kill. It is pretty much impossible, unless you're using a pretty unusual holster. A waistband holster will pretty much always end up pointing it towards some part of your body at some point, and even a shoulder holster it is pointing at someone else.

Carrying a handgun relies on that rule not being followed and instead the holster preventing anyone from pulling the trigger, but if the gun can go off without a trigger pull all bets are off.

bee_rider

14 hours ago

I’m not a gun guy. I can accept that sometimes a holstered gun ends up pointing at somebody occasionally. And I can accept that a gun might rarely discharge at random for a while, I mean that’s a design flaw but if it is rare enough I guess it will take a while to be recalled, right?

But does it seem a little weird that the two events coincided?

jacquesm

8 hours ago

That goes for every co-incidence. It's called that for a reason and they are always 'a little weird'. I listen to the Electric Light Orchestra, my neighbors light bulb burns out. It is more than 'a little weird'. It is also a coincidence. And it probably happened more than once.

eurleif

6 hours ago

>I can accept that sometimes a holstered gun ends up pointing at somebody occasionally.

It's not occasional. If you carry AIWB (appendix inside the waistband, a common position), it's routinely pointing at your own leg (and other anatomy) as you move around.

It does strike me as a bit odd to hand a holstered gun to someone while pointing it at them -- as a matter of politeness, if nothing else. But there are other incidents where a P320 is said to have discharged into the leg of someone carrying it in a holster.

recursivecaveat

6 hours ago

Keep in mind you would not have heard of it if the story was "gun goes off somewhere in america, no one harmed, desk now has awkward hole". It's like the anthropic principle of news. You would really have to dig into the base rates to know if the coincidence is suspicious.

dlachausse

14 hours ago

Holstered guns shouldn't have a round in the chamber. That's also very negligent.

jakogut

14 hours ago

Carrying a chambered gun in a holster covering the trigger is not negligent. It's how millions of military, law enforcement, and civilians carry on a daily basis.

mdhb

an hour ago

Having one in the chamber IS actually a fucking ridiculous way to carry on a daily basis. That makes sense in a war zone, it makes zero sense walking the streets of any American city.

Source: many years of carrying a weapon in a professional capacity.

runjake

13 hours ago

I won't share my opinions of your statement, but I've seen no information on whether or not there was a round in the chamber at the time of the incident.

Regardless, depending on the situation and specifically in the USAF, you are ordered to either carry with a round in the chamber or not, and you'd damned well follow those orders.

It's beside the point, but I imagine, based on my own first hand experience, that USAF Security Forces typically carry without a round in the chamber, in most situations. I did Weapons Courier duty and I was ordered to carry a round in the chamber and be "locked and loaded" at all times.

wyldberry

12 hours ago

It would be wild news if a firearm was able to discharge without a round in chamber. Even without information, for it to discharge there must be a a round in chamber.

Marine Corps order for MP and armed guard standard is round in chamber, weapon on safe, slide forward, hammer down. It stands to reason that is the standard case for all military LEO.

All that to say, anyone who says you shouldn't have a round in chamber is living in a fantasy world.

int_19h

11 hours ago

> anyone who says you shouldn't have a round in chamber is living in a fantasy world.

That was historically a very common military rule, and AFAIK it's still common worldwide, just not in US.

IDF is particularly famous for having empty chamber as the standard protocol, which is why this is often colloquially known as "Israeli carry". And you can say a lot of things about IDF, but one thing for sure: they have operational experience.

runjake

11 hours ago

USAF SF is probably different (if SOP hasn't changed) because USAF SF gets so little time in training. USAF SF also ironically seem to have the largest numbers of disciplinary issues. Your average Marine, even a non-rifleman, has far better firearms training than a USAF SF airman.

Disclaimer: I was not SF. I was merely surrounded by them in a very high security environment. :-)

mothballed

14 hours ago

That's hilarious.

dlachausse

14 hours ago

I'll admit, that one's just my opinion, since the community is very divided on this and there's no consensus.

I feel that the safety versus response time trade off is worth it for me. It could be from my military background, but for me a negligent discharge is one of the worst things I could possibly do with a firearm. I was also raised to never trust a safety and unload my gun when crossing fence lines while hunting.

mothballed

14 hours ago

Fair enough, I can respect the difference in opinion. A couple notes though on the military or hunters ed training safety that might influence their training

1) The safety mechanisms on say a glock are different than on a lot of military rifles soldiers are trained on. An Ar-15/M16 can go off without pulling the trigger if the firing pin gets stuck in the channel. That won't happen with a glock because the safety physically blocks the primer from being struck. Also in theory a free-floating firing pin could maybe somehow get slammed hard enough or slam an abused primer enough to set off some military rifles.

2) Some hunting shotguns or military rifles aren't drop safe. Modern handguns are.

3) A military rifle or hunting rifle generally has the trigger exposed at all times you are carrying it. A CCW handgun, you are not exposing the gun and trigger unless you are about to shoot someone.

Now I've never served in the military, other than a rag-tag Kurdish militia. What I would imagine the boot sergeant or whatever they are called do, is tells the soldier they will keep the manual safety on or the weapon unchambered and leave it at that, because explaining the intricacies of a striker-fired pistol vs an M16 to a bunch of barely out of highschoolers from Guam who are already exhausted from sleep deprivation and jarring work-outs would not be terribly productive.

avidiax

10 hours ago

> An Ar-15/M16 can go off without pulling the trigger if the firing pin gets stuck in the channel. That won't happen with a glock because the safety physically blocks the primer from being struck.

This is precisely one of the issues with Gen1 Glocks that was remediated. The firing pin safety prevents the firing pin from moving forward unless the gun is in battery and the trigger is partially depressed. It doesn't force the pin to move backwards if it is jammed forward (due to dirt). A pin that's jammed will slam fire the gun when racked.

Always rack in a safe direction.

runjake

15 hours ago

Right. But we don't know any of those details, so it's just conjecture at this point. We shouldn't form opinions based on very limited information.

0xffff2

17 hours ago

IANAL and the article is light on details, but charging involuntary manslaughter seems significant here? If the arrested airman negligently caused the trigger to be pulled with no confounding factors (e.g. poor firearm design or poor holster design), surely that would be regular manslaughter at least?

dragonwriter

16 hours ago

No, criminal negligence or even recklessness would be involuntary manslaughter. “Regular”, voluntary, manslaughter requires intent to kill (but differs from murder in that it does not require malice aforethought). The textbook example is heat-of-passion killing.

devilbunny

15 hours ago

Really? I thought heat-of-passion killing was indeed murder. Whereas voluntary manslaughter is more like when you punch someone in the face and they crack their head on a curb and die. You intended to hurt them, but you had absolutely no intent to kill.

But IANAL, and to the extent I pay attention to the law, that kind of basic criminal law isn't it.

0xffff2

15 hours ago

I linked the UCMJ articles in a sibling comment. I think gp's description is correct for the UCMJ. Part of the problem IMO is that there are ~52 definitions of manslaughter/murder in the US (one for every state, civilian federal law and the UCMJ) so that answer is always highly context specific.

devilbunny

15 hours ago

Thanks. I didn't consider UCMJ.

dghlsakjg

16 hours ago

It depends on jurisdiction, but involuntary manslaughter can just mean that someone died and you didn’t intend to kill them. You can still be negligent (playing with a loaded gun) and have it be involuntary.

shepardrtc

17 hours ago

Right, but that doesn't address the issues that all 320's have. In that case, the airman lied, but the guns still have those issues.

jibe

17 hours ago

You are begging the question, in the classic meaning of the phrase. What issue specifically? I haven't seen a claim yet that ultimately didn't boil down to: "and the trigger was pulled".

Maybe the issue is that the 320 is too close to a competition trigger, and it isn't appropriate for a duty gun. But the gun has been under a microscope for years now, and no one has shown a design defect that causes the gun to fire by itself.

vmh1928

17 hours ago

The issue is the gun goes off by itself without the trigger being pulled. Remember that all this type of gun has the firing pin under spring tension all the time. The only thing keeping it from firing is a latch mechanism that is supposed to only activate when the trigger is pulled but if the mechanism is defective and too close to the edge the latch can disengage without the trigger being pulled or touched. There are numerous YT videos of this occurring.

jibe

16 hours ago

There is no evidence of this, no reproduction of it firing without the trigger being pulled, and not even a good theory on it. The YouTube videos are involve pulling the trigger far enough to disengage the internal safeties.

buckle8017

15 hours ago

Yes there actually is.

https://youtube.com/shorts/cOUfurKIjnI

jibe

14 hours ago

I 100% agree it is concerning, but in this video you can't see whether the trigger is pulled or not. Holstering the gun creates a risk of the trigger being pulled. The gun goes off while it is being pushed in, which suggests the trigger is catching on something.

If the gun was able to fire by itself, without the trigger being actuated, then someone should make it happen on video. Shake the crap out of it, bang on it. Take it in and out of a clear plastic holster 1000 times until the supposed defect happens.

buckle8017

13 hours ago

This is pure delusion, the p320 is dangerous garbage.

Here, the police officer isn't even touching his holster.

https://youtu.be/V381HkJUXH4

jibe

5 hours ago

It goes off as the holster he bends over and bumps into the officer next to him. The holster is clearly being moved and touched.

Regardless, if there is a defect in that particular gun, they should just demonstrate it. If it isn't the holster, or something in the holster pulling the trigger, make it happen outside the holster.

potato3732842

17 hours ago

A hair trigger is unsuitable for police security use because guns are routinely drawn on people as a threat to exact compliance.

A hair trigger is unsuitable for combat use because of the "errybody be muzzle sweeping errybody up in here" nature of combat.

Those two uses are 99.99% of what the air force needs its pistols to do.

They could give it better tolerances so it has a "good trigger" without "hair trigger" but that will cost a lot of money. Or they could give it an absurd trigger pull like duty guns had in the "good old days" but that will cost just as much money for equivalent results because you'll need to train the force more to get the same accuracy of fire.

Additionally, with the fairly sloppy nature of these guns and the fundamental nature of how handguns work, it's not unforeseeable that they do get clapped out to the point of just going off if you bump the slide right as they age since they're so close to that as is.

Considering how many people need to be trained/equipped and how often the air force fires sidearms in "real" situations both of these solutions are way, way, way more expensive than a few bodies.

jibe

16 hours ago

1: It isn't a hair trigger, it is still a 6 to 6.5 pound pull.

2: The trigger is what it is, the military and police departments chose it for what was.

I agree, the police in particular, should use a gun that takes more effort to fire. But don't blame Sig for this, it isn't a design flaw.

jakogut

15 hours ago

The P320 absolutely has design and manufacturing flaws. The P250 fire control unit was shoehorned into a striker fired pistol when they should've gone back to the drawing board like they did with the P365, which doesn't have these issues.

There are also manufacturing issues with intermingling parts with different geometries intended for different calibers and building guns with the wrong parts, such as installing a 10mm Auto/.45 ACP takedown safety level in a 9mm gun, or installing a metal injection molded firing pin safety that's out of spec, worn, or contributes to tolerance stacking in such a way that the gun becomes unsafe.

jibe

13 hours ago

These are all good theories. Someone should demonstrate it if true. When there were drop safe questions, it was able to be reproduced, and there was a change to address it. Show an uncommanded discharge, show why it happened. Then you have a design or manufacturing flaw.

jakogut

9 hours ago

I think the problem is that there's not a single identifiable problem. There's a series of related problems caused by manufacturing and engineering decisions that lead to parts not interoperating as designed.

For example, Sig offered a "voluntary upgrade" to fix the well documented drop safety flaw with the P320, and there's video proof of the same guns going off still in holsters.

Sig is going to be playing whackamole fixing these issues if they ever admit to it, so they won't.

jibe

5 hours ago

I mean demonstrate it on a gun that has had an uncommanded discharge. Make it happen again, and then identify the problem on that specific gun.

As you point out, the drop issue was well documented, and then fixed. So far, no one has identified a cause for the possible uncommanded discharge.

stronglikedan

17 hours ago

This issue: https://smokinggun.org/court-records-reveal-sig-sauer-knew-o...

jibe

16 hours ago

There is nothing in there except a sensational headline. The military asked Sig to come up with every possible theoretical failure mode for the gun, and assess the risk. There is nothing about a specific flaw that would cause the gun to fire uncommanded. The document is being misrepresented here.

lazide

16 hours ago

I’ve seen multiple security videos of P320’s going off in holsters in the field with no plausible way anyone or anything could have pulled the trigger.

pnw

16 hours ago

The police video where two officers are wrestling with a suspect, one officer has a large hanging key fob on the front of his belt which enters the other officers Safariland holster as they wrestle, and pulls the trigger.

The range video where they are standing on the line was allegedly a modified gun with non-Sig upper and trigger.

lazide

13 hours ago

Officer bends down and it goes off?

Officer standing and moves slightly and it goes off, with their hands in front of them? (Eyewitness)

And at least 3 others. There are some good compilation videos out there.

jibe

16 hours ago

I understand what it looks like, but we have the guns from those incidents, and no one has looked at them an pointed to a defect, or reproduced them firing without the trigger being actuated.

A gun in a holster can fire when it is moved and the holster is poorly fit, incorrectly configured, or there anything caught in it like tail of a shirt, drawstring. Also, many police have a flashlight on their pistol, which opens up space quite a bit making it easier for things to get caught inside.

lazide

13 hours ago

The gun the FBI saw from one of the incidents definitely had defects from manufacture. And at least one of the safety devices didn’t work correctly.

user

13 hours ago

[deleted]

sleepybrett

16 hours ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOMQOtOQoPk

jibe

16 hours ago

There is a giant screw jammed in the trigger. That disengages the internal safeties. That's not showing the gun is not safe, that is intentionally making it unsafe. That provides no insight as to whether the gun can fire uncommanded, without moving the trigger, which is the claim.

lenerdenator

14 hours ago

It sort of provides insight.

The argument is that there exists a combination of states and tolerances when a P320 is loaded and cocked that could, theoretically, allow the striker to impact the primer forcefully without a complete and full trigger pull, one where you don't feel the break. This could either be while the finger is on the trigger (maybe a police officer pointing it at someone who has a weapon while commanding them to drop the weapon, for example) or not (in a holster).

Inserting that screw is meant to simulate a tolerance stacking issue wherein the pistol's components don't line up together in such a way as to prevent the striker from slipping past the sear.

Is it wonky? Of course. Could you probably do it with other pistols? Probably. Are there police officers and servicemen/women who need a convenient excuse for their negligent discharges? Yes. Should a real investigation occur? Also yes.

lupusreal

17 hours ago

> In this case, the whole "it want off by itself" claim was a lie.

That's the Air Force's accusation.

albedoa

16 hours ago

> In this case, the whole "it want off by itself" claim was a lie.

This might be true, but nowhere in the article you posted does it say that.

dlachausse

16 hours ago

Even if the gun went off by itself the Airman is still most likely negligent. The first rule of firearms is that you only point it at things you intend to destroy.

jakogut

15 hours ago

I agree and disagree. A holstered pistol is intended to be treated, for all intents and purposes, as deactivated and "on safe" for practicality reasons, even when loaded. Plenty of people carry loaded guns pointed at their bodies daily in holsters, safely at that.

mothballed

14 hours ago

Absolutely no one who carries holster relies on the rule of it not pointing at anyone. Surely they don't disarm every time they go up a second story, separated by the first only by 3/8" bit of plywood and sheetrock.

lazide

16 hours ago

Eh, or that’s a coverup.

As is classifying all the documents about the pistol and its issues.

