Court Records Reveal Sig Sauer Knew of Pistol Risks for Years

Summary

A court exhibit recently published online summarizes Sig Sauer’s internal P320 testing and shows that the gun maker and U.S. Army were both aware of serious safety risks with the pistol since at least 2017, years before it was fielded to soldiers as the full-size M17 and compact M18. The document — prepared as a part of Sig Sauer’s contracting process with the U.S. Army — outlines multiple ways the pistol could fire without an intentional trigger pull. A redacted version of the court document was originally filed on May 14 in a case between attorney Jeffrey Bagnell and Sig Sauer. On July 24, a gun blogger was able to delete the purported redactions and post an unredacted version of the document. On July 28, Sig Sauer filed a motion requesting the court to remove the exhibit from public access, but guntubers and social media users reposted it before the court ruled. In an August 6 interview, Sig Sauer’s senior vice president of consumer affairs, Phil Strader, acknowledged that the company created the document in response to a request by the U.S. military, and claimed that is being used to “confuse the issue.” Strader also described the contents of the document and the various risks analyzed by Sig Sauer engineers. With respect to its confidentiality, Strader stated, “Now that it is out there, we don’t mind. We’ll discuss exactly…I’ll go line by line if you wanted me to.” Despite the risks identified in the exhibit, Sig Sauer has consistently defended the safety of the P320 and continued to market and sell the pistol to civilians, law enforcement, and the military. THE P320’s DEADLY RISKS The unredacted document, titled “Failure Modes, Effects, and Criticality Analysis” (FMECA), appears to have been prepared by Sig Sauer for the Army as part of the Modular Handgun System (MHS) procurement process in February 2017, roughly a month after the Army officially adopted the P320. According to the document, the pistol passed two drop safety tests but “failed customer drop tes...