I had not heard much on this problem in quite some time, so I thought Sig had pretty much put the issue to bed. But now the FOP up in Chicagoland says differently.

Police union boss urges CPD to stop using service weapon alleged to misfire

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USS Brewton FF1086
SWCA#3597

Yah, SIG P320s shoot great. Including often in holsters.

As for the doubts of the P320 safety, there’s a series of law enforcement agencies that are doing various range bans, such as the Washington State Police Training Commission. There’s a slew of analyses after a shooting-in-a-holster of a P320 in a training course recently, where the instructor on the line says “Was it the $@%& P320?” Within three seconds of the discharge. Almost as if a holster pop from a P320 is common…

That said, Texas DPS supposedly selected the M17 (the tan colored P320) as their standard service weapon this month. The U.S. military has had a series of holster pops, sometimes with manual safety on, sometimes without.

Pistol Forum has 200+ pages of discussion, including some deep analysis on the different components and changes over time in the P320 trigger mechanism.

I predict the P320 discussion will continue ad naseum and people will continue to have holster pops. Probably for some Texas Troopers in the near future.

The US military should go back to the Beretta M9; totally safe and extremely reliable. If not the M9 then the M1911. With all the bad press, I couldn't buy a P320. Stick with my Glock 19 Gen 4.

Sig have been fighting a long term PR and legal battle over the P320 and apparent ADs. There were better guns around when the military selected the M17/18, but most did not meet the government's modular FCU requirement. Because of the insistence on this feature, the military ended up with a gun with the typical Sig weird, high bore axis recoil impulse and a dodgy trigger. Another win for defense procurement.

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Release the Kraken

My 320 has never misbehaved.

Can you give a reference to a military M-17 discharging with the safety on?

https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/86/f5/...2023-02-14.pdf

It was an M18, the shorter version of the P320 used by the Marines, a Marine base in Okinawa, and a Japanese civilian security guard.

That one is a real puzzle.

Here is a report by the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission from February 2025 that cites the above incident as being especially well documented, and says it is among six reported by the military: https://cjtc.wa.gov/sites/default/fi...ary%202025.pdf

Sure. Here’s a DoD safety incident report of a USMC-involved discharge with safety on and in holster. For what it is worth, I have placed my strongside hand on top of a SLS hood at least hundreds of times. https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/86/f5/...2023-02-14.pdf

As another factual statement, the DoD’s M17/18 pre-service testing found issues in the drop test and SIG changed the trigger mechanism mid-test to reduce uncommanded firing. US Army documentation: Access Denied

I like sigs, have a number of them, but I'd never own a 250/320. They are just too iffy for me.

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Thread Killer.

The P250 is safe as houses. The trigger action is just like a DAO revolver. That drives some people nuts, whining "Where's the reset?" Ummm, it's a hammer fired gun using a hammer that is fully at rest after firing, so it requires a full trigger stroke for each shot. It's hardly rocket surgery, but apparently a squarish pistol without a reset causes foaming at the mouth on contact for some.

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Release the Kraken

1st Gen 250s were/are junk. A friend of mine worked at a gunshop and told me all the problems they were having and stopped selling them. They wouldn't take them on trade. IIRC Sig lost a big military contract... Supposedly the 2nd gen fixed the issues, but I didn't care. Then the 320 came out with all of its problems, yeah, no.

I'll take a sigpro over 250s/320s.

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Thread Killer.

Other than Alex Baldwins’s Colt 45 revolver, has there been any other handgun in the history of handguns that can fire a round without pulling the trigger?

I own a P320 with manual safety which I bought before learning about this issue, so I have a high interest in this topic.

What is especially puzzling is the inability by anyone to replicate the failure. You would think that if there were some sort of fundamental design flaw, that the un-commanded discharge could be replicated in an investigation. So far, to my knowledge, this has not been done.

