Would you trust a P320?

[HCM]

Was the P250 this complex?

I'm not sure how to gauge the complexity; it certainly was less successful, having famously failed the BATFE testing in 2010 and the Dutch police cancelling their contract in 2011.

You forgot the failed Hong Kong Police adoption of the P250 which resulted in the HKPD re-adopting new S&W model 10 revolvers.

Not sure if this answers the question but it’s important to remember there were two generation of the P250 and the first generation was a giant turd. By the time SIG fixed the P250 into the Gen 2 which some of PF looks on with so much nostalgia the damage was already done.

There wasn’t a direct safety issue as with the P320 drop gate issues so there was no recall or upgrade program. However SIG never formally acknowledged the generations, it was just a rolling change.

[TheNewbie]

You forgot the failed Hong Kong Police adoption of the P250 which resulted in the HKPD re-adopting new S&W model 10 revolvers.

Not sure if this answers the question but it’s important to remember there were two generation of the P250 and the first generation was a giant turd. By the time SIG fixed the P250 into the Gen 2 which some of PF looks on with so much nostalgia the damage was already done.

There wasn’t a direct safety issue as with the P320 drop gate issues so there was no recall or upgrade program. However SIG never formally acknowledged the generations, it was just a rolling change.

Sort of. I also remember the Dutch police contract debacle. I’m not sure if that was a Gen 1 or 2 gun at the core of the issue.

Then there was the ATF issue during their pistol trials.


Part of my curiosity is the complexity of the P250 FCU vs that of the P320.

[HCM]

Sort of. I also remember the Dutch police contract debacle. I’m not sure if that was a Gen 1 or 2 gun at the core of the issue.

Then there was the ATF issue during their pistol trials.


Part of my curiosity is the complexity of the P250 FCU vs that of the P320.

JSGlock34 mentioned ATF and the Dutch Police.

Those were all Gen1.

Around the time of the ATF trials there was also an aborted attempt to switch the FAMS from P229s to P250s.

[JonInWA]

Sigh. I wonder how much angst SIG could have avoided by really comitting to the 2009/2340/P2022 plat5form, and coming up with some improvements and viable options?

I note that at least at one point SIG had a DAO option for the 2022; hmm, might have to call SIG on the availability of that one...

Best, Jon

[M2CattleCo]

It seems like Sig’s polymer pistols didn’t really take off until they were junky and dangerous.

Now that they’ve figured out the winning combination, the sky is the limit.

Sigs are absolute garbage.

[Bucky]

Sigh. I wonder how much angst SIG could have avoided by really comitting to the 2009/2340/P2022 plat5form, and coming up with some improvements and viable options?

Wouldn’t have helped. They needed a striker fired, single trigger pull firearm. All the new big MIL and LE contracts required such.

[JonInWA]

Wouldn’t have helped. They needed a striker fired, single trigger pull firearm. All the new big MIL and LE contracts required such.

Stop injecting a dose of cold reality into my fantasy.....

Best, Jon

[JSGlock34]

This thread made me think of this post by Todd a few years ago...

Pistol-Training.com: Why Did It Take So Long To Get a Striker-Fired SIG?

Why Did It Take So Long To Get a Striker-Fired SIG?
10-Jan-14 – 02:48 by ToddG
The reign of the SFA (striker-fired action) pistol is all but complete. Why did it take so long for SIG to get on board? Well, at least one part of the story is a great example of how companies can become blindly biased by their own products. And like most of my favorite stories, it involves me, too.

Years ago SIG was on the cusp of introducing what would become the P250. It had already been in development for quite a while and it sounded awesome. We were told it was absolutely everything you ever liked about SIG pistols plus unparalleled paradigm-shifting modularity.

The company had also hired a new grand poobah, Ron Cohen. And at a critical point in the P250’s formation, Cohen called a bunch of the law enforcement/military sales guys to a meeting in Exeter. His question was simple: should we tap the brakes a bit and turn this into a striker-fired gun.

I stood up and made an impassioned plea to keep the gun hammer fired. Hammer fired guns are better, after all. I knew because that’s what I’d been telling my customers for years and I truly believed it (still do, to an extent). They’re more reliable. They’re safer. They’re more robust. I’d been telling customers for years that they were better than striker-fired guns. How could this guy possibly ask us to go back to our customers and explain how everything we’d said about hammer fired guns was wrong? Good heavens, man, you were raping my sales pitch and leaving it for dead!

Not a single person stood up in favor of a SFA SIG that day.

Forget what the market was demanding. Forget who we were losing contracts to. Nope, we’d had a bathtub full of kool-aid and wouldn’t be turned from the path of righteousness.

So the P250 came into being and for years it was the gun that SIG tried to make work… both in terms of function and market penetration. New gun designs are monumental investments and once they’re on the market you’re stuck with them for good or ill. But what might have happened if the P250 got redesigned from the ground up as a SFA to begin with? It might have worked better. It would have opened up a whole new segment of the market. It could have made a real difference.

The SIG P320 may or may not be a success. It has the stigma of the P250 to overcome. The Smith & Wesson M&P beat it to market by quite a few years and has already established itself as the “other” SFA option. For the most part the shooting community hasn’t responded with much enthusiasm to the modular pistol concept. But maybe, just maybe, if the P320 had arrived in stores nine years ago…

But it didn’t. And while there are countless factors that go into such decisions, at least part of the reason was because a room full of sales guys at SIG — including me — ignored the giant neon flashing sign in front of us saying “SFA or bust!” in favor of listening to ourselves chant a sales pitch.

Train hard & stay safe! ToddG

[John Hearne]

VP9 did the forced mag-drop/no trigger pull for takedown a year before the P320. Much better trigger than any of my 4 P320’s as well, including the two that were fettled by GG.

Yes, per a friend much smarter than I, the idea goes back to the 1930's and some Star pistols. My point was that the P320 combines a lot of desirable features at a price point that is extremely competitive. How many agencies are carrying the VP-9? I know Texas DPS tested them and liked them but they lacked a compact option and couldn't compete on price.

I think that the key to Sig's recent market success is to bring out a product that is a solid B for function but a solid A on price. Is it the best optic/pistol in the world? Is it the best 1-6 LPVO? No but its a good enough product at a highly competitive price. FWIW, the IOP price for a nicely setup P320 with optic is $829. That's an impressive turn key solution.

[John Hearne]

I'm not sure how to gauge the complexity; it certainly was less successful, having famously failed the BATFE testing in 2010 and the Dutch police cancelling their contract in 2011.

IIRC, the ATF trials considered that each time the gun didn't lock open on empty, it was a failure even though it was obvious shooter's thumbs were resting on the slide catch lever. The more damning condemnation of the P250 was their failed adoption by the FAMS. They sent something like five guns to each field office to get reactions. None of the P250's could hold up to the 357 Sig.