The witch hunt continues over the P320's safety while people hit the pistols with mallets, and Sig Sauer announces an upgrade to the P320 platform to address these issues.
Ahh, the Sig Sauer P320: the gun everyone suddenly loves to hate or hates to love. It all began with the Dallas PD issuing a departmental recall of the P320 last week over a potential (yet not occurring) drop safety issue. Sig Sauer then issued a press release addressing the media frenzy over the Dallas PD actions, deeming the P320 platform safe when tested to U.S. testing standards, though noting that "like any mechanical device, exposure to acute conditions (e.g. shock, vibration, heavy or repeated drops) may have a negative effect on these safety mechanisms and cause them to not work as designed."
Sig Sauer P320 with GunfightersINC "Ronin" holster and magazine carrier. Photo by author.
Instantly, a couple reputable media outlets and a myriad YouTube warriors jumped onboard, flinging P320s around and even hitting them with hammers (really!?) in an attempt to get a P320's onboard safeties to fail. The issue has even spread out of the gun circles, and caught on mainstream media outlets.
Needless to say, Sig Sauer has now found themselves on the wrong side of the sights.
However, (though some have questioned the timing of the whole situation) Sig Sauer will issue details Monday, August 14, 2017 on a voluntary upgrade of the P320 that addresses the safety issues. Here's is Sig Sauer's official press release announcing the upgrade.
"P320 pistol meets requirements for industry and government safety standards; performance enhancements optimize function, safety, and reliability."
Newington, NH (August 8, 2017) - The P320 meets U.S. standards for safety, including the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) / Sporting Arms Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute, Inc. (SAAMI®), National Institute of Justice (NIJ), as well as rigorous testing protocols for global military and law enforcement agencies.
The design of the SIG SAUER P320 overcomes the most significant safety concern in striker-fired pistols today: the practice of pressing the trigger for disassembly. This can be performed with a round in the chamber which has resulted in numerous incidents of property damage, physical injury, and death. The disassembly process of the P320, however, uses a take-down lever rather than pressing the trigger, eliminating the possibility of discharge during the disassembly process.
Recent events indicate that dropping the P320 beyond U.S. standards for safety may cause an unintentional discharge.
As a result of input from law enforcement, government and military customers, SIG has developed a number of enhancements in function, reliability, and overall safety including drop performance. SIG SAUER is offering these enhancements to its customers. Details of this program will be available at sigsauer.com on Monday, August 14, 2017.
The M17 variant of the P320, selected by the U.S. government as the U.S. Army's Modular Handgun System (MHS), is not affected by the Voluntary Upgrade.
"SIG SAUER is committed to our approach on innovation, optimization, and performance, ensuring we produce the finest possible products," said Ron Cohen, President and CEO of SIG SAUER. "Durability, reliability and safety, as well as end-user confidence in the SIG SAUER brand are the priorities for our team."
For more information on SIG SAUER, please visit us at sigsauer.com."
There, now we can all go back to hating Hi-Points and looking at pictures of cats and other people's food on the internet and stop hitting our beloved pistols with mallets.
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