There is nothing even remotely credibly related to national security about the P320 or issues related to it.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and the military has a very long history of covering up issues with corruptly procured weapons.

lupusreal

15 hours ago

Yes, the US military has been known to throw people under the bus to cover up their own fuck ups.

Just one particularly notorious example of many: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Iowa_turret_explosion

> The first investigation into the explosion, conducted by the U.S. Navy, concluded that one of the gun turret crew members, Clayton Hartwig, who died in the explosion, had deliberately caused it. During the investigation, numerous leaks to the media, later attributed to U.S. Navy officers and investigators, implied that Hartwig and another sailor, Kendall Truitt, had engaged in a romantic relationship and that Hartwig had caused the explosion after their relationship had soured. However, in its report, the U.S. Navy concluded that the evidence did not show that Hartwig was homosexual but that he was suicidal and had caused the explosion with either an electronic or chemical detonator.

mothballed

15 hours ago

The "fix" only works on models with a manual safety and only when the safety is engaged. If you release the safety, like many people tell you (as a matter of subjective opinion) that you should while conceal carrying, it won't do dick. Or even just release the safety because you're going to fire soon but not sure when -- same deal -- same flaw and it could go off without pulling the trigger.

So the fix is as good as commercially useless, although better than nothing, the market is basically the guy who wants to be able to take it to the range and then always have it downrange while the safety is off.

michaelcampbell

18 hours ago

> there's no reason that Congress hasn't ordered an investigation into this

Cynically, there's a very good reason they haven't. Embarrassment, money, entitlement... lots of reasons, actually.

kevin_thibedeau

17 hours ago

We would need a government body whose mission is to act in the people's interest. Maybe someday.

wiml

15 hours ago

We would need a demos that is capable, trained, and willing to select such a government body. Our problem in the US is that we're bad at hiring.

lenerdenator

18 hours ago

Well, I should have specified, there's no good reason for no investigation.

Personally my money's on corruption but I have no proof.

jakogut

17 hours ago

Sig secured contracts for the Modular Handgun System (MHS) competition, with an objectively inferior design compared to every other entry, as well as the Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) program with the Sig MCX Spear firing an objectively worse proprietary cartridge with higher pressure (lower parts lifespan), more recoil and weight, and less capacity. This design takes the firepower and weight of light arms design back to the sixties when battle rifles were still issued. We've forgotten what we already learned decades ago, standardized intermediate cartridges have a plethora of benefits in combat and logistics.

Sig also won contracts for suppressors, optics, and probably more I'm unaware of or can't remember. Unit cost of the M7 is several times higher than the M4, it's heavier, has more recoil, carries less ammo, and the cartridge it fires is still stopped by commonly available body armor that's manufactured today.

Corruption is obvious in my mind, it's shocking Congress seems either oblivious or so complacent.

SauciestGNU

17 hours ago

The intermediate cartridge doctrine is evolving as a result of improvements in armor. M855A1 5.56 cartridges fired out of a long (20") barrel may have success against modern armor, but slightly larger intermediate cartridges (6 and 6.5mm) are being adopted for supposedly superior performance. That doesn't excuse the weird 6.8 fury cartridge Sig designed around though.

aerostable_slug

17 hours ago

And Sig is responding to .mil requirements, just like the other companies who introduced similar cartridges. It makes no sense to assert they're the ones forcing it on the military. The military asked for it.

The requirements may be goofy, but that's a requirements problem and not a Sig problem.

lenerdenator

9 hours ago

Sometimes the requirements almost seem to be purposefully goofy.

I can sort of see why they went with a completely new cartridge with the XM7; they want a common cartridge between the service rifle and machine-gun, and they want ballistic performance that can defeat certain types of body armor out of a barrel that's short enough to be maneuverable with a suppressor affixed to it. Would 7.62 NATO do that? I don't know. Maybe not.

The one that gets me, though, is the "modular grips" requirement for the competition the P320 ended up winning, with part of the rationale being a better fit for more hand sizes. C'mon. That seems like an interesting idea, but the idea of fitting soldiers for custom grips and keeping them in inventory, just seems far-fetched. Maybe I'm wrong. More importantly, it made the P320 the apparent shoo-in for the competition. It's like someone involved in the process knew someone at Sig and the two devised a requirement that only Sig could reasonably hope to fulfill. Then they undercut Glock on the price, and suddenly a well-regarded service pistol that is proven the world over just isn't good enough for the price, but this completely new design somehow is.

It just stinks of collusion between the military and someone putting in a tender for a contract.

lazide

16 hours ago

And if it turns out that someone in the committee made those requirements almost custom for Sig’s projects, and was either buddies with someone in SIG, or went to work for SIG later? As happens all the time in military procurement?

SauciestGNU

17 hours ago

Fair enough, but goofy they are.

4MOAisgoodenuf

18 hours ago

There's also no good reason that there wasn't standard testing before adopting the P320 to be the M18. Sig undercut Glock on price and the DOD said "eh... good enuf"

bombcar

17 hours ago

If it’s a manufacturing defect as some theorize, then the sample guns could have passed with flying colors, but the later ones have the potential issue.

jakogut

17 hours ago

It's at least partially a design and engineering problem. Sig shoehorned the hammer-fired P250 fire control unit into the P320, which is striker fired. The P250, being hammer fired, uses a fully cocked hammer capable of setting off a primer when dropped, and the P320 (to my understanding) also uses a fully cocked striker, meaning less trigger input is required for firing.

Hammer fired guns are capable of doing this safely because they have a sear geometry that requires moving the hammer back against spring pressure with trigger input a very short distance before the hammer drops. Along with a functioning sear block in case the hammer slips off the sear without trigger input, this makes them very safe.

Basically every other striker fired gun on the market uses a semi-cocked striker with a trigger widget and sear block, which is a copy of Glock's design, and it's quite safe.

Sig deviated from this design without fully proving it out. Their guns don't have trigger widgets, which allows the trigger to move under momentum when dropped, causing repeatable firings. The fully cocked striker design leads to a shorter, crisper pull, but a sear slip leads to uncommanded firings, unlike a semi-cocked design, which doesn't have enough energy to fire a primer.

Combine this with poor control of manufacturing, intermingling of parts designed and intended for different calibers, as well as factories in the US and India with varying levels of quality control and poor spec for parts to begin with (metal injection molding for fire control parts), and safety critical systems like the sear block have been shown to not be 100% reliable. It's a system of cascading failures resulting in a firearm that's unsafe to carry loaded.

kstrauser

16 hours ago

I’m asking out of complete ignorance here, and I’d like to learn. Why don’t these have nearly perfect safety mechanisms? To my naive mind, it seems easy to add a push button that comes between the striker and bullet, or locks the striker in place. Obviously it’s not that trivial or they’d probably have done it. Why is that?

I’ve owned rifles that had safeties that made it impossible to pull the trigger. Don’t these?

int_19h

11 hours ago

If you're asking why there's no manual safety, it's because the modern doctrine for handguns says that it is unnecessary, on the basis that the handgun should either be secure in the holster or - if drawn - ready to fire. A properly secure holster prevents trigger from being pulled even accidentally, so if the gun is impossible to fire at all without pulling the trigger (as e.g. the Glock design achieves for striker-fired guns), the holster is deemed sufficient, and manual safety is considered a misfeature that doesn't add safety but makes deploying the gun more error-prone.

FWIW this isn't even a new take. Many popular DA/SA guns cannot be put on safe at all when they're not cocked, even though they can be fired through double action - logic here being the same, between heavy trigger pull and hammer block it just cannot fire without a trigger pull.

That said I personally don't agree with this analysis. Or, more accurately, I believe that the increased risk from not being able to use the gun when it's needed is not properly balanced against the increased risk from making the gun easier to fire, especially in applications where handgun is not the primary weapon (which is almost always the case for the military).

jakogut

16 hours ago

I glossed over parts of this mechanism above, but partially pre-cocked strikers require the trigger bar to pull the striker back more before the trigger bar drops down, releasing the striker. The amount the striker is pre-cocked is not enough to ignite a primer, and the act of pulling the striker back against spring pressure mimics the sear geometry of a hammer fired gun.

