So, lot's of talk these days about the P320 failing drop testing. I have seen two types of videos circulating, one which may show a legitimate problem, the other is bovine fecal matter.
The first are the actual drop tests in which the gun is dropped on the rear of the slide and the frame, the trigger can be seen to move to the rear at impact and the gun discharges. That's concerning. First off, this should be able to happen. Unlike guns like the Glock or the M&P which push their trigger bar to the rear, the P320 pulls it's trigger bar forwards. The P320 trigger also has a mass above the axis pin which helps counteract any reward motion the trigger might make if dropped. Combined with the trigger bar spring, which acts to pull the trigger forward, the trigger should not be able to move on it's own when the gun is dropped. Out of curiosity, last night I decided that my time was best spent dropping my P320. I borrowed my wifes el'cheapo walmart yoga mat (about as cushiony as tissue paper but I'm not screwing up the finish on my gun for some silly experiment), laid it out on the pavement, double check to make sure the gun was unloaded then proceeded to drop in 50 times from above my head. After every drop I checked to make sure it hadn't released the striker. Zero failures. So, my gun doesn't do it. I have the Gen 2 "anti-slap" trigger that some people are theorizing is causing the issue. If I had to do some not so scientific speculation as to what is causing the inertia trigger pulls, it could be that some SIG may have gotten some underpowered trigger bar springs in the supply chain. Of course, it also takes all of about two seconds on Google to find morons who have lightened the P320 trigger pull on their own, not realizing that it's a vital safety feature.
Video type 2, in which people hitting the back of a P320 with a hammer cause it to discharge. Shenanigans. I'm calling shenanigans. Notice how not a single one of these videos demonstrates the trigger is dead after the discharge. If striking the pistol with a hammer did cause the striker to override the strike safety, the trigger would be dead. I'm betting that the reason they don't pull the trigger is because the striker is still under tension and the gun hasn't fired. The primer fired itself. In most modern ammunition, the primer is composed of two metal parts, the cup and the anvil. The stuff that goes bang is poured in between the two metal parts. In normal operation, when the firing pin hits the cup, it smashes it into the anvil and pinches the stuff that goes bang, making it go bang. The important bit here is that even though the anvil is seated in the cup, it's not part of it. It's a separate metal piece that is fitted in it. So, imagine you have a person sitting in a car, just minding their own business when along comes a giant truck and smashes into the car from behind at 60mph... what happens to the driver? Same thing with the anvil inside the cup. Generally this isn't a big issues because of several things. 1) The impact needs to be from directly in to the front or rear of the ammunition. 2) It has to be a substantial impact 3) Most ammunition in a magazine or box has room to bounce around and the impact is mitigated to some extend... but, when it's chambered in a gun, it's held tight and can't move, transferring all the force of the impact on the gun to the primer. So yeah, it's a party trick, not a broken gun. Unless you live in a world where people routinely hit your gun directly on the rear with a hammer, it's not a big issue.
That said, I love you SIG, and you've taken care of me in the past, but until we hear your announcement on Monday, the M&P is back on duty. Not that I don't have faith in the P320 after having dropped it for a long time last night, but because there is no way in heck I'm going to risk giving a lawyer the opportunity to have an opening because I was carrying an "unsafe gun".
Another thought on the issue. For anyone that has been involved in product design and testing, Aug 14th is way to fast for SIG to have a "solution" ready to roll out. If they were already able to demonstrate the "solution" to the media the other day, that means they've been working on it for a while. There have been mentions of upgrading civilian guns to M17 standard. My guess is that SIG was already working on plans to standardize the civilian P320 to simplify their production lines, and the upgrades just happened to address the issue that came up. That would lend credence to my theory that only some guns are effected by this issue, because the upgrade wasn't intentionally targeting the issue at all.
We sleep peacefully in our beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf