[HN Gopher] Documents detail U.S. soldiers shot by their own Sig...
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Documents detail U.S. soldiers shot by their own Sig Sauer guns
(2024)
Author : ummonk
Score : 30 points
Date : 2025-07-26 20:03 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nhpr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nhpr.org)
| sparrish wrote:
| Sig Sauer USA is in serious trouble here. Guns shouldn't be going
| off without the trigger being pulled, period.
|
| They've probably got 90 days to do a recall with a real fix or US
| soldiers will be carrying Glocks.
| reactordev wrote:
| I don't buy it. Sig's don't just go off on their own. They just
| don't. This is just idiot gun handlers or a cover up.
|
| *edit* I found this: https://youtu.be/NapE4CkWpHk which
| properly explains that in the line of duty (police for example)
| the safety mechanism can wear or be flipped while in the
| holster. It think that's more a flaw of the holster than the
| gun. That's why there's a safety. So improper cleaning and
| attention to one's weapon can lead to "accidental" discharge if
| you use one of those crappy police style holsters, rub against
| it a bunch to wear out the mechanics of your safety (which
| means Russian roulette every time you get in the car), is just
| stupidity. Just use a normal holster, so it takes you 0.2s
| longer to draw.
| everyone wrote:
| Forgotten weapons has done a couple videos on this over the
| years, this is the most recent one..
| https://youtu.be/3iWVs2uD1XY?feature=shared His opinion atm,
| is that it's nuanced.
| reactordev wrote:
| Yeah, I think I remember his first video on it. The issue I
| have is, without video evidence of a m18 pistol going off
| on its own, it's hard to say whether it was the gun - or
| the current mental state of its user. I don't know, but I
| do know the one I have is rock solid. The others I have
| used have been as well. The only gun that tops it to me is
| a solid 1911.
| philwelch wrote:
| There is tons of video evidence.
| reactordev wrote:
| kindy share because all I've seen is aftermath
| worik wrote:
| > nuanced
|
| That is not good enough for a gun
| philwelch wrote:
| The SIG P320 does go off on its own. The sheer number of
| incidents with that model in particular, many of which
| occurred on camera and around multiple witnesses, is telling.
| SIG may have once been a reliable and trustworthy
| manufacturer but that's no longer the case.
|
| https://youtu.be/b33AXiuytn0
|
| https://youtu.be/z789IuTQLs8
| Aurornis wrote:
| Can you share actual timestamps of video of it happening?
|
| The first one appeared to be news reports and retellings.
| The second one is a highly edited music dubbed video (!?)
| philwelch wrote:
| If you don't have the attention span for nine minutes of
| video I found a YouTube short for you:
| https://youtube.com/shorts/cOUfurKIjnI
|
| This same footage was in at least one of the
| compilations, as is footage of other discharges, and I
| shared the compilations largely to underscore the sheer
| number of incidents. If it's not worth your time to watch
| it's not worth my time to handhold you through it.
|
| Edit: I should have predicted this. If I share a
| compilation of videos, I get complaints about the format,
| and if I share a single short, I get nit-picked. This
| isn't a good faith disagreement, this is a couple of
| people playing a shitty game of "winning arguments on the
| internet" at best. ummonk shared a clearer example in
| this comment:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44697503
| reactordev wrote:
| In that video, I see a gun that has it's safety off,
| being holstered without regard to the weapon. User Error.
| Now show me one of it going off by itself.
| mingus88 wrote:
| Ah, the "you are holding it wrong" argument returns
|
| These are trigger-safeties, yeah? The ones that are marketed
| as safe unless you pull the trigger?
|
| Or is it
|
| # until you pull the trigger
|
| # or don't clean it right
|
| # or don't use the right holster
|
| # or don't bump it against your buddy
|
| Anything else we should add to the list? Seems like it keeps
| getting longer.
|
| A lot of posts out there for accidental Glock discharges,
| too. I saw a video of a police officer walking to her car
| carrying an armful of stuff take one in the leg.
|
| They aren't as safe as you think. If your deadly weapon
| requires perfect maintenance or else it will randomly kill
| someone then you are fooling yourself
| reactordev wrote:
| The safety mechanism prevents you from pulling the trigger.
