Sig Sauer is having a bit of a rough time right now.
While they make a lot of guns people like, they make one that is the brunt of so many jokes that it’s just sad. The worst part for Sig? Being a laughing stock is the least of their problems with the P320. Not after an airman lost his life, reportedly because his M18–the military version of the P320–went off uncommanded.
For some time, Sig has claimed there’s nothing wrong with their guns.
The FBI, though, disagrees.
But the FBI admits that they only examined one firearm.
The YouTube channel Wyoming Gun Project decided to look at another. This video is a little long, but interesting.
He was able to get it to discharge five different times with primed cases.
Now, he used a screw to take up the slack and provide a bit of pressure on the trigger, then manipulated the slide. It went off repeatedly during this testing.
The purpose of the pressure was reportedly to simulate any parts being out of spec.
Time and time again, he was able to cause the striker to drop without his finger on the trigger.
For the record, I tried this with both my Glock 19 and my CZ 75B, both completely unloaded. With the Glock, I put my finger on the trigger to disengage the safety there, took up the slack, and manipulated the slide. It didn’t really even budge all that much, but the striker never dropped. The CZ, I didn’t expect it to do anything as the mechanisms are completely different, but still…
Now, there are questions that I have, in the name of fairness.
First, is pulling back on the trigger at all, then putting a screw in place to hold it there, a fair approximation of parts being out of spec? I honestly don’t know. I’m not an engineer. I honestly have no idea if it is or not, so I won’t sit here and tell you that this video is some kind of slam dunk on Sig.
What I will say is that in no world is it acceptable for a weapon to fire when the slide is manipulated. The video is clear that while there is pressure on the trigger, it wasn’t pulled. That’s the only thing that should cause the weapon to discharge. It’s pretty clear that in this case, that didn’t happen.
Again, this was just one firearm. A single pistol.
But the FBI report was another pistol, and it found issues.
The Georgia man who won in court against Sig was also a single pistol.
Every video we’ve seen of a P320 firing in an officer’s holster was a single, individual pistol.
This is what we in the business like to call a pattern.
Sig Sauer can try to pretend that this isn’t a thing, that it’s all some vicious attack on them if they way–and they have–but it doesn’t negate that there’s a problem with this pistol, and they’ve been told there’s a problem with this pistol. The airman who died? I’m sorry, but that’s on them at this point. They could have addressed it before now. They should have addressed it before now.
They haven’t.
So, we’ve got YouTubers showing the flaws that Sig pretends don’t exist, all in hopes of something being fixed before more blood is shed for literally no reason.
As it stands, I don’t know if I can trust another Sig product, and I’ve always respected the company before this whole debacle. The P226 has been on my list of guns to buy for ages. But if the company can’t admit there’s an issue and address it, do I really want to spend my money with them?
Not when there are too many other companies not having these issues.
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