SIG SAUER to Offer “Voluntary Upgrade” of P320 Pistols
Russ Chastain 08.09.17
Yesterday, SIG SAUER announced a program under which they will “enhance” customers’ P320 pistols in order to make them safer.
This comes in the wake of a drop-test controversy, including a lawsuit alleging that a police officer was shot by his own P320 pistol when it was dropped.
Oddly, the press release begins with a seemingly unrelated statement, in which it touts its safety and superiority over some other guns when it comes to disassembly:
The P320 meets U.S. standards for safety, including the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) / Sporting Arms Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute, Inc. (SAAMI®), National Institute of Justice (NIJ), as well as rigorous testing protocols for global military and law enforcement agencies.
The design of the SIG SAUER P320 overcomes the most significant safety concern in striker-fired pistols today: the practice of pressing the trigger for disassembly. This can be performed with a round in the chamber which has resulted in numerous incidents of property damage, physical injury, and death. The disassembly process of the P320, however, uses a take-down lever rather than pressing the trigger, eliminating the possibility of discharge during the disassembly process.
After that, they get down to brass tacks:
Recent events indicate that dropping the P320 beyond U.S. standards for safety may cause an unintentional discharge.
As a result of input from law enforcement, government and military customers, SIG has developed a number of enhancements in function, reliability, and overall safety including drop performance. SIG SAUER is offering these enhancements to its customers. Details of this program will be available at sigsauer.com on Monday, August 14, 2017.
And in case you’re wondering:
The M17 variant of the P320, selected by the U.S. government as the U.S. Army’s Modular Handgun System (MHS), is not affected by the Voluntary Upgrade.
What I’m reading here is: “We open by claiming our product is perfectly safe, then add a claim that it’s safer than some other guns in a totally unrelated way, then in ‘Oh, by the way’ fashion we admit to a failure of sorts and say that we will offer to fix customers’ guns, but we’re not yet ready to tell anyone how and when we’re going to do it. And there’s no way in hell we’re going to call it a recall.”
Hmmmm.
I’m sad for SIG. It’s starting to look like the once-great company is going downhill fast.
