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zxcvbn4038 parent
I recently bought a SIG P320, and a week later, I started reading articles about it self discharging. =P It’s not like it happens all the time, but it seems that if the safety lever spring’s thickness is off by a thousandth of an inch, and the height of the post it fits on is also off by a thousandth of an inch, and you drop the pistol at just the right angle with enough force, the FBI reportedly got it to discharge once during testing—though officially, the results are inconclusive. Now, some law enforcement agencies are quietly replacing the P320 with the Glock 19. Personally, I’m keeping mine because it’s a great gun, and I love that 21-round magazine. However, I sent in my warranty card in case there’s a recall or something similar.
GiorgioG
Odds are, you'll never experience the self-discharging issue. Having said that, I don't find a mostly-reliable firearm acceptable from a safety perspective. If I don't pull the trigger, it cannot go bang, ever, for any reason.
303uru
I’m not taking odds on an edc item which takes a lot of banging around. Glock 18 is a simple choice.
Alupis
I'm still very curious why the P320 beat out the venerable Glock 17 & 19 combo in the Army's recent selection. It would seem being able to change from duty to compact is more of a gimmick than practical. I'd wager most P320's will spend their service life in exactly one configuration.

Sig does have a way of making every pistol feel like it was custom molded to your hand - but Glocks "Just Work".

lenerdenator
"I just want them to make one with a damn thumb safety and if this competition won't make them do it, nothing will." - some US Army ordinance guy about Glock, probably.
giardini
COLT 1911 45 ACP condition 1.
7 More Comments →
gosub100
Here is an entire video talking about it, by an attorney who works in the firearms industry:

https://youtu.be/7NXDuKQF9kU?si=uRXnYvhMMKIN8BKa

deelowe
I'd take this with a grain of salt. I generally like James' content, but he has always been a huge Sig supporter and throughout the p320 debacle, he's been more supportive of Sig than I think he should be.
zokier
Wasn't Sigs offer significantly cheaper than Glock?
hxtk
Off by one errors strike again, unless you EDC a machine pistol?
mgarfias
A Glock 18, huh? I’d fucking love to edc a Glock 18.
spacephysics
Their report outlined here and the police officer’s account of the unintentional discharge occurred without dropping and while securely in the holster without any items intruding in the holster (i say that because it was a prior excuse Sig made for the unintentional discharge reports)

https://youtu.be/LfnhTYeVHHE

lambdasquirrel
A thousandth of an inch would do it? They couldn't give more margin-of-safety to a critical part like that?

A thousand of an inch isn't such a theoretical number. It's about 25 microns, and I've shimmed one of my back-focusing photography lenses for less than that much (about 10 microns, to be specific). This is something that they ought to be able to machine for, but depending on the context, it might not leave much room for error.

gottorf
> A thousandth of an inch would do it? They couldn't give more margin-of-safety to a critical part like that?

If it's true, that's truly terrible design.

privatelypublic
Its likely a misunderstanding and/or mischaracterization of "tolerance stacking."

A safe example is bike chain. If each one is 1 inch +- 0.01", if every single one is +0.01" then ten links will be long by a tenth of an inch. And might pass QC on the bike when pedaled by hand- but it'll fall off when somebodies full bodyweight and 100hrs of wear is out into it.

whyever
That's not how errors add up, it's nonlinear. You have to take the sum of squares. So in your case, it wouldn't be 10 * 0.01 = 0.1, but sqrt(10 * 0.01^2) = 0.032, which is less than one third of a tenth.
privatelypublic
I provided a "worst case", not statistical, example.

For those who want an example, calculator, and demo see: https://www.smlease.com/entries/tolerance/tolerance-stackup-...

NB: using disks like the site does provides a clearer example.

halyconWays
At least one of those critical components (P/N 1300739-R) is manufactured in India. Is that a contributing factor?

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