| Speculation around how a P320 could go off on it's own is
| abound. Proper attention to your weapon is rule #1. So all
| of those things... ? I never heard the bumping up against
| your buddy one.
|
| So too does the list of reasons why it could happen without
| video of it. I see some cops on the group after the fact
| but I don't see any of it happening and then they check the
| weapon to see that the safety is still engaged. Which you
| would think _investigators_ would do.
| Aurornis wrote:
| These reports are always so hard to interpret. There is a very
| strong incentive for involved parties to come up with alternate
| explanations when accidents occur in all accidents, not just gun
| accidents. In certain types of vehicle accidents it's common for
| people to claim the vehicle accelerated by itself or that they
| were pressing the brake when they were actually pressing the
| accelerator.
|
| The claimed incident with security footage would be interesting
| to see, or at least read a detailed report about. I'm curious how
| they confirmed the safety was on from security camera footage.
|
| Unless I'm missing something, it looks like people who have tried
| to replicate the problem with repeated tests so far cannot do it.
| This seems like a goldmine for YouTubers looking to get headlines
| if they can make it happen.
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's all true, but you could also compare rates of similar
| events with other handguns per number in use. There's nothing
| to my untrained eye obviously radically different from this gun
| than other common designs, so I'd expect they'd have
| approximately the same number of incidents per X0,000 soldier-
| years of use.
| Zak wrote:
| There's one difference between the P320 and most of its
| direct competitors: most handguns with a short to medium
| trigger stroke and available configurations without a manual
| safety have a pivot or lever in the trigger designed to
| prevent unintentional trigger pulls.
|
| The M18, the military version of the P320 does have a manual
| safety though, and there are reports of it firing with the
| safety engaged. This suggests that the high rate of
| unintentional discharges of this firearm are not only due to
| its trigger being easier to pull than its competitors.
| philwelch wrote:
| The safety issue with the SIG P320 is real. I've seen footage
| of multiple instances of a P320 discharging in the holster
| without the trigger being touched; in fact you can find much of
| that footage on YouTube. There's a growing list of law
| enforcement agencies, shooting ranges, training facilities, and
| now even the US Air Force either banning the P320 or
| withdrawing it from service. Yes, it's true that a lot of
| people (even cops and Alec Baldwin) will negligently discharge
| a firearm and lie about not pulling the trigger, but the sheer
| number of reported incidents with the P320 in particular, as
| well as the massive amount of footage of these incidents (a
| happy side effect of ubiquitous police body cameras) provides
| very conclusive evidence.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The safety issue with the SIG P320 is real. I've seen
| footage of multiple instances of a P320 discharging in the
| holster without the trigger being touched; in fact you can
| find much of that footage on YouTube.
|
| Can you share them?
|
| This is the second time I've heard the same claim that the
| videos exist, but then nobody ever has links.
|
| The article refers to one attempt to replicate the issue
| where the person was unable to make it happen.
| ummonk wrote:
| Here is one where the gun was clearly holstered and went
| off when jostled:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSAI_HUZDI0
| to11mtm wrote:
| Related? 'Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after
| shooting death of airman' https://www.nhpr.org/nh-
| news/2025-07-23/sig-sauer-pistol-air...
| conradev wrote:
| Yeah, that was a recent turning point. This has been a huge
| scandal for Sig since at least 2023, with little
| accountability:
|
| https://www.thetrace.org/2023/04/sig-sauer-p320-upgrade-safe...
| benbojangles wrote:
| what are the stats for other nations?
| everyone wrote:
| I do think its dumb for the army to go with these striker fired
| sidearms. As opposed to a double action / single action like the
| Beretta they used to have. The benefit of striker fired is you
| can fire the first round a fraction of a second faster.. I wonder
| how many times in history has that actually mattered for a
| sidearm in the army.
|
| And the cops are just copying what the army went with. They do
| not have enough firearms training to be carrying those.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I could search this up but I'd rather ask here in conversation:
| what's the difference between them? I'm not a totally n00b with
| guns: I've owned various small rifles since I was a kid and I
| also made it through US Navy boot camp where we shot handguns
| at targets. I understand the basic ideas involved. What I don't
| know is what single/double/striker action means here.
