Yes, but this is P-F, where the nuances of pistol craft, pistol design, and pistol history have to be discussed.Originally Posted by 19852+
Anyways we return you now to our previously scheduled Daily Two Minutes Hate of the P320.
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Yes, but this is P-F, where the nuances of pistol craft, pistol design, and pistol history have to be discussed.
Anyways we return you now to our previously scheduled Daily Two Minutes Hate of the P320.
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Fo'realz. If someone doesn't like randomly talking about guns, there's probably better places on the internets that gun forums.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
I don’t think our culture today allows for the admittance of mistakes.
The following is of course hypothetical. Imagine company A is looking to replace their internally developed software X. They contract company B for software Y when it really needs software Z (both from same company). Instead of admitting fault and renegotiating to license software Z, they repurpose the internal software X team to modify and extend external software Y to do what software Z already does.
Moral of the story, it’s better to pound a square peg into a round hole, than to admit you should have bought the round peg.
Nothing here is to imply the M17 is / isn’t up to the task, just to imply that IF it wasn’t, the .gov would keep pounding on that square peg.
I have survived several versions of this hypothetical story, not with handguns but with mission- and safety-critical software. It has never ended well, and the X team that caused most of the problems with projects 1, 2, and 3 were still around to take on project 4.
To continue with the software analogy I’m thinking that during demo and testing of the M17 it appeared to check all of the boxes. In actual use behind the spiffy fronted, there is a bunch of spaghetti code.
I have some thoughts on these issues, and think they point to something else as well. This is entirely separate from the fact that I think Sig has some really cool, innovative people working for them, but is run by garbage human beings. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive.
There may be problems with the gun still. I tend to think that current production Pro Series guns are good to go, and I do enjoy shooting them (though not as much as an M&P 2.0). There are several departments in the greater SF Bay Area that have recently adopted the gun, and two large sheriff's departments that are about to make the move. The training staffs at those two departments are pretty switched on guys, too.
The gun clearly was not drop safe, when released initially, and Sig handled the problem in the worst way possible in my opinion. They've left a target on their back, and any negligent discharge associated with one of these guns runs the risk of attracting a lawyers attention. That's a totally self-inflicted wound, in my opinion. To this day, I would never trust a "Voluntary Upgrade" 320.
Several of these incidents bear all the signs of a negligent discharge, that someone is trying to excuse or pay their medical bills for. Not the earliest, pre-upgrade incidents, mind you....but some of the later and more recent ones. And this points to a part of what I think is going on. I'm aware of, and participated in reviews of, several negligent discharges in my own department over the last couple of years. Nearly half involved the officers' personally owned, off-duty Glock (we issue Sig P226R pistols in .40). I'm also aware of several negligent discharges investigated by nearby agencies involving their officers. These incidents involved mostly Glocks, but also Smith M&P's, etc. And I think there is still a common denominator here. In my opinion, that is totally inadequate training.....specifically transition training. I've spoken to the training staff at numerous departments in my state over the last 18 months or so, who have made or were in the process of making the transition to the Sig 320. Every single one of them had conducted a transition training of 8 hours or less, including the agencies coming from DA/SA guns. When I asked the training staff at one local agency if they had experienced an increase in ND's, he said no. Six months later I ran into an officer from that agency, and asked him the same question. He said "Oh, yeah.....every time we're at the range. At least one or two."
A trainer at a Southern California department I spoke to, when I asked him about the 8 hour training, said "Why would you need more? How long do you think it takes to get someone to qualify with a new gun?" And this, right there, is the problem. I can get you to "Qualify" with a striker fired gun in an hour, frankly, if you are a remotely decent halfass shooter. That isn't the point, and it isn't what concerns me. What worries me is are you safe with that new trigger? Are you able to 'not' shoot when you don't need to? This is the reason that I've insisted that any transition course for a striker fired pistol we approve will be 20 hrs. ...minimum. And the training will concentrate heavily on trigger finger discipline, in changing 'shoot/don't shoot' drills. Some people gripe about this...but are also the same people who would never bat an eye at mandating 40 hours of training before carrying a 1911 pattern gun. This is not new thinking at all, and everybody involved in training here knows this is a problem. We aren't preparing people for success with 4-8 hrs of training. We're setting them up to fail.
Some of these incidents discussed here may be the gun. Time will tell. I still maintain that totally inadequate transition training is at the root of the problem. Sig just stupidly drew a "Bummer of a birthmark" on themselves with their response to Dropgate, and now every negligent discharge will be blamed on the gun, deserved or not. Anyway, that's my take on what is driving a majority of these incidents. YMMV.
You just put something into words that I’ve been thinking about for years.
I am not sure that is the best analogy. I think one of two things happened, neither of which is good.
1) SIG never performed thorough design validation and process verification testing on the commercial guns before marketing and never ran PRAT. As such, SIG never found the initial issues. This would just mean SIG is incompetent.
2) SIG found the issues during DoD testing, kept shipping the commercial guns while changing the DoD design, and insisted there were no issues with the commercial guns. This would mean SIG has zero integrity.
The story to date favors 2) because SIG claimed the DoD guns did not suffer from the issue, shipped the commercial guns with the defect found during the DoD testing, and insisted the commercial guns were safe.
Because I believe 2) is the issue, I will not purchase a new SIG product until such time as the management team shows some signs of integrity. Just me. My choice will have zero impact on SIG's bottom line.
I just hope that the guns get fixed, especially for agency and institutional users who have to carry the "company" gun.
A*B*C=X
I thought I made a mistake once but I was wrong.
It's tax dollars. Nobody has any skin in the game except the end user. Shoot a procurement guy in the leg and see how he holds up.
Last edited by Borderland; 02-26-2021 at 10:47 PM.
In the P-F basket of deplorables.
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