There's a decent chance that the handgun our men and women are issued is a danger. When the M16 had problems early in Vietnam there was an investigation and they found out it was a powder issue in the cartridges. No (good) reason that there's not something similar for this issue here.
And Sig can dig their heels in all they want, but when you've got ranges banning P320s and they're in the bargain bin at the local gun shop, well, the market has spoken. You can't unring that bell. Stop production of the P320, fire the executives, and do what it takes to repair this issue.
- Sig has known about it for years[1]
- A company recently filed a patent for a fix[2] and they offered Sig the rights to it before filing, but Sig refused.
- The Air Force has cleared the 320 for use[3]. In my pessimistic opinion, they probably determined the cost to procure new weapons would exceed the cost to replace lost airmen.
[1] https://smokinggun.org/court-records-reveal-sig-sauer-knew-o...
[2] https://www.wearethemighty.com/military-news/patent-says-the...
[3] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/08/25/m18s-cleared-...
In a Friday statement, a Department of the Air Force spokesperson said that the unidentified arrested person is accused of making a false official statement, obstruction of justice and involuntary manslaughter.
In this case, the whole "it want off by itself" claim was a lie.
https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/08/08...
So the fix is as good as commercially useless, although better than nothing, the market is basically the guy who wants to be able to take it to the range and then always have it downrange while the safety is off.
Cynically, there's a very good reason they haven't. Embarrassment, money, entitlement... lots of reasons, actually.
Personally my money's on corruption but I have no proof.
I don't blame them for playing it safe. I've personally had to help Bay Area HR types understand that looking at "weapons" sites by itself was probably okay when the company we worked for had thousands of employees across California and at least some percentage of them hunted, went target shooting, etc.
https://www.pewpewtactical.com/m16-vietnam-failure/
(I own an ar15 and an ak47 and it is like comparing Microsoft’s MFC to a shell script. The former is all bloat and high tolerances and the latter gets the job done with fewer moving parts.)
The biggest difference is about 20 years of industrial development (moving from stamped/milled steel to aluminum)
Edit: apparently not full auto, man we should have just let Glock take the contract when they started manufacturing in the US instead of Sig, their track record is much more sound.
The Swiss Sig's have a sterling reputation. The P226 that entered the XM9 trials (against the Beretta 92) was imported from Switzerland by SAKO.
The US company didn't really start manufacturing until the 90s with the P229 and the Sig Pro series (where they were only tasked with making the plastic frames, not the more intricate lock work).
Consumers can buy a civilian version of the M17 that's really difficult to distinguish from the Army's version (the safety's a different color, black instead of brown, or something like that).
There are many that have adopted machine pistols for various uses, particularly special forces, VIP protection, and for the roles currently filled by PDWs, which means that common troops sometimes were issued them.
The Glock 18 is a selective-fire variant of the Glock 17, developed at the request of the Austrian counter-terrorist unit EKO Cobra, and as a way to internally test Glock components under high strain conditions.
One of the stated requirements for the updated pistol was a thumb-operated external safety. Glock's never been willing to manufacture a pistol with that feature, so they effectively excluded themselves from the competition.
Assuming that Sig Sauer management is reasonable, we can assume that one or more of these are true:
* The known rate of failure B is determined to be low. Consider that not every discharge would be from a design flaw. Many cases can be assumed or proven to be user negligence.
* They assume that they can keep the court settlement costs, C, to a low value by never admitting fault and hoping that no one else can convincingly demonstrate a poor design. Many cases result in no injury or non-lethal injury, which naturally reduces C.
* The number of guns produced, A, is quite large, so the cost of the recall is also quite large.
* The unit cost of the recall (X/A) is much higher than known externally. This is my preferred theory (outside of corporate incompetence & malice). It could be the case that the design has an issue with tolerance stacking AND there is no single dimension of replacement part that resolves the issue. You could imagine that the replacement part needs to take up negative tolerance by being slightly larger, and positive tolerance by being slightly smaller. Without carefully measuring each unit (which is expensive), you can't determine which part to use. Or it could be that the part that would need to be replaced is a substantial part of the weapon's cost, e.g. the slide or the frame.
Maybe a decade from now this becomes a semi-obscure bit of gun lore and SIG US more or less recovers.
But right now?
If you’re in the market for a handgun, or any gun for that matter, are you going to touch SIG US’s stuff? Maybe, but there are customers who might just say that they don’t want to take that chance and go with Glock or whoever else. Do those customers come back? Why doesn’t this get brought up at every single bid for a contract SIG US makes from now on?
