New 2 July 2020 SIG P320 Lawsuit and P320 Concerns

[AMC]

Unfortunately for everyone, no actual investigation or examination of the involved equipment will be conducted, to determine exactly what happened. The reality is that few agencies have the requisite knowledge or skill among their personnel to conduct such an inquiry, or the desire to outsource it to someone who does. So we're left with "Something bad happened. We don't know exactly why....but it was bad."

And I agree with the posters above.....that statement by Sig was royally stupid. But par for the course for their LE side upper management. Very unpleasant dudes to deal with, frankly, on many levels. Constantly undermining the efforts of their own field reps. Very strange dynamic.

[Texaspoff]

Unfortunately for everyone, no actual investigation or examination of the involved equipment will be conducted, to determine exactly what happened. The reality is that few agencies have the requisite knowledge or skill among their personnel to conduct such an inquiry, or the desire to outsource it to someone who does. So we're left with "Something bad happened. We don't know exactly why....but it was bad."

And I agree with the posters above.....that statement by Sig was royally stupid. But par for the course for their LE side upper management. Very unpleasant dudes to deal with, frankly, on many levels. Constantly undermining the efforts of their own field reps. Very strange dynamic.

Truly, their regional LE rep here is great to deal with, but when something has to go up the chain, they treat you like your ignorant and they know best.



TXPO

[lwt16]

Agree with the above posts. I had an email chain up to corporate. The only person helpful and also sharing my concerns was the LE rep…..even though ours weren’t LE skus.

Almost like they knew I was on to something.

[APS-PF]

The striker safety is disengaged, either by the safety spring or lever being out of spec, installed improperly, or just gummed up.

Then you have a tolerance stack issue between the striker extension and sear, resulting in very little contact between the two. Then you apply a little pressure or torque to the frame, which gives you another couple thousandths and voila, the striker extension slips off the sear, pistol fired.

Am I correct that having the manual safety engaged on the 320/M17/18 would not prevent this kind of failure? I have checked schematics but cannot tell what that safety is blocking.
BTW, Spies Like Us, one of my favorites!

[RJ]

@cheby

I’ve suspected for some time that a twisting of the grip module towards the body, while the slide is trapped by a holster, in a copy with loose tolerances for sear engagement, and bad/missing/jammed spring…….with a loaded chamber……


Can cause a P320 to discharge without a trigger pull.

@Texaspoff @lwt16 @HCM @KevH would a P365 chassis (cast? milled?) be less susceptible to the effects of grip twisting / torque (tolerance stacking leading to parts like sears being misaligned by a few thousandths) than a P320 chassis (stamped?)?

[KevH]

It was the 2.0. Most of the issues were quality control/manufacturing related. The lightening triggers? Unknown. @KevH is much closer to this, and still on the job. He'd be a much better source. I'm just some old dude in the 'burbs with too many guns.

How the trigger interfaces with the sear is different between the M&P 1.0 and 2.0. The 1.0 had an adjustable "candy cane" hook. They simplified it with the 2.0. I'm not sure what the deal was with self-lightening triggers as I've never seen it. We had zero issues with our test 2.0's (including the "custom" one I setup with 15 round compact frame 4.25 OR slide, and Apex trigger kit...I wish this was a factory option).

We've had lots of 1.0 guns in both 40 S&W and 9mm in service since 2007 and our issues were broken off-side of the ambi slide stop lever (they sent us bags of new ones to just replace as they broke...didn't really cause any reliability issue with the gun), rust issues on a few guns (slide swapped out by factory), a cracked slide where the gun still functioned, but was sluggish (slide swapped out at factory), and one gun that had consistently inaccurate even in a Ransom Rest (slide and barrel swapped out at factory).

We've had guys with personally owned 2.0 guns and now have a bunch of them in service and have thus far had no issues.

[GJM]

If Sig was bluffing, with the evidence, or the lack there of they had on this incident, it would be incredibly reckless and stupid. As things stand today, it is hard to imagine another LE selection for the 320, without Sig definitely addressing this. Hope we get an answer soon.

[lwt16]

I was able to obtain our pistol that was related to our ND/AD and I took it down to the individual parts......which I had never done and this pistol was factory fresh with a build date of 10/2017. I entered the s/n into Sig's website "upgrade" checker and it came up good to go per Sig.

However.......

Attachment 58004

Dual sear springs were crossed and not putting correct pressure up on the foot of the striker

Attachment 58005

For lack of a better term, apparently this is an older style sear that lacks the nipples or posts that the springs slip over to keep them aligned.

Attachment 58006

It has dimples instead....and apparently, whoever assembled this thing in 10/17 did so in a hurry.

Attachment 58007

This is the spring that Sig no longer installs in recent builds. I feel certain that I now know why.

This little spring, which is the spring that retracts the lever that lifts the striker block, was a little hosed up. My thoughts are that the striker block lever was "stuck" in the upward position, with a striker foot not held by proper dual spring tension, and when our guy holstered, when his pistol clicked down and seated, the striker slipped from the sear and fell forward....discharging the HST round.

I have taken several apart from that same general time of year this one was build. They all have the newer style sear with spring posts instead of the dimples.

I'm 90 percent sure this discharge wasn't his fault. We assumed garment on the trigger but now I'm leaning towards the gun. I plan on sending Sig a certified letter this week as I need a replacement sear for this gun as well as any others I come across that have the similar, older style sear.

We have pulled them from duty and most have qualified on other pistols. We will see where it goes. I'd like confirmation from Sig that the fix is to simply remove that striker block lever spring from each copy and to ensure they have the most updated sear. If that's the fix to make them safe, I can do that for nothing for most of the guns we have.

I also appreciate this thread and they way everyone conducted themselves.

The striker safety is disengaged, either by the safety spring or lever being out of spec, installed improperly, or just gummed up.

Then you have a tolerance stack issue between the striker extension and sear, resulting in very little contact between the two. Then you apply a little pressure or torque to the frame, which gives you another couple thousandths and voila, the striker extension slips off the sear, pistol fired.

I’ve seen striker blocks deactivated in more than one 320. The spring that is supposed to reset it back in place after firing is tiny. The lever itself is also very small.

[lwt16]

Page 12 of this thread way back in 2020.

Regards.

[HCM]

@Texaspoff @lwt16 @HCM @KevH would a P365 chassis (cast? milled?) be less susceptible to the effects of grip twisting / torque (tolerance stacking leading to parts like sears being misaligned by a few thousandths) than a P320 chassis (stamped?)?

Maybe - to me the advantage of the cast FCU is a more durable ejector since the ejector on both is integral to the FCU.