SIG’s voluntary upgrade program covers every commercially-produced P320. (Photo: GunsAmerica)
SIG Sauer is offering a voluntary upgrade package to P320 owners at no cost to address recent concerns about drop safety. The P320 is SIG’s flagship service pistol with around 500,000 in use today.
In recent weeks rumors that the P320 was not entirely drop-safe started making the rounds. Independent testing by various bloggers showed that under specific circumstances these guns will fire when dropped. SIG confirmed the problem last week, calling it the -30 degree drop failure.
The root of the problem is the weight of the P320 trigger. If you drop the P320 at a specific angle the pistol stops when it hits the ground but the trigger keeps moving until it releases the striker.
Despite this the pistol passes all American National Standards Institute (ANSI), Sporting Arms & Ammunition Manufacturer’s Institute (SAAMI), National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Department of Justice (DOJ) and many other municipal and military safety standards.
SIG maintains that this is an upgrade and not a recall and that the pistols are safe as-is. The SIG P320 is in its fourth year of production and only a small number of non-intentional drop failures have been reported, in the single digits.
It’s possible that the flaw led to the injury of a police officer in Stamford, Connecticut. To-date that is the only injury that anyone has reported associated with the P320. SIG maintains that any firearm is capable of discharging unintentionally due to any number of reasons and that no design is entirely drop-safe.
SIG has also asked users who feel compelled to drop-test their guns to do so with primed cases only, that is to say, cartridges without bullets or powder, just a primer. Stress-testing any gun with fully-functioning ammo is violently stupid and potentially criminal.
The upgraded pistols will receive a new, lighter trigger, sear, and striker assembly. In addition to lighter parts, SIG is adding a disconnect to the design. SIG needs both the chassis and the slide assemblies in order to furnish the upgrades.
The program is open to all P320 owners and users, individuals and departments. Dealers may also return their pistols to SIG for the fix. Essentially every pistol built since day one is covered by SIG’s upgrade program since essentially every pistol is affected.
Some guns, like the X-5 models, are less prone to the problem. These guns have lighter triggers with less mass to fire under inertia when dropped. Regardless, SIG will issue the upgrade to all affected pistols if requested.
See Also: SIG Sauer Issuing Volutary Upgrade on P320 Pistols
Unlike the P320 pistols, the M17 and M18 Modular Handgun System, or MHS program guns are not affected. The U.S. military recently adopted these P320 variants to replace the M9 family of sidearms.
The changes to the commercial P320 appear to be based on the MHS design. That would explain how SIG was able to deliver a fix shortly after confirming the problem.
The upgrade program is completely free of charge and covers shipping both ways. If you have a P320 and would like to register for the upgrade program head over to the SIG website or contact customer service by phone at 603-610-3000.
SIG is requesting that customers send them only the frames and slides without any magazines or accessories. The company will not guarantee that they can return any additional parts with the guns if they are included.
The expected turnaround on upgrades is four to six weeks. That is a relatively short fix considering how many thousands of guns SIG has sold.
Do you have a P320? Let us know if you’re going to get the upgrade, and how it turns out for you!
Everyone has an opinion. I don’t like either firearm. My choice would be a 1911 45 Range Officer. When you put fire down range you know it will kill. For a Rifle I would issue them the best Assault Weapon ever made still being shot in competition. The M-14 is the best ever built. Can a M-16 or an AK-47 even with optics shoot steady at 800yds. An M-14 on a clear day will kill kill kill you dead. Boom. Read the book about Carlos Hathcock and tell me I’m a liar. Ninety Two confirmed kills in triple canopy jungle. Boom down you go!! That M- 16 was a killer of many thousands in the Vietnam War. It also put many servicemen in the hospital because of it’s failure to fire and jams . I joined the Marine Corps in 1976 in an infantry unit. Our companies were full of Vietnam combat Marines. Almost all of them told me whenever anyone had a chance to pick up an M-14 they did even though the could get in trouble for it. They had their shiney new M-16. They would tell me on patrols they would look down at their weapon and see their bolt carrier group open anfull of dirt and everything you could imagine. And their ejection port wide open which should be closed stopping dirt from entering the bolt carrier group. They told us new guys remember one thing tap rack and attempt to fire. Screw all of you shooting AR’s that’s a disgrace in my eyes what the country did to all of them. Some Friends!!