(I recall, I think, reading of one investigation wherein it was determined that if reassembly was not done properly the striker could rest insecurely on the sear and be dislodged by movement. Not sure if I have that exactly right, but something like that.)

I find the military failures with manual safeties especially perplexing. There is a YouTube video of a guy demonstrating with a machine that a 20 lb pull can break through the safety, and a 100 lb plus pull can break the trigger/trigger bar, but neither event causes the striker to fall and impact the cartridge head.

So how can an un-commanded discharge happen with a manual safety in place?

Here's the video: https://youtu.be/anZg4b-QLRA?si=fPv3-Bi4W8vKwIYk

Army Spec. Ops, special forces, delta and rangers have been using the Glock 19 for many years. I understand Navy seals and Marine force recon also use Glocks. Glocks are battle tested and used by militarize all over the world.

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Can my S&W Mdl 10 shoot +P

WW2 Victory mdl S&W were known to discharge when dropped on a hard surface, if they landed on the hammer. That problew was fixed with the hammer bar.

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Can my S&W Mdl 10 shoot +P

That occurred an an aircraft carrier during WWII...a M&P revolver was dropped and discharged...killing a sailor. The Navy was going to cancel purchases of the S&W and buy Colt Commando revolvers but two things saved the contract with S&W...Colt was maxed out on production capacity and S&W did a fast redesign adding the positive bar safety on all new production.

Mine too! I have the M17 version and in spite of the high bore axis I can shoot it well enough and am happy with it. Wish I knew more about the so called “uncommanded firing” stuff but I doubt I’ll ever hear the full truth about it. I handle it like any other gun. Keep it pointed in a safe direction and don’t abuse it physically by dropping it or other rough handling. I like it well enough that I’d rather not get rid of it.

You have to wonder, in the 21st century, after 130 years of so of building auto pistols how ANYBODY could screw up a design like this. Much less a major player like SIG. The old liable “cocked & locked” 1911 remains a Very ‘safe’ pistol, yet today safety seems to be a secondary consideration. Heck the FN Reflex is a single action auto, cocked, with NO safety unless you buy the M/S version. The latter is a nice carry gun-(I own one and really like it) the non manual safety version is an accident waiting to happen imho. Can you imagine carrying a 1911 with the grip safety pined and the manual safety off while there’s a round under the hammer? Me neither, yet today this “new” design does the same thing. The SIG has been a problem child since they came out. Years later and with a manual safety and they are still having AD’s? Methinks some serious engineering redesign is needed-either that or scrap the design and start over because something is inherently wrong with this design.

If the P320 is so dangerous and unsafe, why haven’t we seen anyone take one of the ‘demon pistols’ and replicate the “AD”? Lots of assumptions, personal opinions and 2d hand pseudo facts.

It is my understanding that the striker on a 320 is fully cocked after retracting the slide and loading a round in the chamber. Whereas, the M&P and the Glock are only partially cocked, and they are cocked the rest of the way when the trigger is pulled. In essence, you have a similar condition to a 1911 with the hammer back, thumb safety off and the grip safety disengaged. I do not think anyone would recommend carrying a 1911 in that condition.

The other apparent problem is the quality control of the interface between the sear and the striker. Some say it is tolerance stacking during manufacturing, but the engagement surfaces are just barely hanging on in some of these pistols. These are likely the ones going off in holsters. That also explains why the military has had a few un-commanded discharges. The safety on the m17 & M18 only block the trigger and that is not where the issue is.

Some say the module is a poor design for a striker fired pistole, and that Sig should have designed something entirely new and not have used the 250 module with modifications. It was a DAO pistole so the instability causing the 320 problem could not exist. Who knows?

What I do know is the 22X pistoles are outstanding. All of them, from the 220 - 229. It is a shame that Sig is risking their reputation on the 320. You would think that they would just admit there is a problem and work through it rather than the arrogance they have shown to this point.