It’s possible that they’re still making the right EV call of course, but the medium-term hit they’re taking from a flaw like this that you don’t make right has to be massive.
There was a recent huge thread on HN around the Air Force incident, we now know the guy was playing with the gun, shot and killed someone, then lied about it going off sitting on the table.
If there was some defect that Sig could fix via recall, they would be stupid not to recall. Maybe there is just nothing to fix, and they aren’t stupid.
I wouldn't be surprised if gun companies get a constant stream of fake complaints.
I didn't have access to guns when I was a 17-year-old, but if I had I'd certainly have tried twirling them like a movie cowboy. And if I accidentally shot myself while doing that, I certainly wouldn't tell my parents what I was doing at the time, that would make me look like a total dumbass, completely irresponsible. I'd say it went off while I was putting it into my holster, or something.
Then my parents would have complained to the gunmaker, repeating my cover story, and the gunmaker would find it impossible to reproduce or fix.
Perhaps gunmakers don't always realise when they're getting legitimate complaints, because they get so many 'creative' complaints?
Ruger had one for the SR22 not too long ago. It's a .22 handgun that is more-or-less a range toy. A cool range toy, but a range toy. There was some sort of dead trigger problem that could pose a safety issue. Did Ruger deny it at every turn? No, they put out a notice and offered to fix the firearm free of charge.
Now compare that with how Sig's handled the P320, which is a service pistol and used daily in life-or-death situations.
If you make new-design firearms in any real volume, you will find yourself issuing recalls. Batches of parts get out of spec, things wear out, and you get reports that it can become dangerous. The good gunmakers stand behind their product.
Independent testing at the local, state and federal level acknowledge you can fire a P320 without pulling the trigger. Making sure the gun only fires when the trigger is pulled is requirement #1, #2 and #3 for any gun.
If this isn't satisfied you haven't made a gun, you've made a really shitty grenade.
We need laws to actually protect normal working people, not corporations and execs. Trying to silence people with lawsuits should be punished according to the severity of what they're trying to hide.
Since their shitty gun literally kills people randomly, this harassment campaign should be treated as cover up for murder and punished accordingly.
Having to fix all P320 fire control units they've sold so far will put them out of business. You don't even need any additional penalties on top of that. I just hope they can spin off Optics division before that happens.
The only real surprise here is that they managed to sell this broken gun to the US government, despite Glock of all things being in the running. And that it took so long for the issue to even register.
I could see the argument in the early 1900's, but today that's absolutely ridiculous on its face.
The only "national security issue" is that it's embarrassing.
This comment is the perfect example of how saying something obviously wrong (or nonsensical) on the internet is the best way to get people to respond (of which I am now guilty myself).
The (reasonable) GP comment has 1 reply and the (unreasonable) parent comment has 5 already.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOMQOtOQoPk
Handgun design doesn't really get any worse than that.
The P320 has had many reported issues but having it go off when you pull the trigger is actually intended behavior.
More information available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1KoSBcn2bY
> "The shear amount of movement in the trigger it takes on the Glock PLUS the fact the trigger safety has to depressed lends it self to make this scenario extremely extremely unlikely to happen from jostling. Which is the exact opposite for the 320. Tiny amount of movement needed, way more slop in the gun as a whole and no trigger safety all lends itself to be way more likely to happen from jostling. Thats the argument."
SIG Switzerland, the original who mainly services the Swiss government and domestic market. They created the original P210, SG 550 series, etc
SIG Sauer Germany, the now-defunct company SIG Switzerland created when it bought German firearms company JP Sauer and Sons in order to develop, market, and sell firearms in a legally easier jurisdiction. They are most famous for the P220 series of handguns.
SIG Sauer USA, the New Hampshire based company that was initially created to make importing easier that is now by far the largest and most well known SIG. They created the P250, P320, P365, SG556, MCX series, etc. They are very well
Overall, SIG Switzerland and Germany have very good reputations for making high quality products (Sig Sauer Germany almost won the competition with the P226 to become the M9, they lost because they were more expensive than the Beretta 92, very similar to what happened between Glock and Sig Sauer USA for the M17...), SIG USA on the other hand does not.
I do agree with your assessment of quality between the companies, though.
The consumer market in the US no longer trends off government models though. Thin and mini models seem to be more popular, and since most consumers rarely fire their weapon, maintainability and reliability are secondary. The P365 is the most popular in the US at the moment, but it probably has a low duty cycle.
As for the P365 having maintenance/reliability/duty cycle issues, beyond the typical SIG beta testing on consumers shit I really haven't seen people having issues with it.
