I am aware of the “glock leg” phenomenon, and that can likely be attributed to striker fires replacing classic handguns at the time.
But the P320 was introduced multiple decades after the Glock. And by this time, other striker fire handguns have entered the market and widely used. Cops use Glock and M&P, and as far as I can tell, there hasn’t been a multi-year slew of accusations against either models of “accidentally going off” in recent times. Glock is also the most popular handgun globally, and we don’t hear other countries blaming Glock or other popular striker fire pistols accidentally going off (though we don’t hear them complain about Sig either)
Sig has unofficially recalled and retooled people’s P320s a few times now. It also had a confirmed drop safety issue (I don’t remember if it was acknowledged though). I don’t think Glock nor SW or other major manufacturer have done anything to this scale nor have complaints and lawsuits and negative press attention wrt safety issues recently.
The P320 is fully cocked and often without manual safeties for cops and civilians (soldiers have manual safeties; I don’t think there have been complaints here). The M&P may or may not be fully cocked back as well (forums say different things and SW hasn’t confirmed anything), yet M&P isn’t on the news for shooting cops’ dicks off. But, they have a hinge/nub trigger safety on every pistol as well as manual safeties (removable) and the typical internal striker fire internal safeties. I believe the P320 omits some of those internal safeties but don’t remember which. The designer of the P320 has even testified that American gun safety design standards are almost nonexistent because it’s illegal for the government to enforce on manufacturers.
I don’t know. The modern and widespread Sig Sauer company is not German. It is American, and the P320 is designed by yanks. Swiss Sig manufactures rifles primarily for the Swiss market, and the Swiss/German P220 series is widely acclaimed. Funny how when it moves to America and designed according to American standards that suddenly there’s a wave of safety controversy.
The problem is that Sig did a shitty job on the firing pin block. The trigger is able to move enough when dropped, where the firing pin block is disengaged and then sometimes the striker slips off the sear and BANG.
This is the problem with striker systems that are fully cocked. The firing pin block system has to be perfect. Any failure in that system makes the gun dangerous. At least with the Glock the striker is brought to full cock as part of the trigger pull, near the end of the pull. Without the trigger being fully pulled, both the firing pin block is in place (which is secured by the trigger dingus) and the striker doesn't have enough energy to detonate a primer if somehow it were to be released and the firing pin were to somehow be disengaged
Probably doesn't help that these new Sigs are the only striker-fire 9mm pistols that don't have a trigger safety, afaik.
I know very little about firearms, but I thought I read something recently that suggested Sig's manufacturing quality has nosedived in recent years as well
Sig pistols won a military contract competition before it was even over lol. I think Glock sued them and/or the US government for fraud which is ironic because Glock is full of fraudulent and shady activities. But the lack of any external safeties is a selling point of the police and civilian P320 market
Correct. They wanted a great trigger pull, at the expense of safety.
Luckily, as a country with a heavy gun culture, the government will punish companies that make guns unnecessarily dangerous and hamper our ability to enjoy and trust firearms