| everyone wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beretta_M9 So for single action
| double action, when you first pull the trigger you are also
| pulling back the hammer, so the 1st trigger pull is long and
| hard, and then when you fire that pushes the hammer back so
| subsequent trigger pulls just release the hammer so they are
| short and easy.
|
| Striker fired pistols dont have a hammer, and basically the
| 1st trigger pull is just as easy as subsequent ones in a
| da/sa gun.. So the benefit is you can fire the 1st shot a
| tiny bit faster.
|
| I have no experience with guns btw, ive just watched loads of
| "forgotten weapons" lol
| Zak wrote:
| I have considerable experience with guns, and I disagree
| that the benefit has much to do with _speed_.
|
| Instead, it's easier to shoot accurately with a short,
| light trigger pull than a long, heavy one. It's also easier
| to shoot subsequent shots accurately if the trigger pull is
| the same between every shot. Furthermore, it's easier to
| teach people to operate a gun if there are fewer states it
| can be in where it operates differently.
|
| I haven't seen data suggesting that striker-fired pistols
| that aren't defective have a higher rate of inadvertent
| discharge than hammer-fired pistols. People had that
| concern when the Glock became popular, but that was 1982
| and it is not a common concern now.
| giantg2 wrote:
| _Most_ striker fired trigger pulls are long and heavy for
| service weapons. It 's more like a DA pull vs a SA pull.
| The newer ones and civilian market are lighter and shorter
| though.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Over 90% of people _hate_ DA /SA, and for good reason with the
| 2 different trigger pulls you have to train for. Cops have been
| carrying striker fired glocks for decades. Doesn't matter if
| it's striker fired or otherwise for the ones lacking training -
| fire type won't fix the training issues. The original case for
| striker fired was that it was drop safe, hence Glock Safe
| Action (even though they had discharge issues).
| everyone wrote:
| Yeah good point. Pulling the trigger in a glock does pull
| back the striker a decent bit, whereas in the 320 it barely
| does it at all.
|
| My main point is that in the army, how many instances has
| there been of someone using their sidearm in combat, ever?..
| I think safety should be the priority for them.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "My main point is that in the army, how many instances has
| there been of someone using their sidearm in combat, ever?"
|
| Often enough that they carry the extra weight. If it wasn't
| useful, they wouldn't carry the weight. We can also look at
| history, such as why the 1911 was selected.
| philwelch wrote:
| And to your point, one would also expect law enforcement to
| be more concerned than the military about the quality of
| their pistols. A police pistol is the primary weapon but a
| military pistol is more of a last resort.
| dang wrote:
| Recent and related:
|
| _Air Force unit suspends use of Sig Sauer pistol after shooting
| death of airman_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44674123
| - July 2025 (406 comments)
|
| also:
|
| _Sig Sauer guns hanging on soldiers ' hips may be firing without
| trigger pull_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41087518 -
| July 2024 (37 comments)
| calmbonsai wrote:
| The latest consensus take is the striker safety can fail due to
| tolerance stacking in certain production runs.
|
| Due to the nature of the higher spring tension and stored
| momentum of the P320's striker, when the striker safety fails, it
| can cause the gun to spontaneously fire.
|
| Other striker-fired pistols (e.g Glocks and S&W Shields) have
| lighter strikers and/or less tension so even if their striker
| safety failed, it wouldn't be enough to cause a primer
| detonation.
| Zak wrote:
| > _Other striker-fired pistols (e.g Glocks and S &W Shields)
| have lighter strikers and/or less tension so even if their
| striker safety failed, it wouldn't be enough to cause a primer
| detonation._
|
| This is true of the Glock and some others; the striker is not
| fully cocked when the gun is ready to fire but the trigger is
| not being pulled. The trigger must be pulled to fully compress
| the striker spring, giving it enough energy to fire the primer.
| It does not appear to be the case for the Shield; the striker
| is fully cocked before the trigger moves.
|
| Many popular striker-fired handguns operate like the P320 and
| Shield, including the S&W M&P, Springfield XD series, Walther
| PPQ/PDP, H&K VP9, and the Sig P365. None of those have a
| reputation for firing without something pulling the trigger,
| which suggests that the P365 is uniquely flawed in its design
| or manufacturing process.
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