11 ms·

Court records reveal Sig Sauer knew of pistol risks for years

193 points by eoskx 1y ago

eoskx 1y ago
According to a court exhibit, Sig Sauer identified several deadly risks with its P320 pistols as early as 2017.
normie3000 1y ago
> multiple ways the pistol could fire without an intentional trigger pull That doesn't sound ideal.
- andrepd 1y ago
  Master of the understatement :)
Esophagus4 1y ago
Well that settles it… I’m never buying a Sig Sauer
CodingJeebus 1y ago
Certainly not the first time something like this happened. During Vietnam, the US Army sent soldiers into combat with the M16 knowing that it had major issues that often caused it to jam. We’ll never know exactly people were killed by such a bad decision, but it quickly became infamous early in the war.[0] 0: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/m16-rifle-vietnam-war.html https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/m16-rifle-viet...
- giantg2 1y ago
  And the Berretta slide failures. And many similar issues for all kinds of things.
  - tylerflick 1y ago
    I was going to mention this! I was on a range and watched a slide completely break in half after firing. The Beretta’s where terrible.
    - pc86 1y ago
      Are you referring to the M9/92? I don't own one but I've heard it's one of those guns that everyone who was issued one hates it, and everyone who bought one on the civilian market loves it - the implication being they just don't shoot it enough to run into any issues.
- gnfargbl 1y ago
  A dishonourable mention for the original A1 version of the British SA80, which required high levels of lubrication to operate properly, and as a result often jammed in sandy environments... like Kuwait and Iraq [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA80 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA80
  - KaiserPro 1y ago
    I seem to recall the A0 also used to yeet the magazine when you ran with it across your chest on the sling, because the mag release button had no guard (but that might be me misremembering it. )
- linksnapzz 1y ago
  There was nothing wrong with the M16/AR-15; the Marines had been issued the weapon in Vietnam as well (with different ammo than the army received) and it worked fine. The issue was that the Army Bureau of Ordinance insisted on making 5.56mm ammunition with a propellant composition different from the one that Stoner had specified when designing the weapon, one that was entirely unsuitable and led to jamming.
  - XorNot 1y ago
    Yes but it was worse due to design problems with the gun as well, seeing as how they did change it - I.e. adding chrome plating to the chamber and barrel which reduced fouling, and actually including a proper cleaning kit.
    - jandrewrogers 1y ago
      The chrome lining was done to significantly increase the service life of the barrel and to reduce corrosion in some environments. Prior to the M16, chrome lining was only used on machine guns due to the volume of rounds that went through them. Far more rounds were put through the M16 by soldiers than prior weapons like the M14. Despite the chrome lining, M16 barrels still wear out over time and have to be replaced.
      - XorNot 1y ago
        "in some environments" being the Vietnam war the US was involved in, in reaction to casualty reports where a large number of men were killed with their rifles broken down for repair likely due to mid battle stoppages. And the same applies to number of rounds: the entire point of a 5.56mm cartridge was to give soldiers more ammo so they could sustain volume of fire in the field: it was a design goal. If design changes fixed a serious flaw with a weapon, then it was a flawed design.
- jandrewrogers 1y ago
  There was nothing wrong with the M16, it worked very well for a number of years. Then the US Army unilaterally modified the ammunition to save money in such a way as to make it no longer within specification for the weapon. Predictably, the use of out-of-spec ammunition caused issues. The Army never changed the ammunition back. Instead, the weapon was modified (M16A1) to be compatible with the formerly out-of-spec ammunition and the issues went away. You can't blame the M16 for the US Army using ammunition that wasn't fit for purpose.
baggachipz 1y ago
[flagged]
- lazide 1y ago
  Few people would be surprised if a car drove forward when on, in gear, and the gas pedal is depressed. When a specific make/model has a nasty habit of driving through the sides of garages when off and no one is touching them, and eventually runs someone over and kills them? People get concerned. Especially when the manufacturer knew this could (and was!) happening and insisted on gaslighting everyone about it for years. That cars can be used to run people over (and sometimes are even designed to do so effectively!) doesn’t change that. Especially since most miles driven never run anyone over at all.
  - creaturemachine 1y ago
    A car's primary purpose isn't to kill or maim humans. If you think handguns are made for anything else then you're fooling yourself.
  - baggachipz 1y ago
    I find the car = gun analogy so tired. A car's purpose is to transport, and sometimes it accidentally kills. A gun's purpose is to kill. People always say "it's a tool"... yeah, to kill. Anytime you have a device like that, unexpected killings can happen. People shoot themselves and other people accidentally all the time; not because it was not "used as intended", but because it's a killing device.
    - sitkack 1y ago
      Devices are supposed to work as intended, implied is WHEN intended. If you have a circular saw that randomly cuts when not asked, is a mature response "oh no our cutty thing cuts" ? That is why your post was flagged. A snarky, snide response like your detracts from meaningful discussion.
      - 1y ago
shepardrtc 1y ago
Note that not only has Sig Sauer lied about this and attempted to gaslight people[1], they have also sued organizations to force them to continue using the pistol after they chose to discontinue use due to the dangers[2] ---- [1] https://www.instagram.com/p/DG6RkWCpkdw/# https://www.instagram.com/p/DG6RkWCpkdw/# [2] https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/gunmaker-sues-washingtons-police-academy-over-p320-pistol-ban/3PRTWPMBFNCJDA2GJE5I4QDPDU/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/gunmaker-sues-washingtons-p...
thorncorona 1y ago
[flagged]
- YesThatTom2 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - lazide 1y ago
    Eh, this is someone in SIG leadership using every scapegoat and excuse they can to avoid having to acknowledge or take responsibility for their screwup, instead compounding it to the point where it will seriously hurt the company - maybe even torpedo them. The things you’re talking about give them some cover/mechanisms, but most other manufacturers are looking on in horror at this, not copying them.
  - jordanb 1y ago
    Yeah American gun culture is now substantially LARPers kitting up like they're going to the front lines. Ironically they call people who are into sportsmanship "fudders" and any gun that doesn't have a picatinny rail and a 20-round clip a "fudd gun." The reference is to "Elmer Fudd."
    - wl 1y ago
      Being a Fudd isn't about being into sportsmanship. It's about opposing the civilian ownership of firearms besides bolt action rifles and non-semiautomatic shotguns.
      - kasey_junk 1y ago
        You can find Fudd being applied to all manner of behaviors, it’s certainly not universally a gun control label. USPSA competitors will refer to IDPA competitors as Fudds just because of the scoring differences. It’s really just like calling someone a boomer but in a gun context.
    - fudddestroyer 1y ago
bayindirh 1y ago
Move briskly and kill people? That's a deadly twist to "move fast and break things" motto. Seriously, Sig Sauer. You are making weapons, not disposable pens, and the world leading disposable pen company literally uses "standards x 1.5" as their baseline.
- eoskx 1y ago
  There's another article that is cited where Sig with someone else was apparently developing the fixes to resolve these issues years before the gun was actually tested with the US Army, but didn't deploy the fixes until they were pressured: https://practicalshootinginsights.com/a-year-before-the-armys-sig-sauer-p320-drop-test-failures-bruce-gray-was-already-designing-the-fix/ https://practicalshootinginsights.com/a-year-before-the-army...
  - giantg2 1y ago
    And those "fixes" didn't fully resolve the issues.
    - wl 1y ago
      Those fixes apparently resolved the drop safety issues. The uncommanded discharges that have been in the news as of late—where holstered P320s seemingly discharge on their own—is an entirely separate issue. Sig denies that there's a problem, blaming holster designs, debris in holsters, and people lying to cover up their own carelessness. One thing this article fails to mention about the Air Force incident is that the Air Force has made an arrest for "making a false official statement, obstruction of justice and involuntary manslaughter." https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/08/08/air-force-makes-arrest-in-airmans-shooting-death-involving-m18-pistol/ https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/08/08...
      - giantg2 1y ago
        Sig claims the issue was resolved. Keep in mind that Sig never admitted to the issue. They only issued a voluntary upgrade and never issued a safety recall.
eoskx 1y ago
Here are some follow-ups to the article cited. Pretty wild what Sig's response has been: https://practicalshootinginsights.com/the-document-sig-sauer-doesnt-want-you-to-see-about-the-p320/ https://practicalshootinginsights.com/the-document-sig-sauer... https://practicalshootinginsights.com/sig-sauer-vp-consumer-affairs-discusses-the-document-they-didnt-want-you-to-see/ https://practicalshootinginsights.com/sig-sauer-vp-consumer-... https://practicalshootinginsights.com/new-unsealed-sig-sauer-documentsin-friday-afternoon-dump/ https://practicalshootinginsights.com/new-unsealed-sig-sauer... https://practicalshootinginsights.com/a-year-before-the-armys-sig-sauer-p320-drop-test-failures-bruce-gray-was-already-designing-the-fix/ https://practicalshootinginsights.com/a-year-before-the-army...