Fully cocked strikers are ready to ignite a primer if the striker drops. I don't know of another design like Sig's that has a fully cocked striker, which is not to say there isn't one, or that they're all unsafe.

The P320 in particular suffers from compromises shoehorning a fire control unit designed for one gun into another.

Combined with poor manufacturing techniques, tolerance stacking, part mixing, and poor QA, the striker block, which is the last safety intended to block the striker without an explicit trigger pull, can become ineffective.

To answer your question, there's no mechanical reason a handgun cannot be designed an manufactured to not fire without explicit mechanical input from the user. Indeed almost every commercially produced handgun on the market fits this requirement. A combination of failures on Sig's part has allowed this to happen.

bombcar

16 hours ago

As mentioned it is possible to make double or even triple safe (or more).

But some of the types of safeties increase the change you won’t have it on (because time to disengage the safety is too long/complicated) or that they will introduce additional failure modes.

For some missions, “unsafe” is better than “too safe” - think one step from gun drawn, finger on the trigger.

This is one of the reasons Glocks are so popular, as the trigger safety is really “easy” to disengage as it’s the same as the mechanism you use to fire.

But it doesn’t protect YOU from being a dumbass. Safeties that do that are dangerous in another way.

4MOAisgoodenuf

17 hours ago

There were no standard trials for the M18 so Sig didn't even need magical sample guns.

tracker1

17 hours ago

There was a lot of standard testing, very controlled for that matter... it just didn't include drops at an angle that seem to allow for unintended discharge... If I were to guess, Sig is well aware of that angle at this point.

nosignono

16 hours ago

Curious, what makes that not safe for work? It's a discussion about a handgun manufacturing error, and the manufacturer's failure to respond adequately to it.

aerostable_slug

16 hours ago

They might have very zealous web filters. Something like Websense would categorize that site as "Weapons" related and visiting the site, even if not blocked, would result in a scoring change to the user's profile.

I don't blame them for playing it safe. I've personally had to help Bay Area HR types understand that looking at "weapons" sites by itself was probably okay when the company we worked for had thousands of employees across California and at least some percentage of them hunted, went target shooting, etc.

smithkl42

14 hours ago

I'm the CTO at my company, and I had to convince my own IT guys that they needed to remove our firewall's weapons-related filters.

seanw444

15 hours ago

We really do live in a lame version of a cyberpunk dystopia, don't we.

martin-t

13 hours ago

Weapons are for hunting, target shooting and killing people.

These HR types (and many in the general population) need to understand that there's nothing wrong with the third point. Aside from the obvious case of self defense, people can only protect their freedom as long as they have equally powerful tools a those trying to oppress them.

Democracy can only work with the ability to kill evenly distributed.

There's a reason all dictatorships have strict gun control laws.

ubunthree

17 hours ago

Not powder but many other failures in a particular model of the Vietnam era m16:

https://www.pewpewtactical.com/m16-vietnam-failure/

(I own an ar15 and an ak47 and it is like comparing Microsoft’s MFC to a shell script. The former is all bloat and high tolerances and the latter gets the job done with fewer moving parts.)

4MOAisgoodenuf

16 hours ago

Both guns have a bolt carrier, rotating bolt, and similar amounts of fire control group components. Both need to be headspaced within a spec of a few thousandths of an inch.

The biggest difference is about 20 years of industrial development (moving from stamped/milled steel to aluminum)

user

16 hours ago

[deleted]

eoskx

18 hours ago

Despite the name of the website, it is focused on journalistic aspects of the firearms industry, but point taken.

user

17 hours ago

[deleted]

anikom15

17 hours ago

A literal definition of commenting without reading the article

jeffwask

17 hours ago

It's easy. The people in charge now care more about Sig's profits than the dead and injured soldiers who they see as losers and suckers.

Hasz

16 hours ago

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.

jjani

15 hours ago

> Making sure the gun only fires when the trigger is pulled is requirement #1, #2 and #3 for any gun.

If this isn't satisfied you haven't made a gun, you've made a really shitty grenade.

buildbot

15 hours ago

More like just a bad, open ended pipe bomb! A grenade is supposed to be more safe than this gun too!

2OEH8eoCRo0

13 hours ago

Grenades have three manual safeties: thumb clip, pin, and spoon.

slongfield

12 hours ago

Only going off when you want it to actually happens to also be requirements #1, #2, and #3 for grenades

pclmulqdq

14 hours ago

This is not the first time there has been a gun that is known to go off uncommanded. It happens more often than you think. The thing that made this situation unique is the PR response, which has completely killed Sig's reputation in the opinion of many people.

int_19h

11 hours ago

SIG USA didn't have much of a reputation to begin with, to be honest. Some of us still remember the SIG 556R debacle, and that wasn't the first time they shipped a broken gun either.

The only real surprise here is that they managed to sell this broken gun to the US government, despite Glock of all things being in the running. And that it took so long for the issue to even register.

Tadpole9181

12 hours ago

I largely plan for misfires and accidents when handling a firearm. It happens, though not usually from mechanical failure. But to know the company is so acticely malicious and shady makes me never want to purchase another gun from them again.

illusive4080

9 hours ago

I’m a huge Sig fan, I think they build a quality firearm. But I am not so blind to see they’ve made an insane mistake here. Recalling all P320s would’ve been better than this disaster.

martin-t

14 hours ago

And you know what? I still doubt they're gonna face any serious penalties, both to the company and to the execs.

We need laws to actually protect normal working people, not corporations and execs. Trying to silence people with lawsuits should be punished according to the severity of what they're trying to hide.

Since their shitty gun literally kills people randomly, this harassment campaign should be treated as cover up for murder and punished accordingly.

jedmeyers

13 hours ago

> I still doubt they're gonna face any serious penalties

Having to fix all P320 fire control units they've sold so far will put them out of business. You don't even need any additional penalties on top of that. I just hope they can spin off Optics division before that happens.

martin-t

13 hours ago

And that's why it won't happen. One of the reasons huge companies don't get punished in full is that destroying them could be destabilizing to the economy and therefore hurt's the ability of the people with power to get reelected.

mothballed

13 hours ago

Wouldn't someone buy their capital equipment and IP for pennies on the dollar if they went bankrupt though? So I don't know how much it would destabilize the economy, it would just shift around who runs the company. 'Sig' would cease to exist but 'this mass of capital that makes guns' and possibly even the employees, would still be around.

martin-t

12 hours ago

In theory, yes. My guess is they would be bought by an already huge corporation, leading to even bigger monopolies.

Does anybody here have an example of this happening? "Nobody knows" is kind of an indication how often this happens.

My preferred alternative would be forced conversion to worker owned cooperative BTW.

tracker1

17 hours ago

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.

some_random

12 hours ago

No, you see the novel genius of their slapdash hammer to striker conversion has to remain a secret in case the CIA ever gets a chance to poison an adversary nation's design process with it /s

CodeWriter23

16 hours ago

If there's a known vulnerability (which is the case to the best of my knowledge) that can be exploited by an enemy to bring harm to American forces, that would be the very nature of protected National Security Information.

tgsovlerkhgsel

16 hours ago

This is a weakness that can cause accidents, not some kind of remote exploit that would magically let an adversary make guns go off.

