https://www.inquirer.com/busin....html?outputType=amp

Im sure anti-gunners love articles like this....

Maybe we could combine all these BullShit, 'It Just Went Off' stories about the P320, and the resulting 'Get the Compensation that You Deserve' Lawsuits into one thread...

I wonder what that "just missed" woman was doing down below the officer's knee?

"Carrying in a leg holster strapped to his leg".

I'd like to see video of his hands, the inside of the holster and location of the straps that hold his holster in place.

I can buy the idea of the rare drop at the perfect angle stories but this has nothing to do with that. This claims to be properly secured inside a holster and an updated gun.

I wasn't there but if there was something caught in the holster and trigger guard and he did something like shift in his seat or bend over, the trigger could get pulled. Remember, the P320 is only one of the few striker fired pistols without a trigger safety tab or hinge.

No one wants to consider the fact that there may be a defect in the pistol behind this? If the were all user error, we'd be hearing about a lot of these with Glocks and maybe M&Ps, which I figure are in a lot more LE holsters than P320s. I haven't. Has anyone else?

Lest we forget, after it was introduced it was the Glock with its tabbed trigger that was responsible for the large increase in unintentional discharges due to contact of the trigger by foreign objects such as drawstrings or clothing flaps. Anything that gets into the trigger guard (including fingers) and depresses the trigger is likely to be far enough in to depress the tab as well.

Could there be a defect in the pistol?

Assume that there could be, but the question is why it’s only LEOs’ guns that are discharging spontaneously? Is it happening with military weapons or any of the countless guns in non-LEOs’ hands? It’s been pointed out that the engagement surface between striker hook and sear is small, but that’s evidently why SIG added a second intercept notch to the sear.

If I had to think of a reason why spontaneous discharges are being reported about LEO P320s and not other guns when they aren’t really happening, it would be because reports beget copycat reports. If the word is out that one officer had a spontaneous discharge with a relatively new gun and the claim is accepted by his agency, it’s far more likely that someone else will be willing to try the same excuse if he screws up. Who’s going to believe that a Glock was anything but perfect? And of course if there is some obvious physical difference between a gun and a Glock (tabbed trigger), then that can be a convenient feature to blame, no matter how unlikely it is to be the cause.

If the SDs are actually occurring, my concern would be about the cleanliness of the guns. If the (highly exposed) sear notches became sufficiently gunked-up and dirty with firing residues or other contaminants, that could reduce the degree of contact between the striker hook and the sear and possibly allow it to happen. LEOs’ guns are among the most likely to be allowed to become that dirty.

In addition, even if it’s not dirt/debris affecting sear/striker engagement, perhaps something else could affect that. I’m careful to tell new hires of my agency to avoid putting solvents or lube into the sear housing assembly. Many LEOs believe, however, if it moves it should be saturated in oil and if someone sprayed the mechanism full of WD-40 every time he cleaned his gun, could that ultimately have an effect on the engagement?

Could lubricating the sear, striker contact surface, and fire control unit cause the firearm to discharge on its own? Absolutely not.

I do lubricate all those surfaces.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

Lest we forget, after it was introduced it was the Glock with its tabbed trigger that was responsible for the large increase in unintentional discharges due to contact of the trigger by foreign objects such as drawstrings or clothing flaps. Anything that gets into the trigger guard (including fingers) and depresses the trigger is likely to be far enough in to depress the tab as well.

I personally know somebody who had an unintended discharge with a Glock 17 when a piece of foreign material got caught inside the trigger guard while holstering the pistol.

Once plaintiff lawyers get involved that Neil Young quote from one of his songs comes to mind: "Some people can turn bullshit into gold."

Kill a couple of birds with 1 stone... Take all of the weapons away from cops and give them a whistle and a hard hat.

I mean, that is where we are heading with all of this BLM bullshit, racial justice, unwarranted killing of black men by white cops, citizen cop review boards and everything else.

Or better yet, use them as a proving ground for "smart guns".

I do not believe for 1 minute that the gun just went off. I have several P320's, some with competition triggers, that have never and will never "just go off". It's all bullshit.

quote:

Originally posted by nhracecraft:
Maybe we could combine all these BullShit, 'It Just Went Off' stories about the P320, and the resulting 'Get the Compensation that You Deserve' Lawsuits into one thread...

