With the recent death of a United States Air Force Airman in what is being reported as an “uncommanded discharge” of a M18, Sig Sauer is facing even more scrutiny for safety issues with its firearms. Defiant and unapologetic up to now, Sig Sauer is may finally have to publicly address a flaw they’ve denied existed for years. Unfortunately, it appears a service member’s life may be what finally gets their attention.
At issue is Sig Sauer’s civilian P320 and its military counterparts the M17 & M18, known as the Modular Handgun System.
For years the Sig P320 has been the subject of ridicule for being prone to discharge when dropped. More recently reports began coming in from law enforcement agencies and civilians around the country of different pistols in the series going off by themselves in holsters. Numerous officers have been injured as a result. The latest involving the Airman was a discharge from within a holster.
The P320 was first introduced in 2014. Sig Sauer offered a “voluntary upgrade” in 2017 to include an alternate design that reduces the weight of the trigger, among other safety features. There is no word if these upgraded models are still an issue.
In what will likely become a business school case study in how NOT to handle a consumer product issue, Sig Sauer has denied their firearm has any issues and blamed the users.
Sig Sauer’s response to these reports may be most bluntly referred to as denial and deflection. Their May 7, 2025, statement posted on their official website and social media (link below), the company flatly denies the accusations, calling them “baseless allegations” driven by individuals looking to “profit or avoid personal responsibility.” The post, titled The Truth About the SIG P320, asserts that the firearm “CANNOT, under any circumstances, discharge without a trigger pull. It concludes with: “Today, for SIG Sauer, it ends.”
While Sig Sauer has been successful in several lawsuits, they have also lost numerous lawsuits for injuries caused by their P320 line to the tune of multimillion-dollar awards each.
Sig Sauer recently filed suit in Washington asking a judge to reverse the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission’s decision to ban police recruits from carrying the P320 model handgun. It also asks the judge to stop the training commission’s executive director from making public statements about the P320.
Sig Sauer also quietly updated their P320 user manual to include: “THE MOST EFFECTIVE SAFETY IS TO CARRY YOUR PISTOL WITHOUT A ROUND IN THE CHAMBER, AND TO LOAD A ROUND IN THE CHAMBER ONLY WHEN READY TO FIRE”.
A report by the FBI’s Ballistic Research Facility recently made public was based on their tests of a Sig Sauer M18 that experienced an “uncommanded discharge” while in the holster of a Michigan State Police officer. While the tests were inconclusive, it’s important to note they only tested this one pistol.
With the denials to date, it’s hard not to think of the Ford Pinto. In 1968, two years before the Pinto hit the streets, Ford’s knew of the danger and their internal analysis considered what it would cost to repair the expected sales of 11 million units at $10/each vs. the anticipated accident rates, including deaths, serious injuries and burned-out cars. They decided the settlement costs would be roughly $50 million or half the cost of repairing all the cars and chose the cheaper option.
I would sincerely hope Sig Sauer is not approaching this from a financial cost analysis point of view. Their statement following the Airman’s death was significantly softer than their actions to date. But then, while the Air Force has only stopped using these pistols in the Global Strike Command, it could impact their prized U.S. Military contract.
While some ranges had already banned the P320/M17/M18 series pistols, the latest fatal incident appears to have caused most ranges to now do the same. Firearm trainers and training sites, local, county and federal law enforcement agencies are also banning use by their sworn members.
In addition, gunsmiths are refusing to work on them, and respectable firearm retailers are no longer willing to sell them. Some retailers are taking them in on trade, at a HIGHLY discounted price, and locking them away in back of the vaults under the belief that someday Sig Sauer will step up to the plate by admitting this is a flaw, issue a mandatory recall to repair them and return them to the expensive and sought after firearms they have always been.
Let’s make no mistake about what is involved. The military M18 Modular Handgun System is simply a government issued variant of the commercial P320. It is not a novel and highly complex weapon program that military members need to become accustomed to. It’s a semi-automatic firearm not dramatically unlike those that have been produced for over 100 years. There is absolutely no acceptable loss of life for service members, law enforcement, or civilians using it.
Yes, this firearm ‘system’ (because the military loves calling things systems) passed the grueling torture testing program before being accepted. Thousands and thousands of rounds were pumped through test firearms to make sure they would survive military level use. However, I’m going to take a wild ass guess that program did not include daily use in and out of security holsters of the type used by the military and law enforcement. Why would they? That’s not something that would ever be considered a wear measure of firearms. Yet inside holsters is exactly where these firearms have been self-firing without human interaction.
The fact that these uncommanded discharges did not begin showing up immediately or at the same time as the drop discharges leads us to believe this is a wear issue. It also does not appear to be every firearm, in every situation, even for firearms of similar age and usage. Is it one in 1,000? One in 10,000? One in 100,000? We just don’t know and even the experts who have examined the ones which have discharged themselves can’t definitively say. But who in their right mind would want to roll the dice every day when they put this firearm into their holster? If you wouldn’t feel comfortable appendix carrying this firearm, then it needs to be stored until definitively fixed.
Let’s hope Sig Sauer is up for the challenge.
Bob
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