^^^^^

The safety upgrade might be a solution for the military that could be installed by their own armorers. I agree that cops might not want it. I'd probably do it on my XTEN that I carry hiking, but I'm sure the backlog on parts and gunsmith time will be quite long. Might not have it in hand for years.

quote:

Originally posted by Sgt 127:

That’s very interesting. He filed for that patent over a year ago. He worked at Sig 2011-2016 it appears.

... and since then as a "consultant" for firearms design and QC. In New Hampshire.

quote:

Originally posted by Lt CHEG:
That patent for an improved safety system is extremely interesting. It could very well be a great solution. If retrofitting a manual safety is necessary to make the pistol “safe” then I think it just about completely destroys the P320’s viability as a general issue law enforcement duty pistol. If a manual safety is required for the gun to be safe when doing cop things in holsters then why not just carry a 1911/ 2011 and get an even better, shorter trigger? Regardless, it would be nice to see some sort of fix available for the folks that want to hang onto their P320 pistols.

It’s funny. When I started my career in LE in 1984, I carried a 1911. Even then, many agencies thought the cocked and locked pistol was “dangerous”.

I had a guy walk up to me one time…

“Say Officer…you know that things cocked?”

I looked down. Acted shocked…

“Oh shit!! It did it again! Would you give me hand getting that hammer down? Last time I tried, that Sunofabitch went off on me!”

Then the Glock came out. Partially cocked (some debate about how cocked) No manual safety. No grip safety. With a trigger weight close to a factory 1911 but, you couldn’t see the hammer. So, it was considered safe.

And now, fully cocked pistols. No manual safety. No grip safety with short light triggers. Are considered perfectly safe for duty guns. Appendix. Military. Because…you can’t see the cocked hammer.

Maybe they really aren’t.

quote:

Originally posted by Sgt 127:
Because…you can’t see the cocked hammer.

Yup. Just finished listening to a Lee Weems podcast with Ernie Langdon, and to paraphrase Langdon he said something along the lines of you can safely carry a striker-fired handgun without a manual safety, but you'd better handle it with the respect that you would a small nuclear device. I don't think everybody understands that.

quote:

Originally posted by Rusty_SWO:

quote:

Originally posted by rscalzo:

the fact you think they will be replacing the fcu is comical. I guess you subscribe to every backyard YouTube expert. As gar as bankrupting them, you really have no clue about the financial inner working of the company.

I've got measurements from 18 P320 FCU's so far of all different versions and across the entire length of production.

14 of them are measurably outside of the tolerances from Sig's own drawings.

Only 4 of them were within spec.

Even though a small sample, if these results are representative of the larger population, it could explain why these incidents involving the P320 seem random and not to fit an identifiable pattern.

What does a manual safety do for the military if they don’t use it? What I’ve read, which could very well be wrong, is the military specifically puts the safety they have on fire before holstering.

If a manual safety that blocks the sear winds up being the solution, I wonder how much SIG will have to pay this guy for the patent? Smart man getting a design and patent.

quote:

Originally posted by Lt CHEG:
That patent for an improved safety system is extremely interesting. It could very well be a great solution. If retrofitting a manual safety is necessary to make the pistol “safe” then I think it just about completely destroys the P320’s viability as a general issue law enforcement duty pistol. If a manual safety is required for the gun to be safe when doing cop things in holsters then why not just carry a 1911/ 2011 and get an even better, shorter trigger? Regardless, it would be nice to see some sort of fix available for the folks that want to hang onto their P320 pistols.

I did not watch that new patent video. But I have a question. If that new manual safety design described in the patent is necessary to make the pistol “safe”, then am I correct in assuming that when the manual safety is taken off-safe, that will return the P320 back to it's pre-patent "unsafe" state? Meaning, the pistol could fire without a pull of the trigger? If so, that patent is not a solution. Perhaps included in that patent is another aspect that fixes the real problem?

quote:

Originally posted by Chris17404:

I did not watch that new patent video. But I have a question. If that new manual safety design described in the patent is necessary to make the pistol “safe”, then am I correct in assuming that when the manual safety is taken off-safe, that will return the P320 back to it's pre-patent "unsafe" state? Meaning, the pistol could fire without a pull of the trigger? If so, that patent is not a solution. Perhaps included in that patent is another aspect that fixes the real problem?