The only "national security issue" is that it's embarrassing.

kstrauser

16 hours ago

I disagree, for the same reasons I support open vulnerability disclosures. Any other military could buy one of these pistols, analyze it, and put the vulnerability on Wikipedia or similar. These aren’t rare or hard to acquire.

otterley

16 hours ago

Perhaps so, but there is a difference between an enemy independently discovering a weakness and telling them what it is. The first is strategy, the second is treason.

bigyabai

16 hours ago

And when the OEM finds a vulnerability and withholds it, that's just "doing business" here in the states.

tracker1

16 hours ago

Yeah, you push someone over, their side arm might fire. Any such weakness on a side arm is not something widely or likely remotely exploitable.

cosmicgadget

15 hours ago

Unless you have an earthquake machine.

stevemk14ebr

15 hours ago

This is pseudo-intelligence: "can be exploited by an enemy to bring harm to American forces" means nothing when talking about a metal gun. This isn't some computer vulnerable to RCEs or fly by wire bullets.

tracker1

14 hours ago

But what if the "enemy" has AI bullets with recognition and target tracking for the P320, so they can reliably target the gun with a smart bullet in order to have their gun go off and shoot themselves in the leg or something? /sarcasm

I'm with you... the idea that anything to do with a common side arm is worthy of "military secrets" protection is, as I said, absurd.

11101010001100

13 hours ago

By this logic, it will be exploited even without disclosure.

monster_truck

15 hours ago

I'll believe that when they take down the innumberable youtube videos demonstraiting it clearly

martin-t

13 hours ago

Like telekinesis?

This comment is the perfect example of how saying something obviously wrong (or nonsensical) on the internet is the best way to get people to respond (of which I am now guilty myself).

The (reasonable) GP comment has 1 reply and the (unreasonable) parent comment has 5 already.

A_D_E_P_T

18 hours ago

I don't like linking to YouTube videos, but this one is a must-see if you're interested in the Sig debacle:

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOMQOtOQoPk

Handgun design doesn't really get any worse than that.

ahmeneeroe-v2

15 hours ago

not clicking that at work but if it's the video I think it is, I'm not sure how it applies to the DoD's M17/18 since those have a frame safety.

some_random

12 hours ago

Oh it's very simple, you have to deactivate the safety to pull the trigger, which is what everyone decided to freak out about apparently.

some_random

13 hours ago

I'm sorry but no, that video is absolutely terrible and honestly pretty embarrassing. Pulling the trigger causes the gun to fire, that's the entire point, and when the sear is in the frame and striker in the slide, wiggling the two will cause a change in sear engagement.

4MOAisgoodenuf

18 hours ago

This particular video doesn't quite show anything out of the ordinary. If you pull the trigger past the wall then force it into firing with sympathetic movement of different parts of the pistol.

The P320 has had many reported issues but having it go off when you pull the trigger is actually intended behavior.

More information available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1KoSBcn2bY

A_D_E_P_T

18 hours ago

I disagree. The comment below the video actually gets it right, emphasis added:

> "The shear amount of movement in the trigger it takes on the Glock PLUS the fact the trigger safety has to depressed lends it self to make this scenario extremely extremely unlikely to happen from jostling. Which is the exact opposite for the 320. Tiny amount of movement needed, way more slop in the gun as a whole and no trigger safety all lends itself to be way more likely to happen from jostling. Thats the argument."

WillPostForFood

18 hours ago

way more likely to happen from jostling. Thats the argument.

The above claim is most likely true: it is easy to pull the trigger accidentally on the Sig. But that isn't the argument. People are claiming it will fire uncommanded.

The video is misleading because he is partially pulling the trigger, which deactivates the internal safety mechanisms.

It is the clickbait equivalent of a video claiming Rust is not memory safe, that starts by showing a Rust program running and causing a BSOD. Then deep in the video, what they show is he wrote a bunch of explicit unsafe code.

kryogen1c

18 hours ago

> The video is misleading because he is partially pulling the trigger, which deactivates the internal safety mechanisms.

While true that it is misleading, i still think it's fundamentally correct. You do not expect your firearm to discharge if someone bumps you while the trigger has the slack taken out.

4MOAisgoodenuf

17 hours ago

Pulling the trigger deactivates the firing-pin safety and drop-safety on a Glock as well. And by the time you have pulled the trigger to the wall you've already disabled the trigger-blade safety.

This holds true on basically every modern handgun that has such a mechanism (striker or hammer-fired).

The Sig P320 probably has more issues than the originally discovered drop-safety deficiencies, and Sig US has been very quick to deny-deny-deny. But firing when you pull the trigger is not an issue.

beAbU

16 hours ago

Glocks require such an astronomically large trigger pull to disable the safety that there cannot be any doubt that the trigger was intentionally pulled with the intention of making it fire.

The glock that I used to compete regularly with basically felt like a double action revolver.

4MOAisgoodenuf

16 hours ago

OEM trigger pull weight on most all Glocks is about 5.5lbs (the G34 has a different connector and gets down to about 4.5lbs)

That is fairly average across the market for other handguns.

Unless you were shooting a Glock with one of the infamous NYPD 12lb triggers…

beAbU

12 hours ago

Pull weight does not tell the full picture.

The trigger needs to be pulled a certain (very large) distance before disengaging the safety.

Pull weight might be comparable to peer weapons, but the amount of work required to disengage the safety cannot compare.

kryogen1c

16 hours ago

> But firing when you pull the trigger is not an issue.

This is not a fair and accurate phrasing of the problem. Triggers have a breakpoint in the pull at which you expect them to fire. Discharging by touching the slide, even while the trigger is depressed, is not expected or acceptable.

4MOAisgoodenuf

16 hours ago

If you pull the trigger far enough to disengage the drop safety and firing pin safety block, then it is entirely possible to discharge the weapon by applying force to the slide, shaking the weapon, or the like. Pulling the trigger disables the internal safeties that would prevent this.

This is not unique to the P320, Sig, or even striker-fired handguns in general. This could just as easily apply to a CZ-75B. There is no magic that keeps the striker from dropping until the shooter has their heart set on discharging a round.

There is a reason that rule #3 of firearm safety is to not put your finger on the trigger until you're ready to shoot

jMyles

12 hours ago

I think you are being insufficiently charitable / analytical in the face of the demonstration by Wyoming Gun Project. I'm sure everyone agrees with your basic assessment that _any_ input on the trigger is a violation of one of the most fundamental rules of gun safety.

But there's nuance here.

They showed that with <=1mm of trigger pull (far less than the distance of the firing sequence), the weapon can be put into a state where miniscule input on the slide (consistent with typical holster carry) causes a discharge.

I'm not a firearms expert, but I very much doubt that any hammer-fired (and indeed, even the vast majority of striker-fired) weapons can be put into such a state.

Are you aware of any demonstration that shows another modern handgun being put into a state where this same amount of input on the slide can cause an actual discharge, let alone with <=1mm input on the trigger?

4MOAisgoodenuf

9 hours ago

> Are you aware of any demonstration that shows another modern handgun being put into a state where this same amount of input on the slide can cause an actual discharge

Yes actually. see the video I linked above: https://youtu.be/r1KoSBcn2bY?feature=shared

jMyles

8 hours ago

Jeez, that's a great video. Thank you. I stand corrected. I wish he measured the movement on the trigger though; it looked like much more than 1mm.

I wonder: do you know if there's a hammer-fired pistol which can be put into a similar state?

ahmeneeroe-v2

15 hours ago

I can't imagine a realistic scenario where I've taken the slack out of a trigger and don't have the intent to continue pulling through to the break.

Modern military doctrine says that you shouldn't even pull the weapon from the holster if you don't have the intent to fire. Even if you're not quite willing to implement that (eg for LE), you shouldn't be touching/pulling the trigger without an extremely firm intent to fire.

some_random

13 hours ago

Did we watch the same video? He's not taking the slack out he's also pressing though "the wall" lowering sear engagement.

lazide

16 hours ago

The Sig P320 also has another major issue with the trigger failing to properly reset or pull correctly, requiring all sorts of weird (official) modifications.

What do you want to bet this is a variant of some sort of light pressure against the trigger at some point in the past (including even just heavy movement!) causing a stuck trigger, plus these other issues, resulting in an uncommanded discharge ‘randomly’?