I really don’t like either one for different reasons. Give the Marines a Springfield Armory 1911 45cal Range Officer. If their too big to handle Marines, your PT is not up to par. Give them a choice of the M14 or the CBQ weapons that have a shorter barrel, but will still out shoot any AK 47 or any BB Gun M16’s. Man Up WARRIORS
I signed up when the recall was announced, received my shipping label the day before Veteran’s Day, shipped it out on Veteran’s Day and received the gun back today. I was impressed by the quick turnaround time.
I signed up for the program as soon as they announced it, was notified Oct 2 that they would be sending shipping labels out from Oct-Nov. I got a shipping label about 4 weeks later. Mailed it out the following day (Oct 27), and just got a notification this morning that it will be delivered Friday (Nov 3). Pretty quick turnaround if you ask me.
I signed up as soon as they announce it also. Was told they would contact me in two weeks. Well finally on October 3rd I got an email and said they would be sending out shipping label. Here it is 5 weeks later and still nothing! So I called them this week, they said we don’t have any turnaround information yet. So lets review, registered on their website months ago, and still nothing.
I signed up for the upgrade, more than a “few weeks ago.” I haven’t heard ANYTHING p320 news related since around mid August! What’s the secret?
Do you think sig will have any issues with my sig p320 that I’ve had customized with ceracoate and top slide front and rear serrations
I own and still carry my excellent P320 Tacops. Great gun. I’m probably going to get some crap for this but so what, here’s my story. First off, I take gun safety extremely seriously. I’ve owned many guns for many years. I carry every day. That said, about two years ago I was removing my holstered Glock gen-3 from my waistband and it slipped out of the holster and fell at a perfect -30 degree angle, striking a hard floor. Suffice it to say if it fired I would not be writing this. Anyone who does something thousands of times for many years will mess up once. It’s just a fact. No matter how careful you are, if you do something long enough you will make at least one mistake. This is different than such things as putting your finger on the trigger or sweeping your gun – those are willful acts. But dropping something happens, we’ve all done it. Be it a cup of coffee, a cake, etc. dropping something, even when you’re careful, happens. So I dropped my condition 1 Glock at a -30 angle and it didn’t fire.
Well so much for the “perfect Handgun” for the Military when there were already proven platforms but then again you know our government! I’ll stick with my CZ!
The military contract guns M17 & M18 models of the P320 do not have the problem, read the full article…..
WARNING: Under certain conditions, firearms will discharge when their triggers are pulled!
No firearm is completely safe, period. They can only pass established tests, and no regimen of testing can rule out every possible failure mode. Firearms can’t be made safe, only less likely to discharge under certain conditions.
“The changes to the commercial P320 appear to be based on the MHS design. That would explain how SIG was able to deliver a fix shortly after confirming the problem.”
This points to Sig having known about the problem before the public became aware. It challenges the imagination to believe that just by coincidence their “upgrades” to the military version also address a problem in the civilian version without knowing about said problem
Actually the military trigger could be attributed just to weight specifications put on by the army.
I think time will prove me right that the Sig 230 was not the gun for our Armed Forces. The Glock is a tried and true handgun that should have been selected but as we all know “The best for less.”
No. glock is not the best for less. outfitting a glock with optics and threaded barrel is well over a grand. Sig p320 has both packages for 700 bucks atleast to civilians. Any law enforcement that uses glock gets heavily discounted. Glock has done nothing to innovate and change their guns in the past 5 years. Sig has the most modular handgun system out there. You need to run supressed with optics and .45 bam you have all the parts to do so for under 400 bucks, drop your trigger in and voila. Done. You need high capacity 9mm side arm with carry sized grip. bam heres 21 rounds and a 4.25 or 3.9 inch barrel. I used to own glocks up and down. Out of the box they are a mediocre pistol at best. They are the Iphones of the gun world. Sig is the Android. always changing to suite the operator not the glock fan boi behind the keyboard.
I have signed up already and continue to carry my completely safe 320 until I get the call. Once you sign up there will be a considerable lag before you get the prepaid shipping label to send it in and then the 4-6 wait starts. The MHS pistols aren\’t covered because they already have the upgrade…and that is ALL it is…because Sig says when you sign up that the 320 is \”completely safe to carry and use as is.\”
Bear in mind also that this supposed discharge by an unnamed police officer is the basis of a lawsuit. At this time not one word of it has been proven to anyone\’s satisfaction. IF it happened then we should get more than sparse details.
If anyone has been shooting for longer than a month I\’m sure they are aware that series 70 Model 1911s have never been drop safe. That was the big reason Colt went to the series 80 guns. Then when the series 80 became universally hated they started back with the series 70.
