Would you trust a P320?

[AMC]

My dept. is currently looking into transitioning to P320 from p229. Obviously NDs is a concern given what you stated above. Has anyone used the Agency Arms tabbed trigger, and would this be a worthwhile investment to mitigate a negligent discharge to some degree? I've seen mixed reviews on that trigger so curious if anyone has thoughts on it

When I retired last year, my department was about to begin a striker fired pistol conversion course, and the P320 was one of the likely candidates. We were issuing (and they still are) 226 pistols in .40. I wrote the outline for our conversion course, based on a great deal of research I did over a couple of years on where theses efforts go wrong. I strongly advise a 2 day course, over the popular 8 hr type deal. The issue is that you're not really trying to get them to 'qualify' with the new pistol (as if that really means anything), you're trying to get them to be safe with the platform. This is especially true coming from a DA/SA pistol in my opinion. The outline had a heavy emphasis on coming from the holster to engage, and drills for backing off of the trigger and NOT shooting. Day 2 included some lowlight and judgemental shooting exercises too, to emphasize those points. I think this is where too many conversion courses to light trigger pistols go wrong. The goal should be learning to SAFELY operate that light trigger.

As far as aftermarket triggers go....bad idea in my opinion and experience. Keep department weapons actions stock. If you think the trigger is a problem, why pick that pistol? And really, that Agency tabbed trigger does not actually accomplish what people think it does.

ETA:@SoCalDep can be a good resource here.

[kmess]

Thanks AMC. I am confident in the safety of the weapon mechanically, just not as much in officers with that trigger (recent Houston PD shooting vid comes to mind). Governing body is getting cold feet on transitioning weapons due to lawsuits so that's another hurdle. Regardless we really would like to move to PMO, and other option would be P229 RX (been told Glock off the table so options narrow down considerable). Any chance you still have a copy of that conversion course outline?

[cheby]

Good article:

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/ho...0-faceplanted/

[AMC]

Thanks AMC. I am confident in the safety of the weapon mechanically, just not as much in officers with that trigger (recent Houston PD shooting vid comes to mind). Governing body is getting cold feet on transitioning weapons due to lawsuits so that's another hurdle. Regardless we really would like to move to PMO, and other option would be P229 RX (been told Glock off the table so options narrow down considerable). Any chance you still have a copy of that conversion course outline?

I'll have to dig through the boxes in my garage to see if I can find the outline. This is the initial hourly breakdown outline, not the full POST Expanded Course Outline that lists a bunch of extraneous admin stuff in POSTese that the state requires. The guys in the office might still have it.....I'll check. Unfortunately my successor in the office had a 90 foot tree fall on him as he left work. He's not coming back, though we hope he'll recover enough to have some quality of life with his family.

As far as the triggers go, while I agree the 320 trigger is less forgiving, it's no worse (actually probably better in this regard) than a VP9 or Walther PDP trigger. All the fully tensioned striker stringer systems are twitchy in this regard. Maybe @SoCalDep can chime in since he has way more experience in this regard, but that's something in favor of the M&P 2.0. That relatively long take-up to the wall before resistance provides a better margin for error, in my opinion. Of course, he can also explain to you why that is not at ALL a real barrier to NDs without proper transition training.

ETA: any reason given for Glock being off the table? That was true for us as well. Entirely due to command personnel thinking they were 'gun guys', and seeing the number of admin handling NDs that guys were having with personally owned backup Glocks. The pants wetting runs deep.

[jnc36rcpd]

Thanks AMC. I am confident in the safety of the weapon mechanically, just not as much in officers with that trigger (recent Houston PD shooting vid comes to mind). Governing body is getting cold feet on transitioning weapons due to lawsuits so that's another hurdle. Regardless we really would like to move to PMO, and other option would be P229 RX (been told Glock off the table so options narrow down considerable). Any chance you still have a copy of that conversion course outline?

Did we have the same chief? The chief at my former department swore he would never issue Glocks because they were "cheap". When we looked at transitioning from the DA/SA .40 SIG 226, we did test a couple of Glocks, but we knew that proposal would be an uphill slog. We ended up with the FNS-9 which had a following among some instructors and department cool kids (who I suspect didn't want the same gun as the county police).

We did a one-day transition which wasn't especially rigorous. Surprisingly, nothing went wrong. A couple of years later, there was an "uncommanded discharge" in the locker room which fortunately only murdered a major's locker. The officer was a gun guy who went through the academy with the FNS . His excuse that it just went off was accepted as an excuse for the new chief to transition to the Glock which his former department issued.

[Bucky]

Did we have the same chief? The chief at my former department swore he would never issue Glocks because they were "cheap". When we looked at transitioning from the DA/SA .40 SIG 226, we did test a couple of Glocks, but we knew that proposal would be an uphill slog.

My subjective opinion, I can see how earlier Glocks would feel cheap compared to an early Sig P22x series gun. However a Gen 5 gun to me seems less cheap than a P320.

I hope the newer FNs have better frame material than this.

[jnc36rcpd]

In fairness to the former chief, I think we could have convinced him that Glock was the way to go, but the cool kids wanted the FNS. In fairness to FNH, I suspect the FN-509 is a better option that FNH's previous polymer offerings.

[kmess]

Did we have the same chief? The chief at my former department swore he would never issue Glocks because they were "cheap". When we looked at transitioning from the DA/SA .40 SIG 226, we did test a couple of Glocks, but we knew that proposal would be an uphill slog. We ended up with the FNS-9 which had a following among some instructors and department cool kids (who I suspect didn't want the same gun as the county police).

We did a one-day transition which wasn't especially rigorous. Surprisingly, nothing went wrong. A couple of years later, there was an "uncommanded discharge" in the locker room which fortunately only murdered a major's locker. The officer was a gun guy who went through the academy with the FNS . His excuse that it just went off was accepted as an excuse for the new chief to transition to the Glock which his former department issued.

The Glock hesitancy is not necessarily the Chief, although not his favorite. Our Public Safety Director is a former LEO, carried a Sig and now has a major say in our budget. He has a hardline stance against Glock (no clue why). I like the Sig 229, have carried it throughout my career, but also have a lot of experience (and love) with Glocks from SWAT and carry one off-duty. It is what it is, I pick and choose my battles at this point and this one (Glock) would be a loser. My hope now is to convince the powers that be that the Sig P320 is mechanically safe and the lawsuits aren't what they seem.