Personal SIG 320 Journey

[JHC]

All of my P320s have passed that test, including one 9mm compact that has extraction issues. That gun is on the way back to Sig after choking on WWB, Speer Gold Dot 124 +p, and Federal HST 147 at rate of 3/100 rounds. They were the typical failures you've seen in other threads: spent casing is 25-75% extracted and the slide tried to pick up a new round and feed it under or behind the empty case. Interestingly, that gun extracts robustly with the magazine removed during the test, but it had weak, erratic ejection with a charged magazine inserted. It even hit me in the head with brass a few times.

True story: I called Sig about the problem P320C. The customer support rep said, and I quote, "That's only a 3% failure rate during the break in period. If you send it to us, we'll have the gun for about four weeks and we may not be able to replicate the problem. If that happens, we’ll send it back without doing anything. You may want to keep shooting it and see if the problem goes away on its own." No, I want you to fix the damn gun, thank you. I didn’t ask how long the “break in period” is supposed to last.

I have a working theory that a new slide design may be the fix for extraction problems. That's after reading posts on Sigforum by people I believe are knowledgeable on the subject, and after some recent personal experiences with a few P320C’s. The italicized text below is an excerpt from a post by jljones in a Sigforum thread (page 10): http://sigforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc...510039714/p/10.

quote:Originally posted by ensigmatic:

I have been told that most of the guns made after mid 2016 have all the right changes. My new gun was manufactured in September and has been zero issues over about 300 rounds so far.

In one of the P320 threads you posted a list of changes between the first versions of this pistol and later production, but, I'll be darned if I can find it.
quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

The two biggies are a change in ejector cuts on some slides and a difference in slide mass. The newer slides are heavier. For whatever reason, SIG kept trying to make the gun function with an obscure 97 grain frangible round, and went too far the other way to where it caused problems with normal people rounds.

I want to make my own slide so bad that I can't stand it. A true heavy slide with no lightening cuts to see if there is any performance value going the other way. There is a significant difference running a heavier slide on the full size. I just wonder if it poses the same value on the compact.


jljones is Jerry Jones of OpSec Training – Bruce Gray’s outfit. Those guys know a thing or two about the 320. I don’t know if he’s right or not, but his information matches up with my small sample of guns.

Here’s the underside of two recent P320 compact slides. The top slide is the newest iteration that supposedly addresses the FTE issues. It is off of a gun with a manufacture date in February 2017. The bottom slide is off of a gun with a manufacture date of October 2016. The older slide has more material removed and the hammer ramp has a different profile.






Here’s a picture of the extractors. The top slide is the newest version, and the bottom slide is the older version. Notice the newer slide has a scallop cut on the outside of extractor. I have no clue what function that might serve other than to differentiate the newer extractors from previous versions, if there is a difference at all.



The “newer” slide has been functioning like a champ. In fact, I have two compacts with the newer slide. Both are running great without any hint of trouble. The older slide is from the gun that is on the way back to Sig because of failures to extract.

FWIW, I've shot a few of the "older" P320 compacts and never had a problem with them. This is the first P320 that has given my any trouble.

Man, that's an epic info packed post.

Thanks all you guys for those datapoints.

[Nephrology]

I don't own these guns or have any specific interest in buying them but have been intrigued by all of the information shared here as well. Thanks for the contributions all.

It's interesting to see the changes in these guns over time. I have a friend who currently works at SIG in an engineering capacity... let's just say he's been less than impressed with the managerial culture in Exeter...

[98z28]

98z28- I'm pretty sure your "old" style extractor is noticibly different because it is a loaded chamber indicator model, not because of a generational difference. My January/February 2016 full size has the scalloped extractor like your "new" style, despite the lightening cuts more closely resembling the older slide. As for the weight of the slide and any effect on extraction, I'm entirely unqualified to render an opinion one way or the other.

You may well be right. I no longer have an older P320 to compare, but I don't remember any of them having a red LCI. I can't see any differences in the extractor hook geometry between what I called the "new" version and what I called the "old" version.

Just to be clear, all of this info is my reading of the tea leaves. I have zero insider info from anyone connected with Sig, so take anything I speculate about with a large dose of salt.

I forgot about the magazine changes posted in this thread: https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....P320-Carry-9mm.

That post was for the full-size 17-round 9mm magazines. I'm not sure if the same changes are coming for the other magazines, though I hope Sig goes to a single baseplate design for all magazines. In any case, all three of my recent compacts came with the "old" style magazine baseplate. Two of them came with "Made in USA" magazines and one came with "Made in Italy" magazines. It was one of the newer guns with the updated slide that came with the Italian magazines.

Somewhat apropos: I had no intention of buying three P320s in such a short time period. I picked up two at an awesome local sale, but one didn't work. So I picked up a third just to have two functioning guns while Sig looks at the other. I've had to do the same thing with Glock and S&W recently (i.e. buy three just to get two that work). HK's prices have always made me pause. The upfront costs of setting up two identical guns is hard to swallow, at least for the P30 and USP series. But if you get two that work out of the box, I think you're better off...

[Doc_Glock]

HK's prices have always made me pause. The upfront costs of setting up two identical guns is hard to swallow, at least for the P30 and USP series. But if you get two that work out of the box, I think you're better off...

Truth. Especially if you factor in the test Ammo.

I don't especially care for HK triggers, but they are reliably reliable out of the box.

[Nephrology]

Truth. Especially if you factor in the test Ammo.

I don't especially care for HK triggers, but they are reliably reliable out of the box.

VP9s seem to have very pleasant triggers and are pretty well priced to boot. If I was starting from scratch I would give them a very hard look.

[tcba_joe]

I don't own these guns or have any specific interest in buying them but have been intrigued by all of the information shared here as well. Thanks for the contributions all.

It's interesting to see the changes in these guns over time. I have a friend who currently works at SIG in an engineering capacity... let's just say he's been less than impressed with the managerial culture in Exeter...

We may know the same people. And he's completely on point about management.

[Tokarev]

North Dakota Highway Patrol just approved/adopted the P320 for their use.

[LockedBreech]

VP9s seem to have very pleasant triggers and are pretty well priced to boot. If I was starting from scratch I would give them a very hard look.

Indeed if only a forum member was selling the LE model with 3 mags and night sights and only about 1K down the pipe for a reasonable price. O_O.

*shamefully slinks away*

[98z28]

Truth. Especially if you factor in the test Ammo.

I don't especially care for HK triggers, but they are reliably reliable out of the box.

Truth. It's the ammo and lost training time that are so frustrating. You're laying down good reps with a couple thousand rounds of ammo, and then the gun you're working with starts choking. Now you've got to diagnose the issue, attempt to fix it, and then put another couple thousand rounds through it to verify function. That's expensive and distracting. I've sworn off Glocks and M&Ps after experiencing this multiple times. Neither manufacturer seems interested in fixing the problems.

At least Sig appears to be addressing the issue through design changes, and they have significant motivation to do so with large, high-profile contracts for the compact 9mm upper. At least that's what my optimistic side wants to believe. I like everything else about the 320 enough to keep working with it.

I do wish there were some sort of gadget would help detect and prevent trigger movement while reholstering. I know, I know. Soon.

[Wake27]

At least Sig appears to be addressing the issue through design changes, and they have significant motivation to do so with large, high-profile contracts for the compact 9mm upper. At least that's what my optimistic side wants to believe. I like everything else about the 320 enough to keep working with it.

This is one reason that I am heavily considering giving the 320 a shot. Not just with issues, but little things that customers ask for. Glock just seems too full of their own perfection. Thanks for the informative thread.