I started carrying 1911s cocked and locked, (condition one), in 1971. Travis Strahan was a retired AMU gunsmith who started working for GT Distributors in Rossville, Ga around 1974. He could literally tune a 1911 to near perfection. He soon had 100% of our local LEO business. He cringed when he saw us carrying condition one. He asked me one day if he could show me something with my brand new 1911A1. He took the back of the gun apart and then put it back together without installing the hammer. He chambered a primed hull and then smacked the back of the slide with a plastic mallet. It fired. He did it several more times and it fired every time. I still carried the 1911s condition one for the next 41 years.
Where has this sudden discovery of \”drop safe\” come from? Why did nobody know about it until Sig won the military contract? Why no outcry against the series 70 1911A1s?
Alan liked his comment so much he had to state it twice.
I have signed up already and continue to carry my completely safe 320 until I get the call. Once you sign up there will be a considerable lag before you get the prepaid shipping label to send it in and then the 4-6 wait starts. The MHS pistols aren’t covered because they already have the upgrade…and that is ALL it is…because Sig says when you sign up that the 320 is “completely safe to carry and use as is.”
Bear in mind also that this supposed discharge by an unnamed police officer is the basis of a lawsuit. At this time not one word of it has been proven to anyone’s satisfaction. IF it happened then we should get more than sparse details.
If anyone has been shooting for longer than a month I’m sure they are aware that series 70 Model 1911s have never been drop safe. That was the big reason Colt went to the series 80 guns. Then when the series 80 became universally hated they started back with the series 70.
I started carrying 1911s cocked and locked, (condition one), in 1971. Travis Strahan was a retired AMU gunsmith who started working for GT Distributors in Rossville, Ga around 1974. He could literally tune a 1911 to near perfection. He soon had 100% of our local LEO business. He cringed when he saw us carrying condition one. He asked me one day if he could show me something with my brand new 1911A1. He took the back of the gun apart and then put it back together without installing the hammer. He chambered a primed hull and then smacked the back of the slide with a plastic mallet. It fired. He did it several more times and it fired every time. I still carried the 1911s condition one for the next 41 years.
Where has this sudden discovery of “drop safe” come from? Why did nobody know about it until Sig won the military contract? Why no outcry against the series 70 1911A1s?
lets not forget all the glock issues. Especially Firing when dropped. glock had this same exact issue in 2009. Glock has not been free from issues like this. They had a ton more than sig has. We are talking about less than 1% failure rate of the weapon in production? Sig came out and volunteered to fix it. They passed the tests they needed to. They didnt have to do anything but because people pointed fingers and sig needed to save face because people are idiots. They came out and are doing this for free to every p320 ever made. Thats perfection.
It will remain an upgrade until a few more lawsuits are brought against Sig. Once the potential costs of the lawsuit offsets the costs of the upgrade and possible loss of revenue due to bad publicity, loss of contracts, etc. Sig will reconsider. It’s all in the lawyers hands and has been since the issue has been identified.
All I can say is what ever their going to do to make this trigger safe if it is not as nice and smooth and crisp as it is now no one will be buying any more p320’s
“Voluntary Upgrade Program” Don’t make me laugh. It should say “Warning P320 Recall”. I guess Sig is above that.
Since its not required and its a voluntary program they have instituted to provide an upgrade, i would have to disagree with you.
I guess all the brand new Sig fanboys who blasted everyone with the perfection of the 320 weren’t completely correct.
In various iterations, including the X-five, I own four of the 320’s. I’m going to wait and see what others think of the trigger feel and operation after they have had the upgrade done. One of the reasons I purchased the 320’s is due to the excellent trigger. I am not concerned with the issue that if I drop the gun, it could discharge, and would consider that my own fault if it happened. I was always taught, if you drop a firearm it could potentially discharge. Plus, I really don’t want to wait four to six weeks to get my 320 back.
I have other Sigs but do not own a 320…I I’m going to buy one before the Mods, then wait to see if they messed up the trigger pull. The odds one dropping it at the perfect 30 degree is something I can live with. I wonder how many other brands are out there that will discharge at 10, 21, 25, 28, 40, degree angles?? But I do know all to well about discharges of Glocks in the PD locker rooms…
after reading the article I have gotten to apprecite the quality, and love my Glocks even more! “Glock perfection” is no bull.
Kaboom.
The first 17’s had 5 or 6 parts that were “upgraded”.