It appears to me that the safety fix would only work with the safety engaged. I would say that this could absolutely be considered a fix, but that people are absolutely ending up a with a pistol that functions differently than the way they were sold the pistol. The argument would be that the pistol is supposed to be used and carried with the safety engaged at all times until ready to fire. Since the new added safety would likely prevent uncommanded discharges such as those widely reported it would probably be fair to say that this is a fix. The problem lies with the fact that people bought a pistol that has no eternal safety and were told that the design of the pistol didn’t require a manual safety in order for it to be safely carried. Post install of the fix, it now becomes clear that that claim from SIG was not correct and the pistol can only be safely carried with a manual safety engaged, just like a 1911, BHP or even a SIG P210. I think the installation of this device may well solve SIG’s potential military contract problems, and ameliorate the bulk of their civil liability, but it will absolutely end the use of P320s for law enforcement and likely deliver a substantial blow to defensive carry sales as well for much the same reason that you don’t see many SIG P210s in holsters.

quote:

Originally posted by Chris17404: But I have a question. If that new manual safety design described in the patent is necessary to make the pistol “safe”, then am I correct in assuming that when the manual safety is taken off-safe, that will return the P320 back to it's pre-patent "unsafe" state? Meaning, the pistol could fire without a pull of the trigger? If so, that patent is not a solution. Perhaps included in that patent is another aspect that fixes the real problem?

I think it might still be safer than the current situation if carried safety on. With both the trigger and sear blocked in the holster, there is no opportunity for the partial trigger pull that would result in sear perching. I don't think this would necessarily end up being a Rem 700 situation where the pistol would fire when the safety is moved to off.

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
What's important about the video I posted at the top of the page is not only that a P365 was made to fire with a partially depressed trigger and slide jiggling, but that an XDM could be made to do that after releasing the trigger.

Yes, it's a different gun, but it provides proof-of-concept. I asked the content creator if he could try and reproduce this behavior with a 320.

Sorry, I know it's been a few days and hopefully you see this, but I didn't have a P320 handy at the time so I wasn't able to test this when you initially brought this up. It seemed like a reasonable question, so I tried it today with a couple of P320s.

Sitting under an overhead light and pointing the gun towards the floor it's possible to see the sear through the gap between the slide cover plate and the grip module/FCU. I pulled the trigger partially to the rear and was able to see the sear retract. Stopping short of dropping the striker, I released the trigger, and was able to see the sear move back up into its original position (or VERY close to it). I don't have any tools to measure this, and I can't actually see the sear/striker engagement surface, but from what I can see of the sear it returns to its original position when the trigger is released on both guns that I had available.

I did this multiple times with each gun and got the same results every time. I know it's only a sample size of two, and they're both my guns so they're well maintained, but I wasn't able to get the sear to "perch" with either of them, even when I intentionally tried.

OK, thanks for checking. No, I wouldn't expect to see anything on such a small sample size. I think only a few guns out in the wild exhibit this, but how do you know if you've got a bad one?

So many things could cause a sear perch: tolerance stacking, out-of-spec parts, contamination (the 320 sear seems particularly susceptible to this), unusual wear patterns causing ledges where there shouldn't be. It may be a perfect storm of all of these things, or in other words the cheese holes aligning.

Well SIG and the P320 are officially done.

Ok that is a bit sarcastic I don’t actually think this but here is why I bring this up.

I go to visit my dad today. Now my day is not, nor has he ever been a shooter/gun guy of any kind. He probably knows Glock in the same way every soda is a “Coke” or every copy is a “Xerox”. Well he starts telling me about/asking about this whole SIG “SAWYER” kerfluffle and how this SIG handgun is dangerous and people were paid off blah blah etc.

