P320 issue in PA

[cheby]

I am so done with any striker fired pistol. Langdon summed it up very well some time ago.

[HALO51]

I remain a bit skeptical. As designed the upgraded P320 seems to be a solid design. The striker is physically locked and cannot move forward unless an arm activated by the trigger is pushed up. The only explanations that make sense to me are manipulation of the trigger in some fashion or out of spec parts that are defeating the original design.

I've read your post several times and I'm not following. At first you're a "bit skeptical", then "or out of spec parts that are defeating the original design" I hope it's NOT an "out of spec" part. I hope it turns out to be duty rig related. However, Sig's QC has been suspect for last several years. Tiny, dainty designed inner workings none the less. Sig is 35 years late to the party.

[John Hearne]

I've read your post several times and I'm not following. At first you're a "bit skeptical", then "or out of spec parts that are defeating the original design" I hope it's NOT an "out of spec" part. I hope it turns out to be duty rig related. However, Sig's QC has been suspect for last several years. Tiny, dainty designed inner workings none the less. Sig is 35 years late to the party.

Sorry for the lack of clarity. I am very skeptical of spontaneous discharges without manipulation of the trigger. The lock on the striker seems very solid to me. If striker is moving forward, something is deactivating the lock on the striker or the design itself is being defeated by out of spec parts. This wouldn't be the first time that some form of tolerance stacking caused drop safe issues.

[HALO51]

Sorry for the lack of clarity. I am very skeptical of spontaneous discharges without manipulation of the trigger. The lock on the striker seems very solid to me. If striker is moving forward, something is deactivating the lock on the striker or the design itself is being defeated by out of spec parts. This wouldn't be the first time that some form of tolerance stacking caused drop safe issues.

Yes, I agree. If it turns out to be a Sig problem, I hope they get ahead of the problem and not continue to show "apathetic approach"

[DpdG]

The upgrade changed some masses and maybe springs to alter the timing relationships when things are impacted inertially. It didn't fundamentally change the design that I'm aware of. With the Glock action or an S&W SD action, something would have to physically break for the action to lose control of the striker. That is still not the case for the P320. What Tom and others described back at the time was conceptually adding a feature that would physically block rotation of the sear until the trigger bar moved forward; that was not done.

Given that an upgraded P320 can be dropped from several feet onto concrete and not fire, it's hard to think that getting out of a cart somehow led to an inertial impact that caused it to fire. There was probably something else going on.

I’m not sure I agree with you on this aspect. Prior to the upgrade, manually depressing the sear did not cause the trigger to move. Post upgrade, manually depressing the sear does move the trigger, indicating the sear is fully controlled by the trigger bar. I have not yet fully disassembled the sear assembly on a post upgrade gun, but I think Sig did change the interface between trigger bar and sear.

Whether that has any bearing on the SEPTA incident I have no idea, but lacking a total failure of multiple layers of safety mechanisms I’m drawing a blank as to how this could occur absent the trigger being depressed somehow.

[Leroy Suggs]

Someone or something depressed the trigger. The pistol discharged.

[runcible]

Someone or something depressed the trigger. The pistol discharged.

If you have supporting video of the incident, I'd love to see it, too!

[Galbraith]

I recently attended the P320 and P365 LE armorers courses, and got some more info on how the mechanism works.

The short answer is, if the P320 is upgraded and the parts are in spec and installed properly, it would require the trigger to be pulled in order to discharge the pistol. The mechanics of the new design have several layers of safety for cartridge discharge alone. Lets say that the striker is released even if the trigger is not pulled. The striker still must clear the second sear catch(designed with the upgrade as an additional safety), then it must clear the striker safety itself.

Now, there are several "possible" issues that could compromise the safeties surrounding the striker, but those issues would be caused by incorrect parts installed(or not installed at all), or someone trying to modify the parts. For instance, the new sear design requires the use of the gen 3 striker, and a gen 1 or 2 would cause the sear to unseat and clear both the sear catches. However, now the striker must clear the striker safety. If a 1st gen safety lever was left in the gun, and the required reset spring for it was not used or installed properly, then the safety lever could stay in the up position if dirty which could "in theory" deactivate the striker safety. The gen 2 safety lever does not need a spring to return to the deactivated position, so I suppose it is possible that a 1st generation safety lever could have been in the gun and the person who put the gun together left out the reset spring thinking that it wasn't needed.

A lot of f*ck ups with mix-match parts could "in theory" cause the gun to go off without pulling the trigger if the gun were bumped hard enough to cause a 1st or 2nd gen striker to come off of a latest gen sear catch. A "competent" armorer would know the difference, but someone who strips and reassembles a mix of older P320s and newer P320s might mix parts or not install parts which the correct generation resulting in some serious sh*t.

[OlongJohnson]

So what you're saying is that I (OJ, not TJ) would feel better carrying a G48+Gadget+grip mods than a P365XL.

Got it.

[Lester Polfus]

Since this happened in a transit station in a major East Coast city, I would be quite surprised if it WASN'T captured on video. I am tempted to wildly speculate that the video is the reason they did an emergency purchase of new guns, and fielded borrowed pistols in the interim, instead of looking for a way to fry the involved officer.

Having said that, I'd be interested in knowing about other factors as well. I was behind an officer in line at *$ the other day, and found myself looking down into the huge gap around his WML equipped Glock trigger guard thinking all sorts of stuff could get in there and wreak havoc, not only causing an AD but also potentially jamming the gun in the holster. I lived through the years when one of our Sergeants carried a pair of EMT shears for the express purpose of cutting the adjusting cords with the little barrel locks off people's jackets, and it's like we haven't learned anything.

I'm super skeptical of the "it just went off" story, but if this guy was just walking around doing his job and the gun randomly discharged in the holster, I feel pretty bad for him.