Would you trust a P320?

[spinmove_]

Drop it so it strikes the ground muzzle first. No firing pin block in the Series 70s, but Colt has been trashed ever since they changed over to the Series 80 with a firing pin block. So now they offer both.

One suggested solution was to go to a lightweight firing pin and a heavier firing pin spring.

When you drop a thing, it’s rare that you get to choose how it lands. That said, if it does strike the muzzle, a lightweight firing pin and heavier firing pin spring does strike me as a better than nothing.

I’m more concerned with when the gun lands muzzle up and/or pointed at something it shouldn’t be. The grip safety and half-cock notch should help a ton there. If the thumb safety is also engaged, that can’t hurt.

[HopetonBrown]

Watching Outdoors videos. They showed it quite clearly. One point they made was that the rear of the frame and the rear of the slide had to hit simultaneously.

I believe he is talking about your assertion:

The drop issue could only be duplicated by making a special sling in order to suspend the pistol at just the right angle, at the right height in order to work.

[CWM11B]

Yeah, saw that vid when it came out. Where is the special sling required to replicate the drop issue?

[Zman001]

I mean, a duty holster and belt could be seen as a "sling" i suppose...

[M2CattleCo]

When you drop a thing, it’s rare that you get to choose how it lands. That said, if it does strike the muzzle, a lightweight firing pin and heavier firing pin spring does strike me as a better than nothing.

I’m more concerned with when the gun lands muzzle up and/or pointed at something it shouldn’t be. The grip safety and half-cock notch should help a ton there. If the thumb safety is also engaged, that can’t hurt.

1911 has an inertial firing pin with a spring holding it back. With a grip safety blocking the triggers rearward movement, and the thumb safety blocking the sear, it would literally require smashing the gun until you broke multiple parts to make it fire with the muzzle up.

[spinmove_]

1911 has an inertial firing pin with a spring holding it back. With a grip safety blocking the triggers rearward movement, and the thumb safety blocking the sear, it would literally require smashing the gun until you broke multiple parts to make it fire with the muzzle up.

Yeah, I thought I remembered reading something along those lines somewhere else on this forum because I literally asked that question before, but couldn’t remember all the specific mechanics at the time of my reply. Thank you.

But yes, essentially you’d have to have multiple hardware failures simultaneously to get the same issue you’d see with a P320 pre-“Voluntary Upgrade”. Can it happen? I suppose. But you’d have to be so ridiculously negligent with maintaining that gun that it would literally be the end users fault. Unless of course that happened with a relatively new unit, then I’d say it more than qualifies as a “lemon”.

[Trooper224]

You expect a pistol design over a hundred years old, like the 1911, that was created when they were still figuring basic stuff out, to have a few quirks. You don't expect that from a new design made at the end of the second decade of the 21st century. 1911 v. P320 isn't a valid comparison in any form.

[M2CattleCo]

Exactly.

It's almost 2020.


If it uses the Browning action and a cartridge that's 100 years old, it had damn well be perfect and better than the last one they made. At a minimum.

[Clusterfrack]

Where did you get this information? I only ask because it is flat out wrong. I've seen it done with a drop on to concrete from below shoulder height.

I was easily able to make my 320s fire primed cases by dropping them 24” on carpeted concrete.

[cornstalker]

I was easily able to make my 320s fire primed cases by dropping them 24” on carpeted concrete.

Including the P320c post upgrade model?