codegeek 1y ago
Scary to think that I almost bought a P320 before I decided against it for a different reason.
- dayjah 1y ago
  Same, fortunately my local shooting range has a good selection of firearms to try. I tried the P320 and P365. I had been considering the P365, but it was so snappy I reasoned the otherwise completely boring P320 would be a better fit for my needs. However, it was close enough to another firearm I own that I decided to cool-off and see if I still wanted it in a month... then this all broke.
  - pc86 1y ago
    Not at all firearm specific, but "I'll get this tomorrow if I still remember I want it" has saved me countless thousands of dollars in my life.
  - seanw444 1y ago
    My girlfriend has a P365X. I wouldn't touch a P320 with a ten foot pole, but the 365 and its variants have proven pretty reliable for many people. It is definitely snappy though, but most "subcompacts" are, because physics.
    - dayjah 1y ago
      Yeah, to that point I’ve been interested in trying out a Shadow Systems CRp. But haven’t found a place carrying them..
- oldpersonintx2 1y ago
  [dead]
- pc86 1y ago
  I bought an M17 many years ago, and sold it a little over a year ago. My local store will still take them but it's $100 store credit only.
giantg2 1y ago
While I agree with the title of the article, some of the contents seem a little over the top in the way they present them. We would need to see the document to know how bad it really is. Many of the failure modes could be user dependent for lack of training (ie finger in trigger guard when holstering). They also don't say which failure modes were fixed and what remained. That said, all you need is one valid failure mode to be dangerous. "Sig Sauer also stated that the manual safeties on M17 and M18 pistols would resolve some of the issues," This would only be the training dependent ones. Mechanically, the safety only blocks the trigger and does nothing to block the striker or sear.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- Zak 1y ago
  > They also don't say which failure modes were fixed and what remained. The article links a document[0] which lists them. My reading of this is that it's not listing issues that were found in the P320, but issues that can occur in handguns in general. One of the items is "unsafe hammer decock", which has never been possible with the P320 because it does not have a hammer. It is listed as eliminated. The remaining medium risks are: - The user might accidentally pull the trigger by resting their finger on it when they do not intend to fire the gun - Mishandling the gun might cause a foreign object to pull the trigger - A drop or vibration might cause the gun to fire - The user might accidentally pull the trigger a second time due to motion during recoil - The user may accidentally pull the trigger while clearing a jam - A broken firing pin could lodge in the firing position, causing the gun to fire when the slide closes - The user might accidentally pull the trigger during holstering or unholstering - The sear might fail to retain the striker, causing an uncommanded discharge when chambering a round, or a second uncommanded shot after an intentional shot - Defective ammunition could rupture and injure the shooter or bystanders - Recoil can lead to repetitive motion injuries - Incorrect disassembly and reassembly can lead to a firearm which does not function correctly Two of these (drop/vibration, failure to retain striker) describe the current uncommanded discharge problem. Five of the issues are different ways someone with insufficient training might mishandle a gun and pull the trigger unintentionally. [0] https://smokinggun.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/gov.uscourts.ctd_.150506.202.1_UNREDACTED.pdf https://smokinggun.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/gov.uscour...
poleguy 1y ago
This article makes me wonder about comparative analysis against other models and brands. It is good Sig Sauer produced a failure mode analysis. Where are the competitive analysis documents? It also makes me wonder if the reason it can't fix some of these issues is because it is working around patent issues. Pure speculation.
- eoskx 1y ago
  It appears based on some other court documents that Sig with the P320 intentionally excluded a trigger tab safety based on marketing decisions to be competitive, which every other striker-fired handgun has included. That along with some other issues appears to be the basis for where the P320 design went wrong.
- lazide 1y ago
  The reason they can’t fix these issues is someone in leadership likely literally has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and is quite literally incapable of acknowledging a mistake or problem. To the point they’ll inevitably torpedo the company rather than take any ownership or responsibility. If the Board is smart, they’ll fire the person before it gets to that point - but if they were smart, they probably wouldn’t have hired the type of person to get them into this mess in the first place.
  - gosub100 1y ago
    That's not really an Occam's Razor conclusion. I would say the reason is that multiple lawsuits were already filed, and to admit the gun was defective essentially means you lose all the suits overnight. At the time, they chose to ride it out because they didn't know how many of these guns were actually defective. My guess is it was a perfect storm where the defect rate was low enough to escape their quality control but high enough (or perhaps delayed long enough, meaning it takes years for the defect to appear) to lead to a clear signal after the horse got out of the barn. Enough suits were filed that they perhaps risk bankruptcy if they lose all of them. That's just my speculation, and seems to be more plausible than some side effect from mental illness.
yold__ 1y ago
In a nutshell, the defect that causes the guns to fire when holstered occurs when there is a small amount of pressure on the trigger. If the slide (top part of the gun) is wiggled / nudged, it will fire. Also, the gun can fire when dropped. Both these issues are mitigated by other manufacturers with a trigger safety and longer trigger pull.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >Both these issues are mitigated by other manufacturers with a trigger safety and longer trigger pull. And just not having hot dog down a hallway tolerances at the slide to frame interface. The trigger stuff lives in the bottom half of the gun and the bang stuff lives in the top half and only goes bang depending upon the relative position of the trigger stuff. So allowing the top half and the bottom half to move around a ton is generally unwise unless you make accommodations elsewhere in the design so that you still have proper relative position regardless of where in the hallway the hotdog is.
- alexpotato 1y ago
  There are videos online showing that this also happens with Glocks (when the trigger is depressed to the wall) [0] Really, any gun where the sear is in the grip and the part it connects to is in the frame could have the same issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaV32HarnRY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaV32HarnRY
  - galangalalgol 1y ago
    So a classic sig double action or 1911 wouldn't be effected? He video says striker fired specifically. Cocked and locked I'm not sure how you would make this happen.
    - nradov 1y ago
      Not affected in the same way. The original M1911 design has a floating firing pin held back only by spring tension, so in theory it might be possible to get it to discharge without pressing the trigger by dropping it straight onto the muzzle from a sufficient height. This is so unlikely in practice that it's not a real concern. Some newer variants also incorporate an extra internal safety that blocks the firing pin from moving.
tehwebguy 1y ago
I wonder how many people died when police encounters were escalated to “shots fired” by their faulty Sig. It’s one thing for a gun to go off and potentially hit someone but it’s another when the first round fired triggers 4 cops to empty a mag each.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Are there a number of police shootings where the officer claims his gun "went off"? One of the first rules of gun safety is never point the weapon at something you aren't intending to shoot. So by the time they are pointing their guns at a suspect, actually firing probably happens a lot? Or are cops actually trained to hold a person at gunpoint (I don't believe the TV dramas and movies where this happens constantly are realistic in this regard). If so, it seems very risky, considering potential manufacturing or design defects such as discovered with the Sig.
  - pc86 1y ago
    When exactly an officer is trained to pull their firearm will vary by department. I'm sure every defense attorney in the country is checking what firearms the officers were issued for their clients where it might make a difference.
  - subscribed 1y ago
    American cops get surprisingly little training and all the public-recorded videos show cops pulling out their guns to to escalate and intimidate, even in the seemingly innocuous situation like a traffic stop. I wouldn't believe American cops are trained with "safety first" rule in mind. The evidence doesn't seem to support it. https://hub.wsu.edu/law-justice-realtime/2015/11/18/the-increasing-militarization-of-americas-police-forces-form-of-oppression-or-a-protection-for-society/ https://hub.wsu.edu/law-justice-realtime/2015/11/18/the-incr...
