What's wrong with the Air Force?

[FourFans]

Sounds to me like the military took a high quality product, demanded it be changed to suit the idiocy of some of our members who should never touch a gun in the first place, then were surprised that the product doesn't function like the OTS product.

SiG makes excellent firearms.  So does Glock.  We should have just picked an OTS product and bought it outright instead demanding it have an extra safety, which is what I understood happened.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Edited July 24 by FourFans

[uhhello]

13 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

I know, which is why my inclination is to be suspicious of the P320. But there's a difference between a couple of maintainers spending 20 minutes on a maintenance issue and hundreds of gun enthusiasts, YouTubers, Federal officials, military officials, and gun industry engineers trying to unravel a mystery and coming up with nothing. 

 

I'd say it's 50/50 whether there's actually something wrong with it, which is to say, who knows 🤷🏻‍♂️?

From what I've been able to read, all the FBI testing was essentially inconclusive due to the testing requirment modifications that needed to be done to the guns.  Couldn't entirely rule out that the modifications didn't exacerbate the problem.  Where there is smoke, there is fire.  Zero reason to field/employ this system because of that.  The AF got 125,000 M18s for about $150 a pop.  

[Boomer6]

Quality control is a plausible explanation why others arent able to duplicate in significant numbers. Maybe a part in the safety mechanism is prone to excessive wear leading to failure. Either way, if this is a failure of Sig they need to be held accountable.

[uhhello]

3 minutes ago, FourFans said:

Sounds to me like the military took a high quality product, demanded it be changed to suit the idiocy of some of our members who should never touch a gun in the first place, then were surprised that the product doesn't function like the OTS product.

SiG makes excellent firearms.  So does Glock.  We should have just picked an OTS product and bought it outright instead demanding it have an extra safety, which is what I understood happened.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The added manual safety doesn't have any effect on the M18 over the 320.  The 320 was/is having issues without the manual safety.  You aren't wrong that the safety is a dumb govt requirement though.  

Edited July 24 by uhhello

[FourFans]

1 minute ago, uhhello said:

The added manual safety doesn't have any effect on the M18 over the 320.  The 320 was/is having issues without the manual safety.  You aren't wrong that the safety is a dumb govt requirement though.  

If that's the case, I am at a loss to understand why we didn't just buy the G17 and G19 and be done with it.  It's a 9mm pistol that 99% of the time will never be used.

[uhhello]

6 minutes ago, FourFans said:

If that's the case, I am at a loss to understand why we didn't just buy the G17 and G19 and be done with it.  It's a 9mm pistol that 99% of the time will never be used.

SIG came in WAY under what the other test submissions offered.  It also offered the modular functionality that the others didn't.  

[raimius]

On 7/24/2025 at 8:34 AM, Lord Ratner said:

I know, which is why my inclination is to be suspicious of the P320. But there's a difference between a couple of maintainers spending 20 minutes on a maintenance issue and hundreds of gun enthusiasts, YouTubers, Federal officials, military officials, and gun industry engineers trying to unravel a mystery and coming up with nothing. 

 

I'd say it's 50/50 whether there's actually something wrong with it, which is to say, who knows 🤷🏻‍♂️?

Multiple videos on YouTube of P320s firing without anything touching the trigger.  There is definitely a problem.  Search "It NDs today."

When I first heard of cops suing Sig, I figured it was a blame game to keep from being disciplined over their own stupidity.   Now, it looks like at least some of them are legit mechanical malfunctions that resulted in uncommanded discharges.

 

Recommend you unload any P320s and keep them in the safe until more data comes out.  That's what I'm doing.

Edited Saturday at 07:06 AM by raimius

[Prosuper]

On 7/26/2025 at 1:03 AM, raimius said:

Multiple videos on YouTube of P320s firing without anything touching the trigger.  There is definitely a problem.  Search "It NDs today."

When I first heard of cops suing Sig, I figured it was a blame game to keep from being disciplined over their own stupidity.   Now, it looks like at least some of them are legit mechanical malfunctions that resulted in uncommanded discharges.

 

Recommend you unload any P320s and keep them in the safe until more data comes out.  That's what I'm doing.

I got trained on the old Berreta M9, and own one now, because I got trained on it. Never heard of one those going off unless someone playing stupid games winning stupid prizes. Our elders could probably say the same about the 1911 .45 or the SW .38.

[ClearedHot]

A new DoD Korea policy makes Korea a two year unaccompanied and three year accompanied.

Longer assignments coming soon for troops heading to South Korea

[brabus]

More time in Itaewon, service member life expectancy plummets…they didn’t think this one through!

[Lord Ratner]

22 hours ago, Prosuper said:

I got trained on the old Berreta M9, and own one now, because I got trained on it. Never heard of one those going off unless someone playing stupid games winning stupid prizes. Our elders could probably say the same about the 1911 .45 or the SW .38.