Miguel… You are totally wrong about your Glock. It is so unsafe to clean that it has been given a name for all the injuries it has caused. “Glock Hand” Research and look it up. Then… try and mention the comment again. I’ll take a Sig over a Glock any day.
Any claim to “perfection” in a man made item, or man himself, IS complete bull.
And as pointed out, your Glock has been refined through the years, I sold them when they first came out, and there were many issues.
But on average, Glocks are good guns. But so are Sigs.
“the pistol passes all American National Standards Institute (ANSI), Sporting Arms & Ammunition Manufacturer’s Institute (SAAMI), National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Department of Justice (DOJ) and many other municipal and military safety standards.” and NONE of these “professionals caught the issue? The lesson for us consumers: the gov’t have idiots running those test programs and no government agency is to be trusted with our sefety. Imagine now what the FDA, EPA, etc. have approved as “safe” and is right now in our homes, our food, our pharmaceuticals…QED
Not quite…govt agencies test to a standard. If the standard is met, the product passes….if they drop a different handgun from 50 ft and it discharges in a like fashion, does that mean the agency failed in your opinion??
Ummm… You know that SAAMI, ANSI are not government agency’s but that the government adopts their standards! Now the NIJ, DOJ are government agency’s and their standards are usually adopted from said previous agency’s. Please also don’t forget that the Glock was never a perfect weapon when it first came to market. To this day the Glock has made few adjustments to its guns because if it did and issues started happening then they would have to come up with a fix and they had a hell of a time on their Gen 1-3. Thats why all their guns are designed the same way so that they their customers don’t get anything different just differently chambered!
They can call what they like, they are stepping up to the plate and paying portal to portal to fix it where others would back away.
Sig should be commended for free upgrade (recall, if you must) to all P320s. Sig could have just upgraded the P320s in International Falls, MN; Marguette, MI; Cut Bank, MT; etc, those places where temp get below -30F frequently. Yes, that would not make any sense. Like a real estate agent wanting to sell me a house with a seasonal water view. Right the only way to see water was in dead of winter when all the leaves had dropped, climb to the attic, open the 12 inch diameter west facing porthole and stick your head out as far as you could stretch; and yes off in the distance on a clear day, water.
I think some of the less than steller comments are from people who bought and paid extra for that ‘water view’ property.
The -30 degree condition described by Sig refers to a drop angle and not a temperature.
Sig is getting raked over the coals in the court of public opinion. I will NOT be sending in my 320 for service. As the article states, no firearm is complete immune to an accidental discharge. My 40 year old Marlin lever action doesn’t even have a safety with its single action trigger. How many 30/30’s have gone off in the act of decocking or being dropped while chasing a whitetail? There is no substitute for safe gun handling and using a gun with acceptable safety built in for the task at hand. The 320 fits that bill.
Voluntary? Really?
Yeah. Really.
They can call it a upgrade all day its still a recall, a well deserved black eye too on such an expensive service pistol with such high quality products as Sig claims to have. Should’ve been caught in house considering soldiers in combat will be carrying!
Learn to read. It specifically says MHS pistols were not affected in the article.
What don’t you understand about Military models (M17 and variants) are not involved or effected? Your reading comprehension skills need some work.
Are you capable of reading???
This is all because of an idiot cop that does not know how to handle a firearm. He should be fired.
AB you are an ASS HAT. If you dropped your hand gun I’m sure you would loved to be called on the carpet for it. We don’t know the actual circumstance on how he dropped it or why. But calling someone and idiot and asking him to be fired, come on. As an LEO we have bad days too. I’m thankful that he only got hit in the leg and not in a very vital area of his body and know one else was hurt. Be a little more considerate to our LEO’s because they have to deal with REAL idiots on a daily basis.
TJ
The one police accidental discharge with injury I can think of was a holstered gun; the officer dropped the entire rig and the 320 fired, striking the officer in the leg (as I recall). While not really good gun handling, dropping one’s gear is different than mishandling a gun.
No, it’s not different. If your rig has a gun in it, and you drop it, you have dropped your rig and your gun. That is, you’ve dropped your gun. You just happened to have dropped it with your rig.
I bought a P320 Sig about 6 months ago. I looked at the updated models on the internet and they are the same as the Sig I bought. Can I assume it was a dealer (Gander Outdoors) already fixed?
The pistol is fantastic. I have a number of pistols and I like everything about this new one except I have small hands and there is no option for a smaller grip although It doesn’t effect my shooting, just comfort.
What model p320 that have the problem.
You are joking, right? In the article, it literally says every P320 produced. Multiple times.