game_the0ry 1y ago
Even an arms manufacturer with a historic reputation for quality is vulnerable to the phenomena of Enshittification.
- jabedude 1y ago
  In this case, the historic reputation for quality is entirely disconnected from the company. SIG USA shares a brand with the German and Swiss companies with the same name, but it is not the same company that made the P226
  - eoskx 1y ago
    All 3 entities - the German, Swiss, and US entities are owned by a German holding company L&O Holdings, but yes, the basis of the 226 was designed by the original Swiss entity.
- brookst 1y ago
  “Enshitification” refers to pivoting from selling a product to selling the audience that bought the product. For instance, Windows putting ads in the start menu. As awful as this Sig Sauer fiasco is, it doesn’t seem to be a result of a pivot to indirect monetization.
  - dreamcompiler 1y ago
    This is not what enshittification means. Facebook enshittified itself without ever having sold a product to its users. They were selling their users' personal data before they ever became enshittified. Enshittification is about obtaining, then abusing platform semi-monopoly power to extract more money from your users and your customers by making your product worse.
    - game_the0ry 1y ago
      > Enshittification is about obtaining, then abusing platform semi-monopoly power to extract more money from your users and your customers by making your product worse. Yeah, this is how I meant it. In the case of Sig, it was probably cost-cutting, product management by committee, corner-cutting due to tight business reqs, or some combo of the above.
jordanb 1y ago
An important point to recognize is that gun manufacturers have almost no product liability exposure due to laws pushed by the NRA. Of course the NRA pitched these laws to their members as protecting against gun violence victims suing the manufacturer, but they also slipped in that gun manufacturers have no legal responsibility to provide guns to buyers that do not fire unless the trigger is pulled.
- dayjah 1y ago
  When the plaintiff is the US Armed Forces, does this still hold? Surely the contract with an arm of the military doesn't have the same protections?
  - giancarlostoro 1y ago
    They can freeze funds and cancel future contracts, which should be enough pressure. What's wild to me is the military version was not even remotely safer. 100% the families of those affected by Sigs goof ups should sue.
- wl 1y ago
  You're probably referencing a New Hampshire law that prevents product liability lawsuits against gun manufacturers for not including manual safeties. That law would not prevent product liability lawsuits in cases where guns discharge without the trigger being actuated.
- eoskx 1y ago
  Keep in mind, too, that the US Army does NOT want this FMECA document released. From the article that is cited the US Army's project manager & legal counsel gave this response to help Sig justify keeping the document sealed: > The Army position would be to oppose the distribution to the public of the > FMECA document as it potentially reveals critical information about the > handgun (design, reliability, performance, etc.).
- Zak 1y ago
  If you're referring to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act[0] passed in 2005, that's not true. It only bars lawsuits against gun manufacturers and dealers for criminal misuse of their products, not for hazardous defects. Remington settled a class action lawsuit[1] concerning rifles that could fire without a trigger pull filed after the passage of that law. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_in_Arms_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_... [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/24/remington-rifle-settlement-is-official.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/24/remington-rifle-settlement-i...
bbminner 1y ago
> vice president of commercial sales, said, “If someone can just show us how to replicate [these uncommanded discharges] we will absolutely look at this from all aspects to make sure there isn’t any truth to this. Am I reading it correctly: if you provide us with a detailed bug report we will make sure to properly justify why we think it is not a bug and "works as intended"? :)
- barbazoo 1y ago
  Reads to me like they’re gonna get rid of you. What a shit way to phrase this. What makes these corporate monkeys lose the ability to speak normally?
flerchin 1y ago
> If someone can just show us how to replicate [these uncommanded discharges] we will absolutely look at this from all aspects to make sure there isn’t any truth to this. In a company of our size, would anyone ever believe that there was a real issue going on, and we wouldn’t address it?” This is exactly how I sound when I get a bug that is hard to repro. Just like these guns, there's evidence that the bug happened, but it's really hard to figure out how. Still a bug. People are still dead.
- zhengyi13 1y ago
  Uncommanded discharges are very well reproduced at this point. At the very least that I'm aware of, there was initial work by Youtuber "3 P320s In A Trenchcoat" showing a series of ways to get the striker to drop w/o touching the trigger. More recently, a Youtuber with Wyoming in their channel name showed that they could reproduce them with just the slightest trigger movement in conjunction with wiggling the slide.
  - pc86 1y ago
    This last one is the most damning IMO. You can dismiss it because there's a screw in the trigger but he shows in a separate video that it's not actually screwed into the frame or anything - it's just there to keep the < 0.5mm of slack out of the trigger. Once that's accomplished, all you have to do is wiggle the slide around for a round to get discharged. He does it on the first attempt - even he didn't expect it to be that easy. It's very easy to see how a police officer jostling around with a suspect or getting in and out of their car can cause the trigger and the slide to move at the right time to cause this issue.
    - baseballdork 1y ago
      That's not what that experiment is showing. If you move the trigger by 1mm and jostle the slide, nothing will happen. You have to take the trigger _to the wall_, and then 0.5mm further, and then wiggle the slide.
santiagobasulto 1y ago
I don't know much about guns so maybe can help me understand. How is it possible that a holstered gun has pressure in the trigger in the first place? And also, shouldn't the safety always be on?
- joyeuse6701 1y ago
  Some guns, striker fired, do not have safeties as you may think of them.
- oldpersonintx2 1y ago
  consumer versions of this pistol do not have a manual safety they have internal safety mechanisms to prevent discharge, and these are important if you carry with a round chambered - in a striker-fired pistol, the firing pin is under tension and is only being restrained by the trigger and internal safeties this is why I do not carry with a round chambered, if you appendix carry and something goes wrong, you will be missing an important appendage
  - seanw444 1y ago
    This is why I carry a gun I trust. I keep one chambered at all times, pointing at my junk. I am not concerned about my junk. I am much more concerned about not being able to get a shot off in time if I ever need to use it.
- Zak 1y ago
  Many modern handguns do not have a manually activated safety. The Sig M17/M18 does, but the safety only blocks the trigger from moving rearward far enough to fire. It may not block the trigger from moving enough to disengage an internal, automatic safety that prevents the firing pin from traveling all the way forward if it is released due to a malfunction. It is also possible that the firing pin block safety does not always work even if the trigger is fully forward.
- WillPostForFood 1y ago
  Common failures would be to use the wrong holster, defective holster, or get some object in the holster that could snag the trigger as you put it in.
jeffWrld 1y ago
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TheJoeMan 1y ago
This is a completely incorrect interpretation of a FMEA (failure-modes-and-effects-analysis) / "Risk Chart". ISO quality systems regulations / the army mandate engineers sit in a room and dream up every way the device could fail and/or harm someone. You then classify the risk of that harm, so in all cases an unintentional discharge would be "high risk". This does not mean the pistol has a high chance of discharging, that is a separate metric for odds of occurrence. Even if the pistol was redesigned to only have a 1 in a million chance of unintentionally discharging, the "risk" category would stay "high".
- roland35 1y ago
  At least while I was at NASA, a high impact score (ie death) would still elevate total risk even if the likelihood was low.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  They don't care. "The Smoking Gun" is part of the Everytown Support Fund [0], which has been lobbying for gun abolitionism. It was created in opposition of the NRA by Michael Bloomberg [1] Just like how the NRA would skew stats against any form of gun control, an organization like Everytown would skew facts the other way around. Firearm abolitionism and unrestricted firearm access are both equally dumb. There is a middle ground that can be found, but the extremes on both sides make it impossible to compromise. Gun ownership is a 2nd amendment right and often needed in areas with limited population density and access to police or animal control services (try dealing with packs of feral hog like most rural communities in the American West - can't be done without .223 calibre ammo), but that doesn't mean we can't add safety and training requirements given that there is a real issue with gun smuggling that is exacerbating crime across the Americas as well as the inability to prevent and flag high risk individuals from purchasing weapons (especially via private sales). IMO, an Israeli style model would be best - Israelis are allowed to own a private weapon, but are required to get tested and recertified every year AND need to show that they have a gun locker. All weapons are also registered and cataloged, and all gun sales need to be notified and allowed by the Ministry of Public Safety. If Israel can do it, the US absolutely can as well. [0] - https://smokinggun.org/about/ https://smokinggun.org/about/ [1] - https://www.everytown.org/about-everytown/history/ https://www.everytown.org/about-everytown/history/