Just turn this over to NBC...if they can attach explosives to a Chevy truck to prove its gas tank can blow up by a design flaw then they can make a Sig pistol shoot while still in the holster.

They might get an award for their reporting.

I just watched the video.

The most detailed explanation/theory I’ve seen (which, unfortunately, I couldn’t find to link to) regarding this problem places the blame at the sear-striker interface and small manufacturing variances in these parts (which also explains difficulty in replicating the issue).

If this is true, presence or absence of a manual safety would make no difference at all, since, as the video explains, the safety doesn’t block the sear at all; it merely prevents the trigger bar from acting on it.

I personally don’t have a dog in this fight. I don’t own a 320, nor do I feel any hatred for them. I am completely brand-agnostic when it comes to polymer, striker-fired guns. That said, I believe that a small number of the guns are indeed going off without the triggers being pulled.

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Mark Lathem

And yet there is a thing called Glock leg.... It was all the rage inthe late 1980's and early 1990's.

Thanks, Mark. That makes sense to me. (Was not smart enough myself to pick that up watching the video, but with your explanation, I think I get it.)

It that similar to H&K "P7 leg"? It wasn't unknown among New Jersey Troopers years ago.

Except like the S&W M&P series there is a striker safety/blocker that requires the trigger to be pulled back to disengage it. If the striker slips off the sear it will be blocked from moving forward unless the trigger is pulled.

Honestly not sure exactly what is happening here. I'm sure there are some instances where there was operator error, but possibly some that not.

What is disturbing is it has been reported for years not but no one can come up with a root cause.

Apologies for the thread drift, but that is the first time hearing "HK P7 leg" What I can tell you is the P7 makes me nervous. It is the only firearm I have ever had a potential negligent discharge with. Luckily, it didn't have a round in the chamber.

Hmm. Must have missed that. Need to watch it again.

I hope more people watch the video and comment.

Edit: While the video is 23 minutes long, I think the critical explanation for what Tu_S is saying can be understood by watching from about 3 minutes in to about 7 minutes in. Again, I don't fully get it, but I think some of you surely will.

Respectfully, please do not spread patently false information. Your tax dollars have tested and proved the uncommanded firing in the P320, whether the manual safety was engaged or not.

The multiple P320s found an replicable uncommanded firing with a rear impact to the slide in the U.S. Army testing. The U.S. Army disclosed they found an unacceptable safety issue with the original test article P320s - repeated firing of the pistol when dropped.

The exact quote - “During drop testing in which an empty primed cartridge was inserted, the striker struck the primer causing a discharge. SIG SAUER implemented an Engineering Change Proposal (ECP) to correct this deficiency by implementing lightweight components in the trigger group mechanism. ”

Access Denied

The question is if the P320 uncommanded firing was adequately addressed, either in the DOD-fielded M17/18 system or in commercial specification P320s. Based on 250+ cases known since the period at and following the M17/18 trial testing, there is certainly an argument that SIG’s Engineering Change made after the U.S. Army trials did not fully address the uncommanded discharges.

Separately, it is unknown if the engineering change to mitigate drop testing failures created the holster firing issue or that existed beforehand. There were few cases of holstered weapon issues before the drop firing change, but there were a few cases such as a Houston PD uncommanded discharge at roughly the same time as the drop fix was implemented. The DoD issued M17/18 are absolutely firing when in holsters, including this office pop during lunch at Fort Eustis- https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/ef/ba/...2023-02-08.pdf

Please do not falsely state this is an unreplicable issue - the U.S. Army testing has unequivocally shown there was an uncommanded discharge issue in the P320 design. Perhaps that has been adequately been addressed going forward, but SIG had at least 100,000 guns out the door with the high propensity for dropped firing was documented.

Well…it does have a “striker safety lever,” but it is not a striker *block*. In the Glock and M&P designs the striker block is a steel cylinder that literally prevents the striker from moving far enough to strike the primer until the trigger physically moves it out of the way.

