SIG P320 NOTICE
The Sig Sauer P320 will no longer be permitted at any training courses with us going forward, until such a time as Sig has released a permanent fix, and we can verify the guns have been repaired.
It's important to go over all the details so there's zero misunderstanding or miscommunication as to why this decision was made. There's a tremendous amount of misinformation floating around the internet about this issue, and we don't want to contribute to it.
If you do not own an alternate suitable handgun for any upcoming courses, we will have a small fleet of rental handguns available in the near future to ensure no one is left out in the rain with this decision. Email us when you're planning to register for a course if that is your current situation and we'll get you sorted out.
Why are we banning the P320?
No, it's no simply because everyone else is doing it, nor out of concern for the unknown potential danger. Our decision was based on actual first hand testing, discussions with other peers in the industry, along with consulting our insurance provider who are firearms insurance experts here in Canada.
Recently we have seen publications from an FBI investigation regarding the internal safety failures, which describe a "Sear Movement Test". This test involved bypassing the trigger to manipulate the sear to determine if the backup safety mechanisms will function, and prevent the firearm from discharging should the striker slip off the sear. Several videos have also since come out showing how to perform this test in detail, and explaining what is occurring in the test during pass or fail. (linked below). We have utilized this test to evaluate our own personal P320's. Just amongst the cadre ourselves, we tested 6 P320's of varying ages, round counts, and variants.
Out of those 6 pistols, 5 failed the FBI safety test.
But what does that mean?
We've never had a negligent discharge from these pistols, out of tens of thousands of rounds fired through these 6 guns, so why is there a problem? If a mechanical failure were to occur on any of these 5 pistols, causing the sear to release the striker for any number of unknown potential causes (wear, carbon buildup, pistol being dropped), none of those 5 pistols have functioning internal backup safeties to prevent them from discharging. They would discharge, at great risk to us, our students, and anyone else around us at the range.
We have approached this from every angle and delayed this decision as long as possible until we had concrete evidence of a safety issue, knowing full well the impact that this has with current legislation and handgun buying ban here in Canada. Over half of our own team is directly impacted.
We even discussed with our insurance the possibility of getting "gun smithing" coverage to be able to test P320's coming onto courses for safety function. But given the failure rate we've experienced with our own guns, 5 of 6, there would be very little practical value to our students in that additional cost and risk, and frankly continuing to allow these pistols to be used on course would be blatant negligence.
If you own a P320 and would like to review the FBI Sear Movement test for your own personal interest, this is the best source for information on that test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P14w4jTsHI
He has several videos on his channel that breakdown the test, the P320 internals, and hypothesizes the root cause.
If you have any questions, concerns, or again if this impacts you, please reach out. We don't want to screw anyone over, and we will support you however we can.
-OFFSPECWAR Cadre