roland35 1y ago
So much for the "guns don't shoot themselves!!" argument you occasionally hear from gun nuts. Yes they can and do shoot themselves!
- pc86 1y ago
  Yes, this specific gun with this specific design issue that doesn't exist in any other firearm, and you now can't sell for more than $100 if you can sell it at all, and is banned by almost every professional shooting sports organization, and is banned by more ranges than its not can shoot by itself in very specific circumstances. As a self-described gun nut, thought I'd make it a little more accurate :)
  - seanw444 1y ago
    And sold by a company that has lost credibility with most "gun nuts" as a result of this whole years-long (now lethal) ordeal. Anti-2Aers think that we're all defending Sig for this behaviour. We're not.
    - pc86 1y ago
      At this point the only people defending Sig are people getting paid by Sig, or people trying to get paid by Sig.
- Nicook 1y ago
  Arguing with such a politically loaded sentence is probably a waste of time. BUT that's obviously not the intention of the quote. Actual malfunction induced firing is the exception, and its still a good saying to help people try and be safe/mindful. Not to mention even in that case there's still some movement or action leading to it nobody is saying that the sigs will just spontaneously fire while left sitting on a table.
  - roland35 1y ago
    I suppose out of context it seems out of nowhere, but if you follow some of these influencers they act like it is literally impossible for anything bad to happen with guns around. I enjoy shooting myself (don't really do it frequently but I have a number of times at ranges) but I feel like there are a lot of people who do not take gun ownership seriously. I also think there are a lot of people who dont take driving a car seriously enough so it isn't exclusive to guns...
danielvf 1y ago
So the important bit here is that the guns failed drop testing. And that's bad. The rest of the article seems to misunderstand FMEA style "write down every conceivable bad scenario in the universe, how bad it is, and then what you have done to stop it", and then spins this as "look at all these horrible known issues they knew about". I hope a jury doesn't view it the same way, because it would be an epic bad for safety everywhere if engineers writing down a list of bad things to avoid and mitigate was forbidden by company lawyers.
- wl 1y ago
  The important bit is that the guns failed drop testing and then Sig Sauer updated the design to fix the issue.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - lazide 1y ago
    Well, and then didn’t recall them - instead favoring the ‘voluntary upgrade’. And apparently even those ‘upgraded’ under that still have this other, even bigger issue.
    - wl 1y ago
      At that point, we're talking about different things than the FMEA mentioned in the headline.
anonu 1y ago
There's possibly 4 million of these guns on the street. Sig should do a massive recall.
oflannabhra 1y ago
For anyone wanting a quick breakdown of the current situation: the Sig Sauer P320 is a striker-fired handgun, which means the firing pin is spring loaded and retained by a sear. Other handguns are hammer-fired, where the trigger (or slide actuation) cocks the hammer. Other popular striker-fired guns include the Glock and Smith and Wesson M&P series. Frequently, striker-fired pistols come without safeties, but optionally add them. The P320 was popular as it was designed as a modular system, allowing a single FCU (firing control unit, basically a trigger and striker assembly) to be independent and swappable with other parts of the handgun: grip, slide, barrel, etc. This allows for a single platform to serve multiple needs: concealed carry, compact, full-size, or even competition models, as well as be transferrable across calibers. The magazine design also allowed for more rounds to be carried in compact configurations. The P320 was selected by the US Army [0] as the official replacement for the Beretta M9 as a service-issued sidearm, officially designated the M17 or M18 (in 9mm). In 2020 SIG SAUER initiated a "voluntary upgrade program" [1] that swapped various components of the trigger to prevent unintended discharge (UD) events that could occur when the pistol dropped in certain orientations. These changes became standard for the M17 and all P320 manufactured after. Recently, there have been very high-profile cases and investigations around UD events, the most recent being by an event in the Air Force that led to the death of an airman. In that case the Air Force put a suspension on the firearm during the investigation but eventually arrested the airman responsible, as they determined he had lied about the events [2]. Regardless of the specific failure modes of the weapon, there is a stigma around it, resulting in various law enforcement agencies switching from it or ranges banning the firearm. This has been popularized by incidents caught on video and somewhat viral videos of testing the firearm in a variety of scenarios. All in all, the P320 is one of the most mass-produced firearms in the world, and I would not be surprised to see Sig Sauer continue to fight in the court of public opinion to defend the reputation of the firearm, in what I would deem a losing strategy. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIG_Sauer_M17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIG_Sauer_M17 [1] - https://www.sigsauer.com/p320-voluntary-upgrade-program https://www.sigsauer.com/p320-voluntary-upgrade-program [2] - https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/08/08/air-force-makes-arrest-in-airmans-shooting-death-involving-m18-pistol/ https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/08/08...
wonderwonder 1y ago
Biggest issue here is the lack of clarity. I truly don't know if there is an issue with the pistol and as such I simply wont buy a Sig. The risk just isn't worth it. This is devastating for the Sig brand whether there is an issue or not. Tough spot to be in for a brand.
runnr_az 1y ago
Those guns can probably hurt someone!
OptionOfT 1y ago
I wonder if a manual safety here would've helped. There is this idea in the gun world that a gun has multiple safeties, like a trigger safety, striker safety etc, disassembly safety, disconnector safety, ... And the way they are presented is in a way that they stack. But they don't. Let's say the striker safety has failed and you drop the gun. It goes off. Even if you have a trigger safety. Or a disconnector safety.
- 0xffff2 1y ago
  The M17 (military version of the the P320) _has_ a manual safety.
- qball 1y ago
  Not in this case. There are many different kinds of safeties, and they aren't magic off switches. Consider a computer program (with a UI mated to underlying mechanics) that talks to a database. In this case, just because the frontend (the trigger) has a "safety" on it such that it guards against initiating a chain of events that results in something being written to the database, the backend generally remains capable of it anyway. So, if you have some other logic or condition that can start that API call (let's assume the program fires off a bunch of random inputs to various APIs if you physically drop the computer it's running on, and then you drop it), the DB write may still happen even though it was never triggered from the frontend. Now, you can do various things to guard against that known behavior- from ensuring the activity chain started on the frontend to physically disconnecting the computer from the database until you're ready to write- but at the end of the day the machine has to be capable of performing the write immediately when commanded, and the sacrifices you're going to make to enable that will be controlled by your engineering and testing. In this case, the trigger (and other associated safeties) are the "frontend", the mechanical workings are the "backend", and "the gun fires" is "a DB operation".
more_corn 1y ago
Pretty sure people have been shouting about this for years. There have been a half dozen accidental discharges by police officers with most reports of no contact with the trigger. There’s a trigger update available to fix the problem that sig claims doesn’t exist. There’s have been multiple injuries and a few deaths. This report coupled with the community and law enforcement reports stack up to some pretty damning evidence of what they knew and when they knew it.
knallfrosch 1y ago
I bought a gun three years ago. The P320 would have been my favorite, but so many police officers shot their calves and feet. I didn't really wanted that. I don't believe people on Sauer's payroll for a second. They earn their money shilling these faulty guns. I just bought something else and that's that.
Arturo525 1y ago
There has been no repeatable method discovered to make the p320 discharge without a trigger pull. The airforce arrested and charged someone with homicide in the most recent incident. Lacking evidence and repeatability all these incidents represent subjectively reported anecdotes. It reminds me of the spate of reports of people dying while cleaning a gun. If you know anything about firearms you know this is not possible. People I know in law enforcement said it was a way of not saying someone committed suicide.

