https://www.newswire.com/news/stacca...ement-21233590
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Not sure how other people here feel about the 320, but my concern is the "uncommanded discharges" as one lawsuit called them. If a firearm discharges because I dropped it or I moved the wrong way with it holstered ,that concerns me even more than a firearm that fails to fire when intended. At least I have some protocol for a weapon failing to fire. I can reload or tap-rack-up or whatever. Id the weapon just discharges, what is my immediate action drill? "Oops, my bad!" or "Blame SigSauer.".
I purchased the 320 as an off-duty and eventual retirement pistol. I like the feel and the accuracy, but now it's judt a safe queen.
As @HCM has alluded to in other threads, institutional users appreciate the simplicity and time efficiency of the modular system that Sig uses. I'm familiar with large logistics systems. (I was the chief engineer for the rollout of the UK's Joint Asset Management and Engineering Solutions (JAMES) for the British Army in 2005. JAMES is still in use, tracking over 1.6M items of equipment.)
The elevation of the Sig FCU to LRU (line-replacement unit) level means a significant savings in time and staff expense for keeping the guns running. A supply chain based around FCUs is more efficient and simpler than stocking and maintaining caches of spares and common failure items. Local repair facilities on the line can simply swap out FCUs and re-issue the gun, getting it back in service quickly. This reduces the need for skill and training at the lower maintenance levels, since repair and replacement of FCU parts can be handled at depot, or higher up in the supply chain, or even back to the OEM level.
An added benefit for the FCU approach is very significant: the ability to tailor grip size to different anthropomorphic populations. A quantity of different size grip modules can be kept on hand at local levels, with each user essentially having a tailor made "gun", albeit with the same FCU / S/N. For users with large populations who are required by contract to account for human populations ranging from 5% female to 95% male, this is a big deal.
With user purchase quantities approaching 1 (or, actually 1) the efficiency and cost savings for the FCU approach is not as clear. Replacement is up to the user, and at replacement prices, even if only one component of the FCU is bad. This causes the end-user to pay for an entire FCU. This may or may not be acceptable. Every commercial user who buys a single P320 is adding to the production volume of the design, and further supporting the massive price discounts afforded large quantity purchasers like the US Army or Police forces. Not saying this is something you should or should not do, but if you buy a P320, you've bought into the philosophy of the FCU being a LRU, and will need to be prepared to deal with it if it goes wrong.
Users of other pistol designs, that use distributed, field replaceable parts, find that they are cheap, generally available, and easy to install, and the user can get their gun back running in their own time, themselves. For this reason, the Glock approach of 37 parts (or whatever is the exact number) is likely more attractive, from a cost/benefit ratio, for single digit quantity owners.
As to my personal experience with the Sig FCU design, Mrs. RJ has had a P365 which she really enjoys shooting. She has a few hundred trouble free rounds. She shoots it well.
I experimented with a P365XL recently. I had a couple issues with it. A persistent issue with the FCU was that the two engagement lugs had about 0.100" of slop in the frame. This caused the FCU to rock slightly just before the striker released, in odd hitch that was perceptible. The other was on the magazines. I took the gun to a USPSA match. Loading at the bench at the match, I noticed that the follower on one of the mags I'd dropped (with between 5-10 rounds of ammo) during a mag change had barfed out of the feed lips. I "fixed" it by shoving the follower down past the feed lips again, and reloaded it for the next stage. It's not necessarily a huge deal, but didn't inspire a lot of confidence in it. Aside from those two issues, the gun shot well and was very accurate, with no malfunctions in maybe 600 rounds. After 4 months I traded it for a Glock 48, as I felt the little Sig was a bit too delicate for my use case (as a carry gun. Plus, of course: SCD. )
Last edited by RJ; 10-26-2020 at 07:36 AM.
I suppose this about answers it, then. It does not seem like the P320 design is something I want to get into when there are others that don't have question marks hanging over them. It's a shame, because I really do like the P320.