When you have the lay’est of lay person start asking questions about SIG’s problems you know those problems have grown into a monster all their own. I really hope SIG finds a way to address this and I hope they find a way back to some version of “To Hell And Back…” but after my conversation today I am thinking they have a rough road ahead.

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
What's important about the video I posted at the top of the page is not only that a P365 was made to fire with a partially depressed trigger and slide jiggling, but that an XDM could be made to do that after releasing the trigger.

Just for clarity, in the video, releasing the trigger on the XDM did allow the striker safety block to move back into the “block” position which would have prevented the gun from firing.

In order for this to be the failure mode in these P320 cases, all of these people would have had to be skilled enough to partially pull the trigger to move the sear just enough that the striker is not released but not enough to completely release the striker.

Before I suggest “nobody does this”, is there anybody that anyone has ever heard of that does do this? Is there anybody on this forum that has ever made the decision to squeeze the trigger and changed their mind mid-squeeze?

Now not just one person, we’re having to believe that “hundreds” of people have walked the 20 thousandths of an inch line between firing and not firing.

Not only that, but because this condition has now been proven to occur across models and manufacturers, we have to believe that only P320 users do this and that only their holsters will hold their guns in this condition for hours before finally allowing the gun to fire, plus all of their striker safety locks would have to fail as well.

Interestingly enough the FBI was able to get their P320 sample’s striker safety lock to move to the fire position by manipulating the holstered pistol’s slide and frame. I forget how many times they jiggled the slide and frame to make that happen, 50? 100?

If we are to believe the Swiss cheese holes lined up, then we have to believe that hundreds of people partially pulled their triggers to within 20 thousandths of an inch of firing, holstered their handguns, jiggled them more than 50 time without the striker slipping from the sear until the striker safety lock moved to the fire position, and then just one more time to get the gun to fire.

Once we believe all of that, I’d point out again that nobody has been able to duplicate it in any P320/M17/M18 ever and it still requires the trigger to be pulled.

It is fun to think about though.

Actually I'm entertaining ideas that could explain sear perch without a manual partial trigger pull.

Idea 1 is that it's an accidental pull from a foreign object or bad holster. Not a full pull, but just enough.

Idea 2 is that a full trigger pull results in a dead trigger and partial lowering of the sear. The takeup could be occuring as stacked tolerances.

Idea 3 is that contamination on the sear upper surface mechanically prevents full lowering of the sear even after a full trigger pull.

I agree that it's probably not users intentionally actuating the trigger partway, because why would anyone do such a thing. Although given the number of units out there, who knows what some people will do.

At this point I'm still gathering info and brainstorming possible failure modes out loud. Maybe it'll lead somewhere.

quote:

Originally posted by kkina:
Idea 3 is that contamination on the sear upper surface mechanically prevents full lowering of the sear even after a full trigger pull.

This is an interesting idea. There's an angled surface on the back plate that could easily pinch some contamination between itself and the sear.

If you look at the 365, there's a big gap between the slope of the sear and the frame of the gun, with no place for debris to get caught.

They need to test all failure guns.

I personally think that making the sear surface taller and tightening the frame rails down will help a lot if not solve it.

It needs to rise up and jam itself proud up against the striker.

Oh, and get rid of the shit MIM striker safety lever back to an actual hardened stamped steel part like the engineers demanded.

quote:

They need to test all failure guns.

I think they need to start testing every P320’s that have a dead trigger…my gut feeling is that’s the precursor to an uncommanded discharge.

Again? How many time is he going to file that patent?

I've got 2 XTens; a 5" and an XComp. I'm taking them out of my carry rotation until there is something definitive.

Originally I looked at this as being another case of Glock leg, anymore I'm not so sure. My 5" usually gets carried in a chest holster when I'm kayaking. The idea of it discharging in the holster when I'm paddling out in the middle of a lake is more than a little scary.

I'm starting to look at alternatives to replace them. The idea of that really pisses me off. I shoot the Xten platform really well and have a lot invested in the guns, additional magazines, optics and holsters. I do have large bore revolvers and a Dan Wesson Razorback that I can and have carried. But for being active like kayaking, a polymer framed 10mm really works well.