Revoke contracts, investigate the leadership who accepted the contract, and hold Sig criminally liable given they have internal documents from years ago acknowledging the fact.
The recent week long pause in the Air Force seems like some brass made a decision that Sig or DoD forced them to walk back.
It depends. This is something the program office would consider as part of its acquisition strategy, and then this would be part of the competitive bid process and contract negotiations.
There is such a thing as Government Purpose Rights (GPR) that might, for example, allow the government to subcontract with third parties for replacement parts which would enable competition to keep costs down. This is really important because most of the costs in an acquisition come from the long tail of sustainment, not the initial purchase.
For something like the M17/M18, the Army wouldn’t necessarily want or need to buy the complete intellectual property behind the weapon. What they care about is having enough rights to ensure lifecycle support, competition for parts or sustainment contracts, etc. Your example of a company going out of business is a perfect example of where GPR would be relevant.
Col. David Hackworth was involved in picking the next Army handgun, back in the Beretta era. He remarked that over the history of the M1911A, it had been responsible for more friendly casualties than enemy casualties. They hoped to do better with the Beretta. The main criteria was that it should reliably fire when wanted, and reliably not fire when not wanted. Even with poor maintenance. Accuracy is secondary. Most handgun engagements are in the 3-7 meter range.
On the other hand, the units that issue something other than the M17 (special operations groups use Glock 19s, can use suppressed HKs, or presumably even some of the old P226s or 1911s that are still in the inventory) expect to fight with them.
> They hoped to do better with the Beretta. The main criteria was that it should reliably fire when wanted, and reliably not fire when not wanted.
That design was rather a failure in that regard. Great pistols in a lot of ways, it's not difficult to be accurate with them, but there's a slide-mounted safety on it that is easy to accidentally actuate in the heat of the moment when racking the slide. (it's less user friendly than the much older 1911's safety, and weirdly, Beretta will sell you one today with a 1911-style frame mounted safety. I'm not sure when they created that.) When that happens the gun does not fire when the trigger is pulled. Perhaps someone somewhere has estimated how many people died that way over the gun's lifetime.
A modern, striker-fired pistol like a Glock or the M17 is undeniably more reliable when it's dirty, so there's also that.
That Beretta safety was always a bit of a misfeature and the civilian versions of the pistol are available with a simple de-cocker in its place. The safety feature of the Beretta (and of the P226, the pistol the military should have chosen for its standard over the Beretta if we're being honest) which is useful for avoiding accidental discharges is the heavy double-action trigger pull on the first shot.
If anything, what the military needs is a hammer-fired DA handgun with a manual safety. Just so that discharging it would take considerable and intentional effort. If I remember correctly, FN FNX was in the running in that competition, and would probably be just the perfect gun for this (it has a combination safety/decocker, and unlike many other similar arrangements you can put it on safe after decocking).
Trying to equipment-ify your way out of a training problem resulted in NYPD equipping its pistols with a trigger so heavy that their already-easy qualification course became a problem for many recruits. Their hit percentage in actual shootings is awful, and that ~12 pound NYPD-spec trigger didn't help it any. They finally saw the error of their ways after making their officers suffer needlessly for years.
https://www.police1.com/patrol-issues/articles/nypd-should-i...
The reality is there may be no real mechanical flaw that leads to an uncommanded discharge. So far, no one has been able to produce evidence of anything specific.
However, if they had addressed the drop safety and added a trigger safety from the get-go, chances are even if there IS something, it would be so rare it would fade into the background.
But now the P320 is going to be remembered forever as "that gun that goes off on its own" and it'll be hard to even give them away. And Sig's response to this whole debacle has been terrible. Making the drop safety fix a 'voluntary upgrade' instead of a recall, and now crap like this just makes everyone view Sig in a bad light.
Reputation can be everything for some industries - and for safety especially. (See: Boeing)
Guns, and pistols in particular is a wiiiiiide market with a lot of players. If one reputation goes down the toilet, people will just buy from someone else. They have 0 reason to stick with Sig in particular.
IMO these companies do the bog standard math of (chance of accident * legal cost) vs (cost to recall and repair guns). They don't consider a critical aspect - reputation. Once lost it is very hard to regain and hurts future sales of ALL products, not just this one.
https://www.youtube.com/@Thinkingman615
He's ostensibly defending Sig here, but it's obvious that the P10 in particular has a dramatically more robust construction and stands up to this scenario much better.
Obviously all of this comes in the context of nonzero input on the trigger, which is already a violation of basic gun safety. But it's interesting nonetheless.
