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Ever tried to fix an intermittent electrical problem?
SIG P320 Discharges?
- Thread starter biku324
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Yes..... and it was extremely aggravating!Ever tried to fix an intermittent electrical problem?
BUT..... I fixed it.
Therein lies the reason why the discussion and controversy rages on for so long. No one is completely certain of what is happening, only that there is some vulnerability with this pistol that doesn't seem to be plaguing competing designs. It's not yet certain that anyone knows what condition or combination of conditions is causing the ADs, so recreating it isn't so straightforward. If anyone knows the reasons, they aren't saying so far. All anyone knows is the common denominator with all of these known cases is that they involved a Sig P320. All of the analysis of the gun has been motivated by trying to find these exact cause(s). Maybe the causes will eventually be discovered conclusively and maybe not, but until then, it is reasonable to critically scrutinize its design.
Jim Watson
Member
Chicago PD
Hickock45: "This one is real." Two days ago.
I posted this a while back in another forum and I still maintain this would be the only (yet absurd) way to recreate any of the alleged uncommanded discharges.
"My favorite is the argument that the uncommanded discharges can't be repeated. The only way to try and repeat one would be to have someone who experienced a P320 uncommanded discharge, using same gun, completely recreate every singe movement from the time they first possessed the subject P320, to include number of times bumping gun, each time in same exact position, same exact holstering/unholsterings, loading/unloadings, etc. It has to be all exactly duplicated movements for the same duration as initial possession of said P320 to uncommanded discharge.
Yes, I know it's absurd. So is the argument that there have been no recreations of the uncommanded discharges (likely caused by micro vibrations over use time of the gun which could only be recreated as above).
I do sincerely hope everyone that loves them (P320) enjoys them and never has an incident."
Jim Watson
Member
I have been told that I am relying on social media gossip about so called failures of P320. By Facebook posters.
Oldsalt66
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So the guy presses the trigger 99.9999% of the way, then, manipulates the slide and the frame (you see the frame moving in the vice) and OMG! Who, knew!
Not even remotely close to nailing anything, unless the video is intended to be tongue in cheek. He literally moves the trigger 99% of its travel, to the point there is miniscule sear engagement remaining, at which point almost any gun would fire when jiggling the slide because the striker is barely still hanging on to the edge of the sear ledge. He has to move the trigger what looks like ⅜" or so before he gets to the point where manipulating the slide will fire the gun. By that point, the trigger bar has completely depressed the striker block.
In contrast, the Sig P320's trigger was moved less than 1mm (0.039") to create this condition.
Apples and oranges.
ggibson511960
Member
The oldest striker fired semi-automatic pistol I can recall never had this kind of trouble in its decades of service. Perhaps some of the engineers, craftsmen, QC inspectors, accountants, lawyers and PR staff at Sig could learn something from DWM and how they successfully pushed out this ancient design, the Luger. No stamped or MIM parts and a higher unit cost, but they did it. The folks at Walther pulled off the same thing with the P-38, stamped parts and all. What have we forgotten?
Oldsalt66
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Not apples to apples. The bald guy even says it in the video @ 6:02
No, it absolutely is not apples to apples, for a couple reasons! With the XDM he staged the sear so that the grip safety remained depressed, which then allowed him to release the trigger so it stayed in that position without resetting. Then when he jiggled the slide to get it to "fire," since the trigger was no longer depressed and thus, the striker safety wasn't depressed, it could not fire because the striker safety was still blocking the striker. He states this very clearly in this video. In the Wyoming Project video, the P320 actually did fire a primer because the striker safety was in fact fully depressed when the trigger had traveled back less than 1mm. HUGE difference. The video did not show his methodology for the other pistols cited, so I assume there must be other parts to this video not included here.
Thaddeus, what do you think about my opinion that the Wyoming guy/wood screw guy, pulled the trigger through pre-travel with his finger, and then set the trigger, with his wood screw, further back, beyond the wall?
So the trigger got pulled, and then pushed, with/by external forces.
I think common sense says that trigger pull begins with eliminating the pre-travel/take up, and that the wood screw guy, using the screw, set, by his own definitions, the trigger sightly behind the beginning of the wall. At that point, he manipulated the slide and the striker was released.