193 points by eoskx 1y ago

eoskx 1y ago

According to a court exhibit, Sig Sauer identified several deadly risks with its P320 pistols as early as 2017.

normie3000 1y ago

> multiple ways the pistol could fire without an intentional trigger pull That doesn't sound ideal.

andrepd 1y ago
Master of the understatement :)

Esophagus4 1y ago

Well that settles it… I’m never buying a Sig Sauer

CodingJeebus 1y ago

Certainly not the first time something like this happened. During Vietnam, the US Army sent soldiers into combat with the M16 knowing that it had major issues that often caused it to jam. We’ll never know exactly people were killed by such a bad decision, but it quickly became infamous early in the war.[0] 0: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/m16-rifle-vietnam-war.html https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/m16-rifle-viet...

giantg2 1y ago
And the Berretta slide failures. And many similar issues for all kinds of things.
- tylerflick 1y ago
  I was going to mention this! I was on a range and watched a slide completely break in half after firing. The Beretta’s where terrible.
  - pc86 1y ago
    Are you referring to the M9/92? I don't own one but I've heard it's one of those guns that everyone who was issued one hates it, and everyone who bought one on the civilian market loves it - the implication being they just don't shoot it enough to run into any issues.
gnfargbl 1y ago
A dishonourable mention for the original A1 version of the British SA80, which required high levels of lubrication to operate properly, and as a result often jammed in sandy environments... like Kuwait and Iraq [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA80 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SA80
- KaiserPro 1y ago
  I seem to recall the A0 also used to yeet the magazine when you ran with it across your chest on the sling, because the mag release button had no guard (but that might be me misremembering it. )
linksnapzz 1y ago
There was nothing wrong with the M16/AR-15; the Marines had been issued the weapon in Vietnam as well (with different ammo than the army received) and it worked fine. The issue was that the Army Bureau of Ordinance insisted on making 5.56mm ammunition with a propellant composition different from the one that Stoner had specified when designing the weapon, one that was entirely unsuitable and led to jamming.
- XorNot 1y ago
  Yes but it was worse due to design problems with the gun as well, seeing as how they did change it - I.e. adding chrome plating to the chamber and barrel which reduced fouling, and actually including a proper cleaning kit.
  - jandrewrogers 1y ago
    The chrome lining was done to significantly increase the service life of the barrel and to reduce corrosion in some environments. Prior to the M16, chrome lining was only used on machine guns due to the volume of rounds that went through them. Far more rounds were put through the M16 by soldiers than prior weapons like the M14. Despite the chrome lining, M16 barrels still wear out over time and have to be replaced.
    - XorNot 1y ago
      "in some environments" being the Vietnam war the US was involved in, in reaction to casualty reports where a large number of men were killed with their rifles broken down for repair likely due to mid battle stoppages. And the same applies to number of rounds: the entire point of a 5.56mm cartridge was to give soldiers more ammo so they could sustain volume of fire in the field: it was a design goal. If design changes fixed a serious flaw with a weapon, then it was a flawed design.
jandrewrogers 1y ago
There was nothing wrong with the M16, it worked very well for a number of years. Then the US Army unilaterally modified the ammunition to save money in such a way as to make it no longer within specification for the weapon. Predictably, the use of out-of-spec ammunition caused issues. The Army never changed the ammunition back. Instead, the weapon was modified (M16A1) to be compatible with the formerly out-of-spec ammunition and the issues went away. You can't blame the M16 for the US Army using ammunition that wasn't fit for purpose.

baggachipz 1y ago

[flagged]

lazide 1y ago
Few people would be surprised if a car drove forward when on, in gear, and the gas pedal is depressed. When a specific make/model has a nasty habit of driving through the sides of garages when off and no one is touching them, and eventually runs someone over and kills them? People get concerned. Especially when the manufacturer knew this could (and was!) happening and insisted on gaslighting everyone about it for years. That cars can be used to run people over (and sometimes are even designed to do so effectively!) doesn’t change that. Especially since most miles driven never run anyone over at all.
- creaturemachine 1y ago
  A car's primary purpose isn't to kill or maim humans. If you think handguns are made for anything else then you're fooling yourself.
- baggachipz 1y ago
  I find the car = gun analogy so tired. A car's purpose is to transport, and sometimes it accidentally kills. A gun's purpose is to kill. People always say "it's a tool"... yeah, to kill. Anytime you have a device like that, unexpected killings can happen. People shoot themselves and other people accidentally all the time; not because it was not "used as intended", but because it's a killing device.
  - sitkack 1y ago
    Devices are supposed to work as intended, implied is WHEN intended. If you have a circular saw that randomly cuts when not asked, is a mature response "oh no our cutty thing cuts" ? That is why your post was flagged. A snarky, snide response like your detracts from meaningful discussion.
    - 1y ago

shepardrtc 1y ago

Note that not only has Sig Sauer lied about this and attempted to gaslight people[1], they have also sued organizations to force them to continue using the pistol after they chose to discontinue use due to the dangers[2] ---- [1] https://www.instagram.com/p/DG6RkWCpkdw/# https://www.instagram.com/p/DG6RkWCpkdw/# [2] https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/gunmaker-sues-washingtons-police-academy-over-p320-pistol-ban/3PRTWPMBFNCJDA2GJE5I4QDPDU/ https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/gunmaker-sues-washingtons-p...

thorncorona 1y ago

[flagged]

YesThatTom2 1y ago
[flagged]
- lazide 1y ago
  Eh, this is someone in SIG leadership using every scapegoat and excuse they can to avoid having to acknowledge or take responsibility for their screwup, instead compounding it to the point where it will seriously hurt the company - maybe even torpedo them. The things you’re talking about give them some cover/mechanisms, but most other manufacturers are looking on in horror at this, not copying them.
- jordanb 1y ago
  Yeah American gun culture is now substantially LARPers kitting up like they're going to the front lines. Ironically they call people who are into sportsmanship "fudders" and any gun that doesn't have a picatinny rail and a 20-round clip a "fudd gun." The reference is to "Elmer Fudd."
  - wl 1y ago
    Being a Fudd isn't about being into sportsmanship. It's about opposing the civilian ownership of firearms besides bolt action rifles and non-semiautomatic shotguns.
    - kasey_junk 1y ago
      You can find Fudd being applied to all manner of behaviors, it’s certainly not universally a gun control label. USPSA competitors will refer to IDPA competitors as Fudds just because of the scoring differences. It’s really just like calling someone a boomer but in a gun context.
  - fudddestroyer 1y ago

bayindirh 1y ago

Move briskly and kill people? That's a deadly twist to "move fast and break things" motto. Seriously, Sig Sauer. You are making weapons, not disposable pens, and the world leading disposable pen company literally uses "standards x 1.5" as their baseline.

eoskx 1y ago
There's another article that is cited where Sig with someone else was apparently developing the fixes to resolve these issues years before the gun was actually tested with the US Army, but didn't deploy the fixes until they were pressured: https://practicalshootinginsights.com/a-year-before-the-armys-sig-sauer-p320-drop-test-failures-bruce-gray-was-already-designing-the-fix/ https://practicalshootinginsights.com/a-year-before-the-army...
- giantg2 1y ago
  And those "fixes" didn't fully resolve the issues.
  - wl 1y ago
    Those fixes apparently resolved the drop safety issues. The uncommanded discharges that have been in the news as of late—where holstered P320s seemingly discharge on their own—is an entirely separate issue. Sig denies that there's a problem, blaming holster designs, debris in holsters, and people lying to cover up their own carelessness. One thing this article fails to mention about the Air Force incident is that the Air Force has made an arrest for "making a false official statement, obstruction of justice and involuntary manslaughter." https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/08/08/air-force-makes-arrest-in-airmans-shooting-death-involving-m18-pistol/ https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/08/08...
    - giantg2 1y ago
      Sig claims the issue was resolved. Keep in mind that Sig never admitted to the issue. They only issued a voluntary upgrade and never issued a safety recall.