The FBI analysis showed truly terrible wear characteristics and quality control for the fire control parts which can’t be helping.

some_random

13 hours ago

So, is your claim that an object in the holster is pulling the trigger causing the discharge? Congratulations, that's SIG's argument and if it was true it would exonerate them.

4MOAisgoodenuf

9 hours ago

That’s not my claim. I don’t really trust Sig’s ass-covering on the numerous reported issues.

But in the case of the demonstration in the Wyoming Gun Project video, it is literally the case that an object is being jammed into the trigger until all internal safeties are disabled, then flex and sympathetic movement is applied until the gun goes off.

There may exist a more damning explanation of what has caused the reported uncommanded discharges but that video isn’t it

4MOAisgoodenuf

18 hours ago

Having owned both a P320 and a Glock and handled multiple, "slop" in the guns out of the box are comparable. They're both mass-produced, polymer frame, striker-fired hand guns, not hand-finished 1911's.

If you put a few thousand rounds through either it will generate slide and frame rail wear. After this, either would have slightly more "slop" between the frame and the slide.

The glock trigger-dingus can make unintended discharges less likely because it requires an object to go into the trigger guard. But the WyomingGunProject video shows someone putting something in the trigger guard, pulling the trigger past the wall with sympathetic movement, then firing the gun. Not the result of "jostling".

This isn't to say there aren't P320's that couldn't fire uncommanded but the WyomingGunProject video is not the proverbial "smoking gun". The exact cause is, at this time, not publicly known.

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2

17 hours ago

I will admit that I am somewhat uncomfortable in how striker-type has become defacto standard pushed in most conversations I had around these. I understand the argument for it, but when it comes to firearms, convenience should not be a priority. A person handling it must be certain that it will perform as expected ( heavens know there is enough variation with plain 1911 ).

some_random

15 hours ago

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.

eoskx

15 hours ago

Please stop repeating this incorrect corporate structure. While there are still 3 entities, they are all now owned by the same German holding corporation, L&O Holdings, which is owned by 2 German individuals. The holding company now includes Sig Sauer USA, Sig Sauer AG (Swiss), and Sig Germany.

I do agree with your assessment of quality between the companies, though.

some_random

15 hours ago

It's unclear to me how much L&O Holdings actually does to bring the two remaining Sigs together (Sig Germany is defunct as of 2020). They do not sell each others products, do development cooperatively, produce cooperatively, etc as far as I've seen. Sig Switzerland issued that foot-in-mouth memo backing the P320, so there's clearly something happening between the two, but I think presenting them as separate is more accurate than claiming they have a close relationship because the same holdco owns them both.

eoskx

15 hours ago

That's not correct. Sig Sauer USA's VP of Engineering Adrian Thomele was originally an Sig Sauer AG employee, who owned a company that was acquired by Sig Sauer AG. There are other examples of engineering management propagating from the German/Swiss entities and sharing IP between one another. Secondly, Sig Swiss AG recently announced that they would be manufacturing the P320. The German entity was shuddered to decrease manufacturing costs and effectively offshore to Sig Sauer USA, who is now also offshoring more manufacturing operations to India. I think there is much less independence than you might think between the entities.

some_random

14 hours ago

Oh interesting, I didn't know that about Adrian or Sig Swiss manufacturing the P320.

eoskx

14 hours ago

Some more history you might find interesting - Thomele & Mayerl designed the FCU and P250 that would ultimately be the foundation for the P320. Thomele then went onto some of the design work for the P365 from my understanding while the P320 was going through trials and having issues. He's been in numerous depositions along with some of the US engineers that report to Thomele now like Sean Toner.

Hilift

14 hours ago

Another interesting history are the dates and models adopted by a US agency. Secret Service switched from the Beretta M9 (made in Maryland at the time) to the P229 in 1998. 20 years later to the Glock 19 and Glock 47 (probably Smyrna, Georgia sourced).

The consumer market in the US no longer trends off government models though. Thin and mini models seem to be more popular, and since most consumers rarely fire their weapon, maintainability and reliability are secondary. The P365 is the most popular in the US at the moment, but it probably has a low duty cycle.

some_random

14 hours ago

Eh, the reality is that the consumer market never trended off government models all that tightly. What you're seeing is the evolution of duty handguns; metal framed hammer fired wonder nines to polymer framed striker fired handguns. When consumers buy the latter they typically buy Glock 19, 17, 20, etc and there's an argument that they're influenced by government procurement decisions but even still the P320 never sold as well as Glock. As for the P365, it's a different category of handgun, a small-ish concealed carry handgun with way better capacity than the previous generation. Springfield Hellcat and Glock 43x are some of the competitors, not the P229. It's also worth mentioning that when the military or cops need a concealed handgun, they very frequently opt for the P365.

As for the P365 having maintenance/reliability/duty cycle issues, beyond the typical SIG beta testing on consumers shit I really haven't seen people having issues with it.

Animats

13 hours ago

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.

int_19h

11 hours ago

Indeed, and if you ask the sergeants they can tell plenty of modern horror stories.

If anything, what the military needs is a hammer-fired DA handgun with a manual safety. Just so that discharging it would take considerable and intentional effort. If I remember correctly, FN FNX was in the running in that competition, and would probably be just the perfect gun for this (it has a combination safety/decocker, and unlike many other similar arrangements you can put it on safe after decocking).

chuckadams

19 hours ago

Fine, seems then that there's pretty good grounds for cancelling every one of Sig's contracts for national security reasons.

Night_Thastus

14 hours ago

It's a frustrating situation.

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.

giancarlostoro

19 hours ago

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.

wl

19 hours ago

Sig's track record was just as sound as Glock's before the P320. The P226 was the Navy SEAL's sidearm of choice for a bit and it nearly became the standard sidearm for the US armed forces in the 1980s, narrowly losing out to the Beretta 92. The P210 is widely considered to be the most accurate service pistol ever created.

4MOAisgoodenuf

18 hours ago

Sig Sauer Inc in Exeter, NH is a completely different company than SIG Sauer AG in Switzerland.

The Swiss Sig's have a sterling reputation. The P226 that entered the XM9 trials (against the Beretta 92) was imported from Switzerland by SAKO.

The US company didn't really start manufacturing until the 90s with the P229 and the Sig Pro series (where they were only tasked with making the plastic frames, not the more intricate lock work).

wl

17 hours ago

If we're talking about Swiss SIGs, that'd be the P210 handgun and to a lesser extent, the SG 510 assault rifle. The P226s were always German SIGs (at least until SIG US got started), the "Montage Suisse" models being assembled in Switzerland from German parts rather than being the product of the Neuhausen factory.

eoskx

18 hours ago

That company structure is no longer quite the case. L&O Holdings (Germany-based holding company controlled by 2 German individuals) owns Sig Sauer USA, Sig Germany, and Sig Sauer AG.

eoskx

19 hours ago

Not even that - the only difference between the Sig M17/M18 handguns that the US Army uses and the consumer P320 is a manual safety. Otherwise, they are indistinguishable.

justin66

18 hours ago

Consumer P320s, and Sig striker-fired pistols more generally, are generally available both with or without manual safeties.

Consumers can buy a civilian version of the M17 that's really difficult to distinguish from the Army's version (the safety's a different color, black instead of brown, or something like that).

lenerdenator

18 hours ago

A manual safety that does not seem to prevent uncommanded discharges. Which is, y'know, part of the point of a safety.

coldbrewed

18 hours ago

Yep, the fact that the safety merely blocks the trigger and doesn't block the striker in case of accidental sear disengagement is horrifying.

jibe

17 hours ago

The M17/M18/P320 has a striker block, and you have to pull the trigger to disengage it.

some_random

13 hours ago

Not really, it doesn't have a firing pin block like every other striker fired handgun, it has a weird sear block thing from a hammer fired handgun because it's a shitty hack job conversion from the P250

jibe

5 hours ago

The P320 does have a firing pin block. There is a lever that physically blocks the striker from moving. When you pull the trigger, the trigger bar lifts the lever, allowing the striker to move if the sear is also disengaged.