Bang!
Say you had a 1911 with, say, a 2.5 lb trigger. And, say you put, using whatever device, 2.4 lbs of pressure on the trigger. And then, say you manipulated the slide.
Do you think the hammer would fall?
I think you understand my point, even if I have expressed it badly. Tell me how the situation with the P320 screw guy and the 1911 above are different?
(Not being argumentative — would truly like to understand.)
On the 1911 Is the thumb safety on or off? Is the grip safety depressed or not?
The compelling points that Wood Screw Guy made about the P320 were:
1. The extremely short distance the trigger had to travel - less than 1mm - to put it into this condition where slide pressure caused it to fire. Regardless of whether the trigger was staged before or after the wall, the total movement from the gun at rest was frightfully short.
2. The striker block was already deactivated from that short trigger movement, which begs the question of when the striker block is ever actually intended to work to prevent striker movement.
3. The gun had a VERY sloppy fit between slide and FCU rails. You really have to hold manufacturing tolerances very tight on fire control parts and design to counter that much expected play in the slide to prevent the striker foot from slipping off the sear under those conditions.
The other issue with the P320 as I stated previously is that the striker block lever is coupled with the sear assembly, and that is a ridiculous design. In the striker pistols that use the Glock style striker block, the striker block is not coupled with sear movement. It is moved by a projection on the trigger bar. Therefore if the sear drops but the trigger isn't moved, the striker block arrests striker movement. In the P320 design, regardless of whether or not the trigger is pulled, if the striker slides over the sear, pushing the sear down, the trigger safety arm rises and disables the striker block so it can fire.
On your 1911 example, it could not happen because you also have a grip safety preventing trigger movement. It has to actually be gripped in your hand before the trigger can travel rearward. Plus, you also have a thumb safety as mentioned above. So no, it cannot happen unless the 1911 in quesition was mechanically compromised and not working properly. The same is true with the XDM featured in the above video. In the video, he initially depressed the grip safety and pulled the trigger enough to stage the sear to the point it kept the grip safety depressed. So again, not remotely the same as the P320 that does not have a grip safety acting like an external safety lever.
smithman 10
US Veteran
Match director of a local match I may attend Saturday bans 320 from the firing line. He says he will have to run shooters who use the 320 one at a time.
This may have been discussed somewhere else in this thread, but I would still like to clarify something... The military version of the P320, the M17/M18, has a thumb safety. Correct? How does this thumb safety work? How reliable is it in preventing the striker from hitting the primer of the loaded cartridge, no matter what? I wonder if the USAF man's pistol had it's thumb safety in the FIRE position when it was in his holster. Or was it set to SAFE? Have there been other verified cases of M17/M18 military pistols firing unexpectedly? I notice that the Army, Navy, and Marines have not stopped using them.
smithman 10
US Veteran
The military probably does not have enough suitable alternate pistols in their inventory to immediately replace all the 320s.
In fairness to Sig, in those tests, the slides that broke were rails coming off the slide. That was very common when hot ammo was used on the early P226s, and after very few rounds fired. I saw several broken P226 slide rails caused by Fiocchi Combat 123gr Truncated Cone ammo. I don't know of any P226 slides that broke and caused injuries, either in Military testing or on the Commercial market. The Beretta M9 slides broke right in front of the breech faces, allowing the back portions of the slides to fly back and whack the users in the face. There were some very senior NCOs who suffered life altering, and career ending wounds from being 'Beretta punched'. Imagine a razor sharp guardrail nut on the end of a piece of 550 cord being slammed into you face with a full swing. Ouch.
And the M9/92 Series of today are fantastic pistols.
ggibson511960
Member
The hammer would definitely not fall. The hammer and sear pivot about pins securely mated to the metal frame. The sear is activated by a trigger bar working in the frame. The 1911 slide only pushes the disconnector to allow sear movement. I know from experience that a 1911 can double if sear engagement is too small as with a really crisp match trigger with no overtravel, but this happens due to violent impact and bounce when the slide/barrel/line assembly crashes back into battery. Gold Cups deploy an anti-bounce spring to prevent this, but they will occasionally double pop, at least mine will, definitely not a safe everyday carry piece, but it does have a nice safety lever that locks everything.