eoskx 1y ago

Here are some follow-ups to the article cited. Pretty wild what Sig's response has been: https://practicalshootinginsights.com/the-document-sig-sauer-doesnt-want-you-to-see-about-the-p320/ https://practicalshootinginsights.com/the-document-sig-sauer... https://practicalshootinginsights.com/sig-sauer-vp-consumer-affairs-discusses-the-document-they-didnt-want-you-to-see/ https://practicalshootinginsights.com/sig-sauer-vp-consumer-... https://practicalshootinginsights.com/new-unsealed-sig-sauer-documentsin-friday-afternoon-dump/ https://practicalshootinginsights.com/new-unsealed-sig-sauer... https://practicalshootinginsights.com/a-year-before-the-armys-sig-sauer-p320-drop-test-failures-bruce-gray-was-already-designing-the-fix/ https://practicalshootinginsights.com/a-year-before-the-army...

codegeek 1y ago

Scary to think that I almost bought a P320 before I decided against it for a different reason.

dayjah 1y ago
Same, fortunately my local shooting range has a good selection of firearms to try. I tried the P320 and P365. I had been considering the P365, but it was so snappy I reasoned the otherwise completely boring P320 would be a better fit for my needs. However, it was close enough to another firearm I own that I decided to cool-off and see if I still wanted it in a month... then this all broke.
- pc86 1y ago
  Not at all firearm specific, but "I'll get this tomorrow if I still remember I want it" has saved me countless thousands of dollars in my life.
- seanw444 1y ago
  My girlfriend has a P365X. I wouldn't touch a P320 with a ten foot pole, but the 365 and its variants have proven pretty reliable for many people. It is definitely snappy though, but most "subcompacts" are, because physics.
  - dayjah 1y ago
    Yeah, to that point I’ve been interested in trying out a Shadow Systems CRp. But haven’t found a place carrying them..
oldpersonintx2 1y ago
[dead]
pc86 1y ago
I bought an M17 many years ago, and sold it a little over a year ago. My local store will still take them but it's $100 store credit only.

giantg2 1y ago

While I agree with the title of the article, some of the contents seem a little over the top in the way they present them. We would need to see the document to know how bad it really is. Many of the failure modes could be user dependent for lack of training (ie finger in trigger guard when holstering). They also don't say which failure modes were fixed and what remained. That said, all you need is one valid failure mode to be dangerous. "Sig Sauer also stated that the manual safeties on M17 and M18 pistols would resolve some of the issues," This would only be the training dependent ones. Mechanically, the safety only blocks the trigger and does nothing to block the striker or sear.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Zak 1y ago
> They also don't say which failure modes were fixed and what remained. The article links a document[0] which lists them. My reading of this is that it's not listing issues that were found in the P320, but issues that can occur in handguns in general. One of the items is "unsafe hammer decock", which has never been possible with the P320 because it does not have a hammer. It is listed as eliminated. The remaining medium risks are: - The user might accidentally pull the trigger by resting their finger on it when they do not intend to fire the gun - Mishandling the gun might cause a foreign object to pull the trigger - A drop or vibration might cause the gun to fire - The user might accidentally pull the trigger a second time due to motion during recoil - The user may accidentally pull the trigger while clearing a jam - A broken firing pin could lodge in the firing position, causing the gun to fire when the slide closes - The user might accidentally pull the trigger during holstering or unholstering - The sear might fail to retain the striker, causing an uncommanded discharge when chambering a round, or a second uncommanded shot after an intentional shot - Defective ammunition could rupture and injure the shooter or bystanders - Recoil can lead to repetitive motion injuries - Incorrect disassembly and reassembly can lead to a firearm which does not function correctly Two of these (drop/vibration, failure to retain striker) describe the current uncommanded discharge problem. Five of the issues are different ways someone with insufficient training might mishandle a gun and pull the trigger unintentionally. [0] https://smokinggun.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/gov.uscourts.ctd_.150506.202.1_UNREDACTED.pdf https://smokinggun.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/gov.uscour...

poleguy 1y ago

This article makes me wonder about comparative analysis against other models and brands. It is good Sig Sauer produced a failure mode analysis. Where are the competitive analysis documents? It also makes me wonder if the reason it can't fix some of these issues is because it is working around patent issues. Pure speculation.

eoskx 1y ago
It appears based on some other court documents that Sig with the P320 intentionally excluded a trigger tab safety based on marketing decisions to be competitive, which every other striker-fired handgun has included. That along with some other issues appears to be the basis for where the P320 design went wrong.
lazide 1y ago
The reason they can’t fix these issues is someone in leadership likely literally has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and is quite literally incapable of acknowledging a mistake or problem. To the point they’ll inevitably torpedo the company rather than take any ownership or responsibility. If the Board is smart, they’ll fire the person before it gets to that point - but if they were smart, they probably wouldn’t have hired the type of person to get them into this mess in the first place.
- gosub100 1y ago
  That's not really an Occam's Razor conclusion. I would say the reason is that multiple lawsuits were already filed, and to admit the gun was defective essentially means you lose all the suits overnight. At the time, they chose to ride it out because they didn't know how many of these guns were actually defective. My guess is it was a perfect storm where the defect rate was low enough to escape their quality control but high enough (or perhaps delayed long enough, meaning it takes years for the defect to appear) to lead to a clear signal after the horse got out of the barn. Enough suits were filed that they perhaps risk bankruptcy if they lose all of them. That's just my speculation, and seems to be more plausible than some side effect from mental illness.

yold__ 1y ago

In a nutshell, the defect that causes the guns to fire when holstered occurs when there is a small amount of pressure on the trigger. If the slide (top part of the gun) is wiggled / nudged, it will fire. Also, the gun can fire when dropped. Both these issues are mitigated by other manufacturers with a trigger safety and longer trigger pull.

potato3732842 1y ago
>Both these issues are mitigated by other manufacturers with a trigger safety and longer trigger pull. And just not having hot dog down a hallway tolerances at the slide to frame interface. The trigger stuff lives in the bottom half of the gun and the bang stuff lives in the top half and only goes bang depending upon the relative position of the trigger stuff. So allowing the top half and the bottom half to move around a ton is generally unwise unless you make accommodations elsewhere in the design so that you still have proper relative position regardless of where in the hallway the hotdog is.
alexpotato 1y ago
There are videos online showing that this also happens with Glocks (when the trigger is depressed to the wall) [0] Really, any gun where the sear is in the grip and the part it connects to is in the frame could have the same issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaV32HarnRY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaV32HarnRY
- galangalalgol 1y ago
  So a classic sig double action or 1911 wouldn't be effected? He video says striker fired specifically. Cocked and locked I'm not sure how you would make this happen.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Not affected in the same way. The original M1911 design has a floating firing pin held back only by spring tension, so in theory it might be possible to get it to discharge without pressing the trigger by dropping it straight onto the muzzle from a sufficient height. This is so unlikely in practice that it's not a real concern. Some newer variants also incorporate an extra internal safety that blocks the firing pin from moving.

tehwebguy 1y ago

I wonder how many people died when police encounters were escalated to “shots fired” by their faulty Sig. It’s one thing for a gun to go off and potentially hit someone but it’s another when the first round fired triggers 4 cops to empty a mag each.