The P320’s design is completely different. The striker safety lever has a short tab of bent metal that is held up by a 2-legged spring. If the fully cocked striker slips off the sear without the trigger being depressed a small shelf cut into the striker is *supposed* to catch on this unmachined (meaning not flat) bent tab after traveling a short distance (while being propelled forward by the full force of the striker spring) and stop.

I absolutely would not trust this design. But that’s just me. It is not my place to tell others what they should or should not do.

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Mark Lathem

I hope this doesn't derail the thread, but do you know if the Sig P365 has a similar deficiency? I carry a P365, but my P320 has been relegated to range toy status. Perhaps I'm being overcautious, perhap not.

Krogen, the P365 manual safety works differently, and has had no issues. (Also, no issues that I have found with the more common no manual safety, for those who are comfortable w/o a manual safety.)

If you watch the video I posted above, the differences between the 320 and 365 manual safeties are explained.

Never heard there was a problem with the P7. Sounds more like a gun handling issue.

I don't believe it is a deficiency. I believe it is a holster fit problem. Every one of the ND's that have happened outside the holster where there is video you can clearly see a finger on the trigger. Everyone that I have seen that fired in a holster had some sort of security interface in the trigger guard. With a Glock or M&P you can get away with it due to the trigger dingus. On the Sig you can't, because what would slip past the Glock trigger will pull the Sig trigger.

The drop thing was a separate issue that has been addressed. I competed with a Sig P320 for several years with no issues. I know several people that do as well and most of them have aftermarket triggers, with no issues. But no one I know uses a security holster, much less one that locks the trigger guard in.

That's exactly what it was. It seems some Troopers were accustomed to simply sticking their service revolvers into the waistband of their pants when off-duty. A few found out the hard way doing that with the squeeze cocking P7 would put it in ready to fire mode and if they moved the wrong way the trigger would be activated and they would...let's say...shoot themselves a new orifice in their posterior.

The P7 is a pistol that demands a properly designed holster to be carried in.

I had a P7 years ago...it was the most accurate 9mm pistol I ever shot. The fixed barrel had to have had something to do with that.

As a 320c owner, I would like to agree with you. However, there seems to be more to this than internet conjecture. Although I've never had an issue with mine, I have other options for carry, so that's what I do.

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Because of the metric system?

People, groups, anti-gun news outlets, and competing companies all have agendas. They all would like to see Sig fail, just like Remington. In the end, any firearm can be discharged by accident, especially when it is accompanied by unsafe practices or when using with incompatible equipment. Undoubtedly Sig P320, M-17 and M-18 pistols have discharged when unintended. I am skeptical that the reason, since the initial trigger modification, is a design flaw with the pistols.

Once the drop test design flaw in the M18 the Army discovered was corrected by Sig, has there been ANY single component, design failures, or quality parts issues identified after years of design analysis, microscopic parts analysis, exhaustive testing by the most knowledge firearm “experts” on the planet, that can be unequivocally proven to cause the P320-M18 to fire a round without pulling the trigger?

Why can the “auto-fire” condition NOT be duplicated, replicated, or re-enacted?

The destructive testing video shows that the P365 safety shaft has an upward projection that goes into the striker assembly and directly and positively locks it in place when the safety is engaged.

There are about 5 million of them in the wild. One or 2 ND's a year is not bad. We have that many with revolvers.

Just my opinion and what you paid for it, but my hunch has always been that for Sig to get a better trigger pull then Glock, they had to make a deal with the devil on how much more the striker was prestaging the striker/firing pin. then the Glock.

And have a plastic frame housing a metal fire control group, that certain ways of bending/twisting the gun in a holster could upset that delicate balance. Which is why it's so hard to re-create. Add in tolerance stacking of parts.

And the Military carry's empty pistols more then they carry loaded ones. Unlike LEO's. Add an external safety and the risk drops quite a bit.