Prior to the series 80, 1911s could and did go off from being dropped. And revolvers have an equally checkered past, including the Colt peacemaker. I would happily trust a Sig P320, fully conceding that there is some sort of unidentified mechanical malfunction occurring that causes them to occasionally misfire, over carrying a 1911 or revolver that our elders used to carry. Guns were not safer back then, we just didn't care about accidental deaths as much.

[busdriver]

2 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Prior to the series 80, 1911s could and did go off from being dropped. And revolvers have an equally checkered past, including the Colt peacemaker. I would happily trust a Sig P320, fully conceding that there is some sort of unidentified mechanical malfunction occurring that causes them to occasionally misfire, over carrying a 1911 or revolver that our elders used to carry. Guns were not safer back then, we just didn't care about accidental deaths as much.

Your larger final point is fine and I agree, but your specific risk analysis of a 1911 vs the P320 is nonsense.

 

[Lord Ratner]

17 minutes ago, busdriver said:

Your larger final point is fine and I agree, but your specific risk analysis of a 1911 vs the P320 is nonsense.

 

A pre-series-80 1911. That's what I meant by "a 1911 or revolver that our elders used to carry."

 

I would choose a modern 1911 with a pin block over the 320. No worries if you don't agree, but those guns were not safe, just badass 🤣😂.

[busdriver]

13 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

A pre-series-80 1911. That's what I meant by "a 1911 or revolver that our elders used to carry."

I knew what you meant.

The series 70 drop fail requires you to drop it on the muzzle.  It shoots the ground.  I also think it's a reasonably low probability of happening.  Otherwise, it's pretty safe at normal duty spring rates and trigger geometries.  My competition guns are more questionable.

The P320 should theoretically should be better, however the striker safety failure rate seems to be pretty high (no more 320 advantage over 1911).  The slide to FCU play seems to be enough to allow the sear to release the striker in some cases, which inherently also skips the secondary notch.  All of the analogous components in a 1911 are in the frame, with essentially no play.

 

Side note: You can basically make a series 70 gun drop safe by using a titanium firing pin and an 2x extra power return spring.  This is how Springfield made CA legal 1911s.  You'll need to run a fairly heavy (23# or so) mainspring to make it work.

I'm not sure you can actually buy a Series 80 anymore for what it's worth.

[Lord Ratner]

2 hours ago, busdriver said:

I knew what you meant.

The series 70 drop fail requires you to drop it on the muzzle.  It shoots the ground.  I also think it's a reasonably low probability of happening.  Otherwise, it's pretty safe at normal duty spring rates and trigger geometries.  My competition guns are more questionable.

The P320 should theoretically should be better, however the striker safety failure rate seems to be pretty high (no more 320 advantage over 1911).  The slide to FCU play seems to be enough to allow the sear to release the striker in some cases, which inherently also skips the secondary notch.  All of the analogous components in a 1911 are in the frame, with essentially no play.

 

Side note: You can basically make a series 70 gun drop safe by using a titanium firing pin and an 2x extra power return spring.  This is how Springfield made CA legal 1911s.  You'll need to run a fairly heavy (23# or so) mainspring to make it work.

I'm not sure you can actually buy a Series 80 anymore for what it's worth.

The point is not that you *can* make an older 1911 safe. That's a bit obvious. It was claimed that "our elders'" never heard of a 1911 or receiver going off. Prosuper is already an elder (🤣) so his elders are from the 1920's-1950's, and 1911s and revolvers were most definitely not safe in that era, and were in fact discharging unintentionally with regularity, even in comparison to the beleaguered P320. 

 

No gun that goes off when you drop it (or snag it on your clothes) is safe by any modern definition of the word. 

[busdriver]

9 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

1911s and revolvers were most definitely not safe in that era, and were in fact discharging unintentionally with regularity, even in comparison to the beleaguered P320. 

source for that?

 

[Lord Ratner]

2 hours ago, busdriver said:

source for that?

 

First it didn't matter because the discharge was into the ground, now you need a source? Google it, bud. From Wyatt Earp and the "Cowboy Load" in revolvers to the very reason the series 80 was designed in the first place. Or are the titanium firing pins just for looks? Or the S&W Victory navy fatality that resulted in a safer design being procured. 

 

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Gun safety engineering hasn't improved? The 1911 community is always so defensive. Imagine arguing that a ’67 Mustang was just as safe to drive as a 2025 model, and asking the other guy to prove it. 

 

The 1911 was a huge leap forward... a century ago. Now it's just a neat gun with lots of nostalgia that almost no professionals in the world use (real shooting jobs, not competition shooting). I like mine. But I like my revolver too. Both are outdated relics. 

 

The P320 is safe enough that it takes *a lot* of active testing to get it to discharge. But that's not safe enough for what we expect from firearms today. Agreed. But you would have much less difficulty making our elders' guns discharge if you wanted to.