SoftTalker 1y ago
Are there a number of police shootings where the officer claims his gun "went off"? One of the first rules of gun safety is never point the weapon at something you aren't intending to shoot. So by the time they are pointing their guns at a suspect, actually firing probably happens a lot? Or are cops actually trained to hold a person at gunpoint (I don't believe the TV dramas and movies where this happens constantly are realistic in this regard). If so, it seems very risky, considering potential manufacturing or design defects such as discovered with the Sig.
- pc86 1y ago
  When exactly an officer is trained to pull their firearm will vary by department. I'm sure every defense attorney in the country is checking what firearms the officers were issued for their clients where it might make a difference.
- subscribed 1y ago
  American cops get surprisingly little training and all the public-recorded videos show cops pulling out their guns to to escalate and intimidate, even in the seemingly innocuous situation like a traffic stop. I wouldn't believe American cops are trained with "safety first" rule in mind. The evidence doesn't seem to support it. https://hub.wsu.edu/law-justice-realtime/2015/11/18/the-increasing-militarization-of-americas-police-forces-form-of-oppression-or-a-protection-for-society/ https://hub.wsu.edu/law-justice-realtime/2015/11/18/the-incr...

game_the0ry 1y ago

Even an arms manufacturer with a historic reputation for quality is vulnerable to the phenomena of Enshittification.

jabedude 1y ago
In this case, the historic reputation for quality is entirely disconnected from the company. SIG USA shares a brand with the German and Swiss companies with the same name, but it is not the same company that made the P226
- eoskx 1y ago
  All 3 entities - the German, Swiss, and US entities are owned by a German holding company L&O Holdings, but yes, the basis of the 226 was designed by the original Swiss entity.
brookst 1y ago
“Enshitification” refers to pivoting from selling a product to selling the audience that bought the product. For instance, Windows putting ads in the start menu. As awful as this Sig Sauer fiasco is, it doesn’t seem to be a result of a pivot to indirect monetization.
- dreamcompiler 1y ago
  This is not what enshittification means. Facebook enshittified itself without ever having sold a product to its users. They were selling their users' personal data before they ever became enshittified. Enshittification is about obtaining, then abusing platform semi-monopoly power to extract more money from your users and your customers by making your product worse.
  - game_the0ry 1y ago
    > Enshittification is about obtaining, then abusing platform semi-monopoly power to extract more money from your users and your customers by making your product worse. Yeah, this is how I meant it. In the case of Sig, it was probably cost-cutting, product management by committee, corner-cutting due to tight business reqs, or some combo of the above.

jordanb 1y ago

An important point to recognize is that gun manufacturers have almost no product liability exposure due to laws pushed by the NRA. Of course the NRA pitched these laws to their members as protecting against gun violence victims suing the manufacturer, but they also slipped in that gun manufacturers have no legal responsibility to provide guns to buyers that do not fire unless the trigger is pulled.

dayjah 1y ago
When the plaintiff is the US Armed Forces, does this still hold? Surely the contract with an arm of the military doesn't have the same protections?
- giancarlostoro 1y ago
  They can freeze funds and cancel future contracts, which should be enough pressure. What's wild to me is the military version was not even remotely safer. 100% the families of those affected by Sigs goof ups should sue.
wl 1y ago
You're probably referencing a New Hampshire law that prevents product liability lawsuits against gun manufacturers for not including manual safeties. That law would not prevent product liability lawsuits in cases where guns discharge without the trigger being actuated.
eoskx 1y ago
Keep in mind, too, that the US Army does NOT want this FMECA document released. From the article that is cited the US Army's project manager & legal counsel gave this response to help Sig justify keeping the document sealed: > The Army position would be to oppose the distribution to the public of the > FMECA document as it potentially reveals critical information about the > handgun (design, reliability, performance, etc.).
Zak 1y ago
If you're referring to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act[0] passed in 2005, that's not true. It only bars lawsuits against gun manufacturers and dealers for criminal misuse of their products, not for hazardous defects. Remington settled a class action lawsuit[1] concerning rifles that could fire without a trigger pull filed after the passage of that law. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_in_Arms_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Lawful_Commerce_... [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/24/remington-rifle-settlement-is-official.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/24/remington-rifle-settlement-i...

bbminner 1y ago

> vice president of commercial sales, said, “If someone can just show us how to replicate [these uncommanded discharges] we will absolutely look at this from all aspects to make sure there isn’t any truth to this. Am I reading it correctly: if you provide us with a detailed bug report we will make sure to properly justify why we think it is not a bug and "works as intended"? :)

barbazoo 1y ago
Reads to me like they’re gonna get rid of you. What a shit way to phrase this. What makes these corporate monkeys lose the ability to speak normally?

flerchin 1y ago

> If someone can just show us how to replicate [these uncommanded discharges] we will absolutely look at this from all aspects to make sure there isn’t any truth to this. In a company of our size, would anyone ever believe that there was a real issue going on, and we wouldn’t address it?” This is exactly how I sound when I get a bug that is hard to repro. Just like these guns, there's evidence that the bug happened, but it's really hard to figure out how. Still a bug. People are still dead.

zhengyi13 1y ago
Uncommanded discharges are very well reproduced at this point. At the very least that I'm aware of, there was initial work by Youtuber "3 P320s In A Trenchcoat" showing a series of ways to get the striker to drop w/o touching the trigger. More recently, a Youtuber with Wyoming in their channel name showed that they could reproduce them with just the slightest trigger movement in conjunction with wiggling the slide.
- pc86 1y ago
  This last one is the most damning IMO. You can dismiss it because there's a screw in the trigger but he shows in a separate video that it's not actually screwed into the frame or anything - it's just there to keep the < 0.5mm of slack out of the trigger. Once that's accomplished, all you have to do is wiggle the slide around for a round to get discharged. He does it on the first attempt - even he didn't expect it to be that easy. It's very easy to see how a police officer jostling around with a suspect or getting in and out of their car can cause the trigger and the slide to move at the right time to cause this issue.
  - baseballdork 1y ago
    That's not what that experiment is showing. If you move the trigger by 1mm and jostle the slide, nothing will happen. You have to take the trigger _to the wall_, and then 0.5mm further, and then wiggle the slide.

santiagobasulto 1y ago

I don't know much about guns so maybe can help me understand. How is it possible that a holstered gun has pressure in the trigger in the first place? And also, shouldn't the safety always be on?

joyeuse6701 1y ago
Some guns, striker fired, do not have safeties as you may think of them.
oldpersonintx2 1y ago
consumer versions of this pistol do not have a manual safety they have internal safety mechanisms to prevent discharge, and these are important if you carry with a round chambered - in a striker-fired pistol, the firing pin is under tension and is only being restrained by the trigger and internal safeties this is why I do not carry with a round chambered, if you appendix carry and something goes wrong, you will be missing an important appendage
- seanw444 1y ago
  This is why I carry a gun I trust. I keep one chambered at all times, pointing at my junk. I am not concerned about my junk. I am much more concerned about not being able to get a shot off in time if I ever need to use it.
Zak 1y ago
Many modern handguns do not have a manually activated safety. The Sig M17/M18 does, but the safety only blocks the trigger from moving rearward far enough to fire. It may not block the trigger from moving enough to disengage an internal, automatic safety that prevents the firing pin from traveling all the way forward if it is released due to a malfunction. It is also possible that the firing pin block safety does not always work even if the trigger is fully forward.
WillPostForFood 1y ago
Common failures would be to use the wrong holster, defective holster, or get some object in the holster that could snag the trigger as you put it in.

jeffWrld 1y ago

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TheJoeMan 1y ago

This is a completely incorrect interpretation of a FMEA (failure-modes-and-effects-analysis) / "Risk Chart". ISO quality systems regulations / the army mandate engineers sit in a room and dream up every way the device could fail and/or harm someone. You then classify the risk of that harm, so in all cases an unintentional discharge would be "high risk". This does not mean the pistol has a high chance of discharging, that is a separate metric for odds of occurrence. Even if the pistol was redesigned to only have a 1 in a million chance of unintentionally discharging, the "risk" category would stay "high".

roland35 1y ago
At least while I was at NASA, a high impact score (ie death) would still elevate total risk even if the likelihood was low.
alephnerd 1y ago
They don't care. "The Smoking Gun" is part of the Everytown Support Fund [0], which has been lobbying for gun abolitionism. It was created in opposition of the NRA by Michael Bloomberg [1] Just like how the NRA would skew stats against any form of gun control, an organization like Everytown would skew facts the other way around. Firearm abolitionism and unrestricted firearm access are both equally dumb. There is a middle ground that can be found, but the extremes on both sides make it impossible to compromise. Gun ownership is a 2nd amendment right and often needed in areas with limited population density and access to police or animal control services (try dealing with packs of feral hog like most rural communities in the American West - can't be done without .223 calibre ammo), but that doesn't mean we can't add safety and training requirements given that there is a real issue with gun smuggling that is exacerbating crime across the Americas as well as the inability to prevent and flag high risk individuals from purchasing weapons (especially via private sales). IMO, an Israeli style model would be best - Israelis are allowed to own a private weapon, but are required to get tested and recertified every year AND need to show that they have a gun locker. All weapons are also registered and cataloged, and all gun sales need to be notified and allowed by the Ministry of Public Safety. If Israel can do it, the US absolutely can as well. [0] - https://smokinggun.org/about/ https://smokinggun.org/about/ [1] - https://www.everytown.org/about-everytown/history/ https://www.everytown.org/about-everytown/history/

roland35 1y ago

So much for the "guns don't shoot themselves!!" argument you occasionally hear from gun nuts. Yes they can and do shoot themselves!