Or, maybe there is something really wrong with the design!

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
Could lubricating the sear, striker contact surface, and fire control unit cause the firearm to discharge on its own? Absolutely not.

I believe you misunderstand my point.
I realize that it may be hard to follow, but it’s not that lubricating those mechanisms would cause a spontaneous discharge, but questioning whether a build up of some product that limited the free movement of the sear would reduce the effective contact area between the striker hook and sear notch, thereby making it more likely that the striker hook would slip off the sear without the trigger’s being pulled.

The same question was about whether the contact surface area could be reduced by a build up of dirt/debris/firing residues on the sear.

If there’s something about the sear/striker mechanism that would make my speculated/questioned scenarios impossible, I’d be eager to learn it.

quote:

Originally posted by sox:


Or, maybe there is something really wrong with the design!

Of course there is. Occams Razor. Clearly there's a fault with the P320 that only occurs to law enforcement officer, mostly with prior military experience.

It couldn't possibly be the users.

After all, the most simple explanation is that despite a nearly universal, common thread in the series of negligent discharges is that the pistol must be at fault. After all, all the cops say that the pistol went off on its own.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:


I believe you misunderstand my point.
I realize that it may be hard to follow, but it’s not that lubricating those mechanisms would cause a spontaneous discharge, but questioning whether a build up of some product that limited the free movement of the sear would reduce the effective contact area between the striker hook and sear notch, thereby making it more likely that the striker hook would slip off the sear without the trigger’s being pulled.

The same question was about whether the contact surface area could be reduced by a build up of dirt/debris/firing residues on the sear.

If there’s something about the sear/striker mechanism that would make my speculated/questioned scenarios impossible, I’d be eager to learn it.

Thank you for noting that I may have a hard time following you. It's probably owing to my utter stupidity and lack of comprehension, but I'll try real hard to get the good idea of what you telling me if I listen good an know okay?

It's really not that complicated. And I'm not that stupid, but I appreciate being talked down to, all the same.

If the users are applying incorrect materials to the weapons, it's theoretically possible that the P320, and any other firearm might be impaired. Mix gorilla glue and sand with froglube, for example, or spray the sear and fire control unit with fifteen coats of hair spray. Or dip the assmbly in anything sticky. Or use a lubricant that eventually turns to a glue (eg, Pro Gold Lubricant), don't inspect or maintain it, and then attempt to shoot it in an unsafe condition. Of course it may malfunction.

Pro Gold is a good example; lubricate a firearm then leave it in the safe for a couple of years, and it's very likely the slide won't budge, or that it will move sluggishly, sticky. Such a condition might allow the sear to depress, yet not rise under spring tension, thus not engaging the striker.

Of course, if this were the case, a "lubricant" preventing engagement, then the pistol couldn't fire, as there would be nothing to retract the striker. But for the sake of argument, imagine that the sear only returns slightly to engage the striker, without full engagement. There is a second sear notch. The second notch assumes that the sear is still able to be pressed upward under spring tension.

Any semi-automatic firearm which can limit the sear engagement might continue to fire if engagement can't be achieved, but in some firearms, additional mechanisms may need to be defeated in order for that to happen...it's rare, but I have had firearms, and have seen firearms discharge multiple rounds, ala automatic fire, during such a malfunction. It's dangerous, rare, and comes down to parts failure or improper lubrication in nearly all cases. This also assumes that components such as a disconnectors, and other devices, aren't functioning properly. It also doesn't really address the P320 "problem"

It's hard to discount the common thread, of course, which is the user; they all blame the pistol, they all seek legal remedy and money (follow the money), and astonishingly, they're cops. Couldn't possibly mean anything though; it must be the firearm. What kind of astronomical odds would it be that a poor lubricant, limiting sear reengagement or travel, only falls into the hands of cops, and in nearly each case, they shoot themselves? And, it always seems to occur inside a holster (where it couldn't possibly be the cops fault). But it must be the lubricant.

Also missing is the plethora of duplicative tests verifying this, or even verifying that the P320 goes off on its own. Where are these demonstrations?