None of this is a sear block, or has anything to do directly with the sear. It will prevent the gun from firing if the sear were to fail.

You can see the lever in green in this animation:

https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/uploads/dd_dev/origina...

lazide

13 hours ago

Notably, the FBI found it was entirely possible to disable the striker block without the trigger being pulled. A combination of wear, inadequate design, and loose manufacturing tolerances.

They couldn’t get it to fire uncommanded however, unless they bypassed the trigger.

However, they got the gun because it had gone off uncommanded in the holster - with witnesses - and no hands or anything else near it.

dfc

19 hours ago

Does any service in the world have a standard issue full auto handgun?

avidiax

19 hours ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_pistol

There are many that have adopted machine pistols for various uses, particularly special forces, VIP protection, and for the roles currently filled by PDWs, which means that common troops sometimes were issued them.

bluedino

18 hours ago

Standard issue, probably not. But in use? Maybe sorta

The Glock 18 is a selective-fire variant of the Glock 17, developed at the request of the Austrian counter-terrorist unit EKO Cobra, and as a way to internally test Glock components under high strain conditions.

user

18 hours ago

[deleted]

int_19h

11 hours ago

Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stechkin_automatic_pistol. AFAIK only still used as a PDW by combat pilots, everybody else switched to AKS74U. Based on what I heard from people who had a chance to fire it, the full auto mode is basically pointless, so it just ends up being a larger and heavier PM (ironically, it found some use in that latter role because it also means less recoil).

dylan604

19 hours ago

what would be the point other than to just waste bullets?

Zigurd

18 hours ago

Machine pistols have been sold for the purpose of being personal protection weapons for people who would only be lightly trained on the use of a handgun. Spray and pray is all you're going to get out of the user anyway.

Wickedflickr

18 hours ago

Machine pistols require far MORE training to use compared to a standard pistol. They are downright dangerous to use without proper training, both for the user and the people around them.

calmbonsai

17 hours ago

I don't know where to begin on this other than to say handling a full-auto handgun is far worse for untrained personnel than a semi-auto handgun. It's even a challenge for highly-trained personnel.

Additionally, the very long history of machine pistols would indicate the form-factor is a poor fit for the application of any full-auto fire.

This is the primary reason that personal defense weapons (PDWs) were developed in the first place.

someguydave

18 hours ago

I could see that as being a useful role for a VIP protection team where you might not be able to carry larger guns for whatever reason but still want to designate some team members to suppress a potential attacker

t-3

18 hours ago

Full auto is just going to run through your ammo at the expense of accuracy, reliability, and maintenance time and costs. Nobody is going to be providing covering fire with a fully-auto machine pistol, the ammo capacity just isn't big enough (and then think about cooling and mechanism reliability when putting more than a dozen through a handgun). These things are for raids and assassinations, where collateral damage isn't a big deal but taking out the target is.

lupusreal

17 hours ago

That's nice "just so" theory, but is contradicted by the reality that the US Secret Service has been known to use concealed Uzi's, and presumably similar compact full auto weapons, in bodyguard roles.

someguydave is correct. Compact automatic weapons make sense for highly trained body guards protecting VIPs when discretion is considered important.

int_19h

11 hours ago

Uzi is not a handgun however.

Compact automatic weapons still usually have either a stock (even the smallest Uzis do), or some other way to stabilize the gun while firing - e.g. the sling is used for this purpose with some MP5K variants.

lupusreal

10 hours ago

IMO the most compelling machine pistols are those with small light weight folding stocks, not entirely unlike what what the Uzi had. Machine pistols could only be the optimal weapon if anything bigger wasn't an option, but my main point is that automatic weapons are considered relevant to VIP protection by the trained experts, contrary to the musings of internet commenters.

int_19h

11 hours ago

There are many better guns to fit this exact niche. HK& MP7 or B&T MP9, for example.

TrippyAcidCats

18 hours ago

Bullet volume is very important for suppression. Although the role of suppression usually is filled by a SAW rather than a MP.

dylan604

18 hours ago

So once again, what would be the point for an auto handgun? You just said it's the wrong weapon for suppression. A 17 round mag fired in single rounds in quick succession would keep an opposing foe's head down longer than a 17 round mag in auto fire single trigger pull. Even pulling double tap style firing requires training/practice to keep both bullets accurate or else even that's wasteful

bombcar

17 hours ago

Full-auto anything that isn’t a chaingun is basically a meme anyway, even for rifles and friends.

What is NOT a meme, and is useful, but counts as fully automatic, is three or five round burst mode.

int_19h

11 hours ago

Most gun designs that included N-round burst have eventually abandoned it because full auto with operator in control of burst length turns out to be superior, while at the same time the mechanism needed to force the burst is an extra point of failure and negatively affects trigger pull .

Most recently, it was Russia dropping 2-round burst on AK-12 after experience with it in Ukraine. M4 is another famous historical example.

lupusreal

17 hours ago

I don't think you even know what a "chain gun" is. Where did you get this information from, reddit and video games?

Chainguns are a type of autocannon. Heavy, light and general purpose machine guns, like the M2 Browning, M249 SAW, Maxim, Been Gun, MG3, etc... none of these are chain guns. They aren't even all belt fed, which I guess is what you meant to say because I think that's the videogame midwit lingo. They are nonetheless universally accepted as being very valuable in combat.

dragonwriter

14 hours ago

> Chainguns are a type of autocannon.

AIUI, chainguns are any externally electrically-actuated automatic weapons, including both single-barrelled and rotary designs, some of which are autocannons, and some of which are lighter (machine guns).

But, yeah, it makes more sense if GP intended to refer to belt-fed weapons, not actual chainguns.

t-3

18 hours ago

You can hit your monthly training quota way quicker.

bob1029

18 hours ago

Something like an MP5 is going to be far more ergonomic in situations where one might find this kind of sidearm useful.

dole

15 hours ago

Would also be a lot cooler and reliable than putting anything more than two magazines through an 18C or 93R.

user

18 hours ago

[deleted]

justin66

18 hours ago

> man we should have just let Glock take the contract when they started manufacturing in the US

One of the stated requirements for the updated pistol was a thumb-operated external safety. Glock's never been willing to manufacture a pistol with that feature, so they effectively excluded themselves from the competition.

3eb7988a1663

16 hours ago

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?

gwwolf

16 hours ago

Great question.

It depends. This is something the program office would consider as part of its acquisition strategy, and then this would be part of the competitive bid process and contract negotiations.

There is such a thing as Government Purpose Rights (GPR) that might, for example, allow the government to subcontract with third parties for replacement parts which would enable competition to keep costs down. This is really important because most of the costs in an acquisition come from the long tail of sustainment, not the initial purchase.

For something like the M17/M18, the Army wouldn’t necessarily want or need to buy the complete intellectual property behind the weapon. What they care about is having enough rights to ensure lifecycle support, competition for parts or sustainment contracts, etc. Your example of a company going out of business is a perfect example of where GPR would be relevant.

aerostable_slug

15 hours ago

To add to the other answers, if you're doing research on the subject the search term you want to use is Technical Data Package (a level 3 TDP has sufficient detail to manufacture the item).

lazide

16 hours ago

Typically the design becomes the property of the US Gov’t, and is then licensed out to the original company - or sometimes others - to manufacture for the exact reasons you state.

JodieBenitez

16 hours ago

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.

aerostable_slug

16 hours ago

P320/M17/M18 trigger weight is not the problem. Glocks have roughly similar weights (except for the NYPD horror show), so do S&W, Walthers, and any number of other pistols.