pc86 1y ago
Yes, this specific gun with this specific design issue that doesn't exist in any other firearm, and you now can't sell for more than $100 if you can sell it at all, and is banned by almost every professional shooting sports organization, and is banned by more ranges than its not can shoot by itself in very specific circumstances. As a self-described gun nut, thought I'd make it a little more accurate :)
- seanw444 1y ago
  And sold by a company that has lost credibility with most "gun nuts" as a result of this whole years-long (now lethal) ordeal. Anti-2Aers think that we're all defending Sig for this behaviour. We're not.
  - pc86 1y ago
    At this point the only people defending Sig are people getting paid by Sig, or people trying to get paid by Sig.
Nicook 1y ago
Arguing with such a politically loaded sentence is probably a waste of time. BUT that's obviously not the intention of the quote. Actual malfunction induced firing is the exception, and its still a good saying to help people try and be safe/mindful. Not to mention even in that case there's still some movement or action leading to it nobody is saying that the sigs will just spontaneously fire while left sitting on a table.
- roland35 1y ago
  I suppose out of context it seems out of nowhere, but if you follow some of these influencers they act like it is literally impossible for anything bad to happen with guns around. I enjoy shooting myself (don't really do it frequently but I have a number of times at ranges) but I feel like there are a lot of people who do not take gun ownership seriously. I also think there are a lot of people who dont take driving a car seriously enough so it isn't exclusive to guns...

danielvf 1y ago

So the important bit here is that the guns failed drop testing. And that's bad. The rest of the article seems to misunderstand FMEA style "write down every conceivable bad scenario in the universe, how bad it is, and then what you have done to stop it", and then spins this as "look at all these horrible known issues they knew about". I hope a jury doesn't view it the same way, because it would be an epic bad for safety everywhere if engineers writing down a list of bad things to avoid and mitigate was forbidden by company lawyers.

wl 1y ago
The important bit is that the guns failed drop testing and then Sig Sauer updated the design to fix the issue.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- lazide 1y ago
  Well, and then didn’t recall them - instead favoring the ‘voluntary upgrade’. And apparently even those ‘upgraded’ under that still have this other, even bigger issue.
  - wl 1y ago
    At that point, we're talking about different things than the FMEA mentioned in the headline.

anonu 1y ago

There's possibly 4 million of these guns on the street. Sig should do a massive recall.

oflannabhra 1y ago

For anyone wanting a quick breakdown of the current situation: the Sig Sauer P320 is a striker-fired handgun, which means the firing pin is spring loaded and retained by a sear. Other handguns are hammer-fired, where the trigger (or slide actuation) cocks the hammer. Other popular striker-fired guns include the Glock and Smith and Wesson M&P series. Frequently, striker-fired pistols come without safeties, but optionally add them. The P320 was popular as it was designed as a modular system, allowing a single FCU (firing control unit, basically a trigger and striker assembly) to be independent and swappable with other parts of the handgun: grip, slide, barrel, etc. This allows for a single platform to serve multiple needs: concealed carry, compact, full-size, or even competition models, as well as be transferrable across calibers. The magazine design also allowed for more rounds to be carried in compact configurations. The P320 was selected by the US Army [0] as the official replacement for the Beretta M9 as a service-issued sidearm, officially designated the M17 or M18 (in 9mm). In 2020 SIG SAUER initiated a "voluntary upgrade program" [1] that swapped various components of the trigger to prevent unintended discharge (UD) events that could occur when the pistol dropped in certain orientations. These changes became standard for the M17 and all P320 manufactured after. Recently, there have been very high-profile cases and investigations around UD events, the most recent being by an event in the Air Force that led to the death of an airman. In that case the Air Force put a suspension on the firearm during the investigation but eventually arrested the airman responsible, as they determined he had lied about the events [2]. Regardless of the specific failure modes of the weapon, there is a stigma around it, resulting in various law enforcement agencies switching from it or ranges banning the firearm. This has been popularized by incidents caught on video and somewhat viral videos of testing the firearm in a variety of scenarios. All in all, the P320 is one of the most mass-produced firearms in the world, and I would not be surprised to see Sig Sauer continue to fight in the court of public opinion to defend the reputation of the firearm, in what I would deem a losing strategy. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIG_Sauer_M17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIG_Sauer_M17 [1] - https://www.sigsauer.com/p320-voluntary-upgrade-program https://www.sigsauer.com/p320-voluntary-upgrade-program [2] - https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/08/08/air-force-makes-arrest-in-airmans-shooting-death-involving-m18-pistol/ https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/08/08...

wonderwonder 1y ago

Biggest issue here is the lack of clarity. I truly don't know if there is an issue with the pistol and as such I simply wont buy a Sig. The risk just isn't worth it. This is devastating for the Sig brand whether there is an issue or not. Tough spot to be in for a brand.

runnr_az 1y ago

Those guns can probably hurt someone!

OptionOfT 1y ago

I wonder if a manual safety here would've helped. There is this idea in the gun world that a gun has multiple safeties, like a trigger safety, striker safety etc, disassembly safety, disconnector safety, ... And the way they are presented is in a way that they stack. But they don't. Let's say the striker safety has failed and you drop the gun. It goes off. Even if you have a trigger safety. Or a disconnector safety.

0xffff2 1y ago
The M17 (military version of the the P320) _has_ a manual safety.
qball 1y ago
Not in this case. There are many different kinds of safeties, and they aren't magic off switches. Consider a computer program (with a UI mated to underlying mechanics) that talks to a database. In this case, just because the frontend (the trigger) has a "safety" on it such that it guards against initiating a chain of events that results in something being written to the database, the backend generally remains capable of it anyway. So, if you have some other logic or condition that can start that API call (let's assume the program fires off a bunch of random inputs to various APIs if you physically drop the computer it's running on, and then you drop it), the DB write may still happen even though it was never triggered from the frontend. Now, you can do various things to guard against that known behavior- from ensuring the activity chain started on the frontend to physically disconnecting the computer from the database until you're ready to write- but at the end of the day the machine has to be capable of performing the write immediately when commanded, and the sacrifices you're going to make to enable that will be controlled by your engineering and testing. In this case, the trigger (and other associated safeties) are the "frontend", the mechanical workings are the "backend", and "the gun fires" is "a DB operation".

more_corn 1y ago

Pretty sure people have been shouting about this for years. There have been a half dozen accidental discharges by police officers with most reports of no contact with the trigger. There’s a trigger update available to fix the problem that sig claims doesn’t exist. There’s have been multiple injuries and a few deaths. This report coupled with the community and law enforcement reports stack up to some pretty damning evidence of what they knew and when they knew it.

knallfrosch 1y ago

I bought a gun three years ago. The P320 would have been my favorite, but so many police officers shot their calves and feet. I didn't really wanted that. I don't believe people on Sauer's payroll for a second. They earn their money shilling these faulty guns. I just bought something else and that's that.

Arturo525 1y ago

There has been no repeatable method discovered to make the p320 discharge without a trigger pull. The airforce arrested and charged someone with homicide in the most recent incident. Lacking evidence and repeatability all these incidents represent subjectively reported anecdotes. It reminds me of the spate of reports of people dying while cleaning a gun. If you know anything about firearms you know this is not possible. People I know in law enforcement said it was a way of not saying someone committed suicide.