The P320 is really going off on it's own, ala Gus Grissom style ("I dunno, it just blew"), and Sig isn't interested? The USMC isn't interested? The US Army isn't interested? USPSA isn't interested? California bans firearms because it's a wednesday and there's an R in the name of the firearm, but liability-crazy California isn't interested? IDPA doesn't care? Youtube and the internet isn't lit up with hudreds of nutcases eager for the world to look at their ugly mugs as they make a name for themselves duplicating it on camera (as was the case with the "pre-upgrade" pistols?

Really no evidence (how does one prove a negative, anyway?), no serious attempt to provide any, and no concern by the users and those exposed to the pistol, from civil owners to competitive organizations, to the US military, to the manufacturer as to the imperative of a firearm that magically discharges on its own in cop holsters. No evidence from the legeal gears pushing these various claims, backing them up.

The P320 isn't going to fire without the trigger depressed. There were certainly duplicated cases prior to the "upgrade" where that was possible, from dropping the pistol to striking the rear fo the slide with a mallet. It could be duplicated, and it was. Over and over and over and over. Ad nauseum. Now?

Not so much.

Why is that? Why is it that the pistols only seem to go off in the holster? Only the holster when it's in a position to cause personal injury? Nearly always when the user is alone, without witnesses to back it up? Nearly always when the user is...a cop. Yet its the pistol, and we ought to focus on proving a negative. After all, Thomas Edison created the lightbulb by finding 2000 ways it didn't work, and DaVinci sculpted by removing what wasn't actually part of the sculpture, until all that remained was the sculpture. Thus, if we waste our time poking at the ridiculous, the extreme, the wild, the arcane, and the implausible, eventually we must come to the conclusion that it had nothing to do with cops failing to take responsibility for their own negligent discharges in their own holsters, and we can finally find a scapegoat.

It will happen. Oh yes. It will happen.

I’m curious to the type of retention rig this P320 was holstered within & if that’s the real crux of the issue? He wouldnt be the first one to not have properly secured his pistol..

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
No one wants to consider the fact that there may be a defect in the pistol behind this? If the were all user error, we'd be hearing about a lot of these with Glocks and maybe M&Ps, which I figure are in a lot more LE holsters than P320s. I haven't. Has anyone else?

Agreed.

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:
being talked down to

I apologize for giving the impression of talking down to you. FWIW, I changed the draft of my comments several times in an effort to avoid doing that. I know people that should be talked down to, but you are not one of them.
Almost always when I can’t follow someone’s comments, I blame the transmitter, not the receiver.

I will point out, though, that when you evidently responded to me by making the very obvious observation that lubricating the mechanism doesn’t cause the gun to discharge by itself, I could only conclude that you didn’t understand my point which was—and is—that I wondered if improper maintenance could contribute to such a condition.

The reason I speculated about that was to offer my thoughts about the perfectly legitimate question of whether such a discharge could in fact occur. I fully realize that many people are firmly convinced that that is impossible, but having a long memory about such things, I recall the same level of confidence about the impossibility of pre-“upgrade” guns’ firing if merely dropped. Some of those very confident opinions were even offered by some very knowledgeable and highly-respected members of the forum. Once I learn a lesson like that, it tends to stay with me, and it is my nature to keep an open mind about possibilities, especially when I can think of them myself. At this point I doubt that the reports are true, as I have stated more than once, but this is a discussion forum and that’s why I continue to remain a member.

My apologies for misinterpreting your comments.

So he's a transit cop on some kind of anti-terrorism task force riding in a motorized cart wearing a thigh holster and drinking iced tea? With a uniform that looks like it was designed by Leni Riefenstahl's costume director?

I don't think I like him.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:


Assume that there could be, but the question is why it’s only LEOs’ guns that are discharging spontaneously? Is it happening with military weapons or any of the countless guns in non-LEOs’ hands?

Police officers handle handguns on a daily basis, so there is more of a chance of a design failure or negligent discharge. In the military, weapons are locked up in an armory unless you are training or in a dangerous area. Civilians may carry daily or lock their
pistol up for years. I believe a Canadian Special Forces member just had a AD with a P320.
Sig is blaming the holster.