SIG Sauer issues voluntary upgrade of P320 pistol
P320 pistol meets requirements for industry and government safety standards; performance enhancements optimize function, safety, and reliability
SIG Sauer, Inc. is issuing a voluntary upgrade for the P320 series of pistols
SIG Sauer's press release
The SIG Sauer P320 pistol has been object of recent controversies following reports of accidental discharges when dropped
Newington, NH (August 8, 2017) – The P320 meets U.S. standards for safety, including the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) / Sporting Arms Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute, Inc. (SAAMI®), National Institute of Justice (NIJ), as well as rigorous testing protocols for global military and law enforcement agencies.
The design of the SIG SAUER P320 overcomes the most significant safety concern in striker-fired pistols today: the practice of pressing the trigger for disassembly. This can be performed with a round in the chamber which has resulted in numerous incidents of property damage, physical injury, and death. The disassembly process of the P320, however, uses a take-down lever rather than pressing the trigger, eliminating the possibility of discharge during the disassembly process.
The voluntary upgrade program seeks to face the causes of those failures at their roots
Recent events indicate that dropping the P320 beyond U.S. standards for safety may cause an unintentional discharge.
As a result of input from law enforcement, government and military customers, SIG has developed a number of enhancements in function, reliability, and overall safety including drop performance. SIG SAUER is offering these enhancements to its customers. Details of this program will be available at sigsauer.com on Monday, August 14, 2017.
The M17 variant of the P320, selected by the U.S. government as the U.S. Army’s Modular Handgun System (MHS), is not affected by the Voluntary Upgrade.
« SIG SAUER is committed to our approach on innovation, optimization, and performance, ensuring we produce the finest possible products,» said Ron Cohen, President and CEO of SIG SAUER.
« Durability, reliability and safety, as well as end-user confidence in the SIG SAUER brand are the priorities for our team.»
GUNSweek.com's comment
Several YouTube channels tested independently the P320 and found it to discharge accidentally under certain circumstances
Rumors concerning the tendency of the SIG Sauer P320 to discharge accidentally when dropped in certain conditions started to circulate in the past week, when the Dallas Police Department issued a recall on all the P320s fielded by its officers. Despite the quick follow-up from the Company, which sought to reassure the public about the safety of the SIG Sauer P320, rumors persisted – particularly after it was reported that SIG Sauer was being sued by a Stamford Police Department officer reportedly injuried following an accidental discharge from a dropped P320.
Several independent testers would later experiment with the P320 and publish their findings on YouTube, highlighting the existance of an issue that indeed causes the SIG Sauer P320 to consistently fire when dropped upon certain circumstances.
The SIG Sauer P320 is a modular, multicaliber system
While it is true that the SIG Sauer P320 passed and will consistently pass all the safety tests mentioned by the Company, is also true that all those tests envisage the pistol being dropped on its bore (muzzle down) or with the bore parallel to the ground (on the side).
When the SIG Sauer P320 is dropped on its butt, however, due to a sheer physical law – momentum, and transfer thereof – the trigger travels rearwards enough to release the striker and thus cause the gun to fire. In all the mentioned independent tests, this happened constantly.
This can not be considered a manufacturing or engineering fault, but we at GUNSweek.com feel the need to point out that the presence of a trigger safety – often refered to as a "Glock-style trigger safety", but actually a common feature among striker-fired pistols manufactured by companies such as HS Produkt/Springfield Armory, Heckler & Koch, Beretta, and many others – would avoid it.
SIG Sauer, Inc. recently won the MHS competition to replace the Beretta M9 in service with the U.S. Armed Forces
While SIG Sauer still has not released any details on the planned upgrade, or fix, for this issue, rumors indicate that it could consist in an entirely new trigger group, including a redesigned striker, disconnector, and trigger pack. The modular design of the SIG Sauer P320 would make the replacement of those components easy and quick to proceed to even by the end user himself (or herself) at home, or at armory level for MIL/LE/Govt. customers.
The only issue with such a solution is that the modularity of the SIG Sauer P320 pistol, with full parts interchangeability, is made possible by the fact that the trigger assembly is actually the serialized component, thus legally the handgun per se in many jurisdictions. How said upgrade program will be handled under this point of view, is yet to be seen.
It would be definitely sad to see a company such as SIG Sauer adopt overly-complicated, expensive and time-consuming solutions in order not to adopt the simplest and most straightforward solution – which, once again, is a standard feature of most, if not all, striker-fired pistols available on the market today – just out of fear of being labeled as "copying Glock" by the Internet gun enthusiasts community.
All details of the upgrade program will be published on the official SIG Sauer website on Monday, August 14, 2017