I need an intervention: looking at a P320

[JHC]

Against my better judgement and at the advice of several other shooters, I fell into the P320 trap with a Pro Carry about a month ago. As has been noted, trigger pull on the four that my dealer had in stock varied wildly, and I picked the one that felt best to me. On taking the pistol home and diassembling for initial cleaning/lube before the range, I found that the trigger would NOT reset on reassembly - leading to a "dead trigger."

The trigger eventually reset after I racked the slide 10-15 times HARD, but now every time I disassemble the pistol the trigger is dead. I called Sig CS and spent about 45 minutes on the phone with a very polite lady who kept asking me to hold while she "conferred with someone" about my issue, and eventually told me the following:

To reset the trigger after reassembly, I need to release the slide, then retract the slide, lock it to the rear, and push up on the slide release lever with some significant pressure until I hear the "click" of the trigger resetting. Alternatively, after releasing the slide and then locking it to the rear again, I can insert an empty magazine into the pistol, which will reset the trigger. The nice lady assured me that both of those techniques and "normal" and completely safe.

Since I wasn't EXACTLY comfortable with that answer, she agreed to send me a shipping label. Of course, she didn't, so, 72 hours later I got on the phone AGAIN, and refused to get off the phone with the gentleman on the other end until the shipping label was in my e-mail in box.

My pistol arrived at Sig on 28Feb19, and I enquired about the status yesterday. I was told, basically, to take a deep breath and someone would get back to me in 3-4 weeks.

So, do you need any more of a push AWAY from current Sig products?

Holy shit. Any idea if this is a side effect of making the pistol drop safe?


Can you imagine if that also applies to all the M17s? 80% will be riding around in theater with dead triggers.

[DpdG]

I had a similar experience with a recently purchased X VTAC. I field stripped it, wiped off the factory grease, oiled it, and put it back together. The trigger was dead. It felt like the sear and striker were not connected.

My gun arrived with a lot of grease everywhere. My theory was that there was too much grease on and around the sear. The sear was not moving far enough to engage the striker because the movement was impeded by the grease. That was my hopeful theory anyway.

I fieldstriped the gun again, reassembled it, put in a magazine, and racked the slide and.....the reset was back. I then shot 300 rounds through it - no issues. It is a nice shooting gun. I am bothered about the reset. I think the big question is what is the mechanical reason the trigger did not reset.

I could be wrong about the grease. Does anyone know why the slide release lever is/could be involved with the reset?

One possibility- The P320 has a magazine disconnect/disassembly safety that requires the magazine to be removed in order to rotate the takedown lever. As part of that system, sear is disabled when the takedown lever is turned. During reassembly, the sear is reactivated by the slide lock lever. If you reassemble without locking the slide to the rear with the slide-lock, the sear will not be reactivated. Inserting a magazine also reactivates the sear. The manual (I never read the things either) really emphasizes one MUST lock the slide to the rear with the slide stop to complete the reassembly process.

[Galbraith]

As John Hearne pointed out, our agency started using the P320 prior to the "update" in addition to classic DA/SA Sigs. I've owned 3 P320s since the authorization. First one was a pre-update 9mm, so I sold it due to drop-safe concerns and stuck with my issued P226 9mm(even though the P320 it worked just fine). Once LE model P320FS 9mms started hitting the dealers, I bought one of those. The gun was accurate, and worked fine as well, except the factory trigger had a very heavy pull. It was in the range of 9-10lbs which was unacceptable. I replaced it with a Grey Guns PELT trigger and that trigger pull dropped to around 5lbs.......so the trigger may have been out of spec or I received a model with a LE contract heavy trigger. After several thousand rounds through that gun, I decided to buy an updated LE P320FS in .45acp. I actually shot the .45 model better than the 9mm at all ranges in practical courses of fire. The exception would be my splits which the 9mm was a little faster, but my overall accuracy with the .45 was better. My .45acp now has around 4k rounds through it with no problems. Pretty much in every drill and practical course of fire, I performed better with the P320s than with my classic P226 9mm and P220 .45. So, I switched to the P320.

Just a small sample of P320s. Maybe one thing to consider here is that all of my P320s(and I have a P365) have been LE models. I would not be surprised if Sig puts more quality controls into the LE models.

[JimLob65]

One possibility- The P320 has a magazine disconnect/disassembly safety that requires the magazine to be removed in order to rotate the takedown lever. As part of that system, sear is disabled when the takedown lever is turned. During reassembly, the sear is reactivated by the slide lock lever. If you reassemble without locking the slide to the rear with the slide-lock, the sear will not be reactivated. Inserting a magazine also reactivates the sear. The manual (I never read the things either) really emphasizes one MUST lock the slide to the rear with the slide stop to complete the reassembly process.

This seems to be an idiosyncrasy with some P320s, including my X-5. There are several posts about it on the SIGTalk forum. While a little disconcerting it isn’t actually an issue in the real world.

[lwt16]

I am a 320 armorer for about 40 pistols now. The magazine disconnect/safety lever is a part made in India. Some parts are made in USA and others off shore. I may be misnaming the part but I don't have the armorer's manual on me.