Exactly! In a 1911, the hammer and the trigger sear are both in the frame, so their positional relationship remains constant. Unlike a striker fired pistol where the striker is in the slide and the sear is in the frame, any play between slide and frame on a 1911 (and most higher end 1911s have very little to no slide to frame movement anyway) cannot change the amount of bearing surface on a cocked sear.
"The only way to try and repeat one would be to have someone who experienced a P320 uncommanded discharge, using same gun, completely recreate every singe movement from the time they first possessed the subject P320, to include number of times bumping gun, each time in same exact position, same exact holstering/unholsterings, loading/unloadings, etc. It has to be all exactly duplicated movements for the same duration as initial possession of said P320 to uncommanded discharge."
That is an interesting perspective, but not accurate.
The causes of the spontaneous discharges is simple physics. It's not some voodoo effect, supernatural manifestation, paranormal phenomenon, or quantum mechanics.
There is a scientific explanation….
"A scientific explanation is a description of how and why a phenomenon occurs, based on empirical evidence and logical reasoning, often involving testable hypotheses and models. It goes beyond simply stating a fact by providing a coherent account that can be verified through observation and experimentation. This explanation typically involves identifying cause-and-effect relationships and using scientific principles to connect evidence to a claim."
That's just my worthless opinion.
Maybe. But first of all, you're kind of missing Lab4Us's point, which was that there could be a lot of variables at play that led to any particular uncommanded discharge, so without benefit of knowing which among the factors that could have contributed, it's difficult to recreate. It may not be due to any single factor but a combination of factors. And maybe all of the P320s that have been subject to the uncommanded discharges are "technically" in perfect working order "as designed" but the design itself just sucks because it has a razor thin margin of safety. Even if that's the case - functioning correctly but very unforgiving - it's a defective product because of the severe consequences of failure."The only way to try and repeat one would be to have someone who experienced a P320 uncommanded discharge, using same gun, completely recreate every singe movement from the time they first possessed the subject P320, to include number of times bumping gun, each time in same exact position, same exact holstering/unholsterings, loading/unloadings, etc. It has to be all exactly duplicated movements for the same duration as initial possession of said P320 to uncommanded discharge."
That is an interesting perspective, but not accurate.
The causes of the spontaneous discharges is simple physics. It's not some voodoo effect, supernatural manifestation, paranormal phenomenon, or quantum mechanics.
There is a scientific explanation….
"A scientific explanation is a description of how and why a phenomenon occurs, based on empirical evidence and logical reasoning, often involving testable hypotheses and models. It goes beyond simply stating a fact by providing a coherent account that can be verified through observation and experimentation. This explanation typically involves identifying cause-and-effect relationships and using scientific principles to connect evidence to a claim."
That's just my worthless opinion.
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it's a defective product because of the severe consequences of failure.
Where is the proof that the P320 is "defective"?
You conveniently left out the first part of that sentence. Context is everything. Notice I said "IF that's the case - functioning correctly but very unforgiving." It was an either/or argument. In other words, even if all P320s are working correctly as designed, if it requires extraordinary care above and beyond what competing pistols require to prevent an uncommanded discharge, then I think that in itself is a huge defect.
I don't know if it is defective, but the burden of proof isn't on me to prove or disprove a negative. The burden of proof is on Sig, who designed and built it. Since the current ADs involving holstered striker fired pistols is disproportionately and, it appears, exclusively involving Sig P320s, it would seem self evident that there is a problem of some sort. If not, then the evidence certainly makes it reasonable to be suspicious of it.
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Some learn safety the hard way. At 14 was sitting at base of tree squirrel hunting with my .410 laying muzzle down with barrel pointed down between my legs. Obviously not paying attention as it fired. Never forgot...keep yer finger out of trigger guard.
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Thanks for the comments. Mechanical Engineer by university background and have spent 30+ years designing products across all industries that never existed before. I've spent ton's of time working with and in factories and appreciate your CNC background and all those folks that make stuff for a living.
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Lighter, tighter, lower bore axis, cheaper to manufacture. On a personal note, I can shoot my M18 as accurately as any revolver SA, and I have enough experience on both, plus the P226, P220, and P229. BTW, my M18 has the latest SIG safety update.
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