Trying to equipment-ify your way out of a training problem resulted in NYPD equipping its pistols with a trigger so heavy that their already-easy qualification course became a problem for many recruits. Their hit percentage in actual shootings is awful, and that ~12 pound NYPD-spec trigger didn't help it any. They finally saw the error of their ways after making their officers suffer needlessly for years.

https://www.police1.com/patrol-issues/articles/nypd-should-i...

seanw444

14 hours ago

12-pound duty trigger is absolutely wild. I wonder how many cases of collateral injuries there were because of it.

firesteelrain

19 hours ago

Unless the Army is invoking CTI/CUI this will be hard to defend

spacephysics

19 hours ago

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.

souterrain

19 hours ago

Agree. The remedy for this is federal disbarment.

dole

18 hours ago

Absolutely none of this shit is gonna get close to happening.

The recent week long pause in the Air Force seems like some brass made a decision that Sig or DoD forced them to walk back.

skeezyboy

18 hours ago

its funny how we only have a problem when the gun shoots us lol why wasnt one of the universal human rights the right to not being shot?

chrisco255

18 hours ago

Universal human rights only exist so far as men with guns are willing to defend them.

const_cast

13 hours ago

Universal human rights violations only exist so far as men with guns are willing to threaten them.

If we had to choose a world with guns or a world without, then a world without is the obvious choice. Its the SUV problem. SUVs are safe! From what? ... other SUVs.

Of course we can't have a world without guns, so it's all theoretical.

jMyles

5 hours ago

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.

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.

IlikeKitties

19 hours ago

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.

avidiax

18 hours ago

> Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

Assuming that Sig Sauer management is reasonable, we can assume that one or more of these are true:

* The known rate of failure B is determined to be low. Consider that not every discharge would be from a design flaw. Many cases can be assumed or proven to be user negligence.

* They assume that they can keep the court settlement costs, C, to a low value by never admitting fault and hoping that no one else can convincingly demonstrate a poor design. Many cases result in no injury or non-lethal injury, which naturally reduces C.

* The number of guns produced, A, is quite large, so the cost of the recall is also quite large.

* The unit cost of the recall (X/A) is much higher than known externally. This is my preferred theory (outside of corporate incompetence & malice). It could be the case that the design has an issue with tolerance stacking AND there is no single dimension of replacement part that resolves the issue. You could imagine that the replacement part needs to take up negative tolerance by being slightly larger, and positive tolerance by being slightly smaller. Without carefully measuring each unit (which is expensive), you can't determine which part to use. Or it could be that the part that would need to be replaced is a substantial part of the weapon's cost, e.g. the slide or the frame.

cmcaleer

17 hours ago

I always thought that Fight Club quote missed a crucial extra number: D, the cost of brand reputational damage. Maybe best expressed as multiplier <1 on revenue that converges towards 1 over time.

Maybe a decade from now this becomes a semi-obscure bit of gun lore and SIG US more or less recovers.

But right now?

If you’re in the market for a handgun, or any gun for that matter, are you going to touch SIG US’s stuff? Maybe, but there are customers who might just say that they don’t want to take that chance and go with Glock or whoever else. Do those customers come back? Why doesn’t this get brought up at every single bid for a contract SIG US makes from now on?

It’s possible that they’re still making the right EV call of course, but the medium-term hit they’re taking from a flaw like this that you don’t make right has to be massive.

jibe

18 hours ago

They already did a recall for a much less serious issue, the drop safe recall, so they have proven that they are willing to recall if there is something to fix.

bradyd

18 hours ago

They didn't actually do a recall for that. Instead it was a "voluntary upgrade" program. That is also not a less serious issue.

Edman274

18 hours ago

It may shock you to learn that the top level executives of arms manufacturers have a somewhat different attitude towards human life and protecting revenue than you or I do. Such a person may be puzzled by the outrage and actually lack the insight to understand that a single accidental death because of the flawed design would be enough to imperil contracts, because the ratio of intentional fatalities to accidental fatalities is still like 100000 to 1.

user

16 hours ago

[deleted]

jibe

18 hours ago

That assumes there is an issue to fix. No one has identified an issue that would cause the gun to fire without actuating the trigger.

There was a recent huge thread on HN around the Air Force incident, we now know the guy was playing with the gun, shot and killed someone, then lied about it going off sitting on the table.

If there was some defect that Sig could fix via recall, they would be stupid not to recall. Maybe there is just nothing to fix, and they aren’t stupid.

wl

18 hours ago

It's hard to tell what people are talking about when they talk about problems with the P320. The documents in question here deal with, among other things, the drop safety problem rather than uncommanded discharges you're talking about. If we're talking about the drop safety issue, it does make sense to ask why they didn't issue a recall instead of their not-a-recall "voluntary upgrade."

jibe

17 hours ago

Thanks for the correction, Sig did call it a voluntary upgrade, not a recall. The do have other actual recalls, like on the Sig Cross rifle, so they are willing to do it when there is an issue that calls for it.

https://www.sigsauer.com/blog/safety-recall-notice-sig-sauer...

They would have been in a better spot today to defend the P320 if they had made it a mandatory recall, so they probably should have done it.

privatelypublic

18 hours ago

Most plausible (not asserting correct), is that a recall in such a context of the civilian variant would have been trouble for the military contract.

andrewmcwatters

19 hours ago

The reputation cost will be higher than not recalling for sure.

pensatoio

18 hours ago

Their reputation is absolutely shot. It's not just the P320 either, the XM7 and XM5 were also poor choices.

andrewmcwatters

18 hours ago

Yeah, I had at least a couple of standard issue Sig Sauer civilian equivalents on my wish list, and now I would never buy anything from them ever.

shepardrtc

18 hours ago

I had a 365 and traded it in. Wasn't even a good pistol, just small and light. Got a S&W CSX and it's fantastic.

michaelt

18 hours ago

> It's so weird that SIG didn't just mandate a recall on this issue and dealt with it.

I wouldn't be surprised if gun companies get a constant stream of fake complaints.

I didn't have access to guns when I was a 17-year-old, but if I had I'd certainly have tried twirling them like a movie cowboy. And if I accidentally shot myself while doing that, I certainly wouldn't tell my parents what I was doing at the time, that would make me look like a total dumbass, completely irresponsible. I'd say it went off while I was putting it into my holster, or something.

Then my parents would have complained to the gunmaker, repeating my cover story, and the gunmaker would find it impossible to reproduce or fix.

Perhaps gunmakers don't always realise when they're getting legitimate complaints, because they get so many 'creative' complaints?

lenerdenator

18 hours ago

If you go to most gunmaker websites often enough, you'll eventually see at least one safety recall notice banner or something similar.

Ruger had one for the SR22 not too long ago. It's a .22 handgun that is more-or-less a range toy. A cool range toy, but a range toy. There was some sort of dead trigger problem that could pose a safety issue. Did Ruger deny it at every turn? No, they put out a notice and offered to fix the firearm free of charge.

Now compare that with how Sig's handled the P320, which is a service pistol and used daily in life-or-death situations.

If you make new-design firearms in any real volume, you will find yourself issuing recalls. Batches of parts get out of spec, things wear out, and you get reports that it can become dangerous. The good gunmakers stand behind their product.

lupusreal

17 hours ago

.22 handguns are extremely popular personal defense weapons. Nobody with sense would say they're great at it, but they are nonetheless extremely popular in that role.

SoftTalker

15 hours ago

If you're in a situation where a gun would help you, a .22 is better than nothing. I mean, I certainly would not want to get shot with a .22.

lupusreal

10 hours ago

Definitely. And I do think that low power calibers have their place, they arguably make personal defense more accessible.

unethical_ban

17 hours ago

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.

some_random

12 hours ago

These days there are zero practical reasons to buy a Sig for that exact reason

netbioserror

18 hours ago

Has anyone tested if the manual safety on the M17/18 has any effect on the interaction chain that leads to uncommanded discharge?

gigatexal

17 hours ago

Given this administration, this DOJ, and the Supreme Court. They shouldn’t be sweating bullets (hehe).

though they should if we weren’t living in a simulation. They’re all culpable.

msarrel

18 hours ago

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.