I had one that would not field strip without a pull of the trigger and the faulty part was this lever. It engaged in the rear of the FCU and was rounded off at the factory and would not engage the part to allow the slide to come off the rails. Replacement of that part solved the issue.

Sig sends these things out just jam packed with a white grease that is in all the nooks and crannies. It takes me quite a while to get one out of the box and get all that crap out of the gun. Once that is done, ours have ran pretty good. I have had a small sampling of magazines (we have four per copy so about 160 mags total give or take) that have sticky followers after they sit for a while fully loaded. Like 3-5 mags so not a huge sampling. More than I'd like to see.

I've had to replace an extractor or two and magazine catches as well. Sweat does not play well with the mag catch and I know of at least 2 copies that have rusted badly.

Do I like the pistol? Meh.....it will do in a pinch. I much prefer Glock, VP9, M&P 2.0 compact and my 1911 to the P320. The others in my small group seem to like theirs. My biggest gripe is the fact that Sig has priced their swap out kits for this thing at about the same price as buying a whole new gun. Even with my armorer's discount it doesn't really crank my tractor. The gun has a very high bore axis that reminds me of shooting a revolver when I am presenting the sights......my VP9 does too but seems to be not as high as the 320.

You might want to look for a used one and give it a whirl. Just know that the QC as mentioned earlier is an issue....especially on the off shore parts. The USA parts seem to be okay. I've noticed that my extra parts stash still has most of the USA parts left while I have had to use some that were India marked.

Regards.

[psalms144.1]

One possibility- The P320 has a magazine disconnect/disassembly safety that requires the magazine to be removed in order to rotate the takedown lever. As part of that system, sear is disabled when the takedown lever is turned. During reassembly, the sear is reactivated by the slide lock lever. If you reassemble without locking the slide to the rear with the slide-lock, the sear will not be reactivated. Inserting a magazine also reactivates the sear. The manual (I never read the things either) really emphasizes one MUST lock the slide to the rear with the slide stop to complete the reassembly process.

Copy all on that. I followed the instructions TO THE LETTER (including locking the slide to the rear) and that has no effect on my trigger NOT resetting after disassembly. In fact, when reassembled following the factory instructions, with the slide locked to the rear, it's impossible to insert a magazine fully to get the sear to reset. I have to let the slide go forward (setting up the dead trigger), then lock the slide to the rear again, THEN insert a magazine, which will reset the dead trigger.

Everyone on this site should, by now, know that even though its my daily carry, I'm NOT a fan of the GLOCK, hence my constant search for something to replace it. But this experience (and the, frankly, crappy CS from Sig) indicates TO ME, that Sig is STILL not a company that's to be trusted to do business with.

I will update when I hear back from Sig, but, in the meantime, buyer beware and all that jazz...

[psalms144.1]

Maybe one thing to consider here is that all of my P320s(and I have a P365) have been LE models. I would not be surprised if Sig puts more quality controls into the LE models.

This is, in fact, NOT the case. My Pro Carry is an LE only model, as have been all the other models I've handled that showed wide variances in triggers, etc. The only time Sig puts more QC into a pistol is if a contract DEMANDS additional steps or treatment. Otherwise, LE guns are just the same as commercial models.

And, as pointed out above, a VERY large percentage of the small widgets in the complex machinery of the P320 come from off-shore vendor(s).

[awp_101]

You're the same guy who started a thread called, "DA revolver-like trigger in a SFA?" You are indeed in need of an intervention.

Yes, I am painfully aware of this fact.

Although it's not to the level of the good idea fairy, my ongoing desire to learn more sometimes leads my mind down unusual paths and I find out why some things just aren't as good in execution as they sound in theory. But if I don't ask/explore the idea I don't know.

The particular 320 I found is overpriced IMO ($450-ish OTD, 3 mags, regular 3 dot sights, factory case) so I'll be moving along from this particular path but I've gotten a better idea what to look for should I find a screaming deal on one.

[DpdG]

Copy all on that. I followed the instructions TO THE LETTER (including locking the slide to the rear) and that has no effect on my trigger NOT resetting after disassembly. In fact, when reassembled following the factory instructions, with the slide locked to the rear, it's impossible to insert a magazine fully to get the sear to reset. I have to let the slide go forward (setting up the dead trigger), then lock the slide to the rear again, THEN insert a magazine, which will reset the dead trigger.

Everyone on this site should, by now, know that even though its my daily carry, I'm NOT a fan of the GLOCK, hence my constant search for something to replace it. But this experience (and the, frankly, crappy CS from Sig) indicates TO ME, that Sig is STILL not a company that's to be trusted to do business with.

I will update when I hear back from Sig, but, in the meantime, buyer beware and all that jazz...

Ouch, that’s definitely not right. Internet armorering isn’t an exact science, but it sounds like a similar failure to what lwt16 described above.

Fortunately I haven’t seen that failure mode in the 25ish copies I’m responsible for. Only issues after about a year into our fleet has been some failures to extract with frangible that is likely an ammo issue and flaking chrome plating on one sear (mine of course).

[Gio]

Sig is a great marketing company, not so much a good gun company.