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this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
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What POS gun goes off from a slip and fall? This sounds like some serious stupidity.
The Sig P320, a $700 pistol from a "quality" brand that was adopted as the new military standard issue pistol, would fire if dropped at the wring angle. They didn't want to have the trigger-safety mechanism that Glock and others use that includes a spring-loaded trigger lock that prevents the trigger from being pulled without something actually inside the trigger guard to pull it.
So if you dropped it at the wrong angle, it had enough inertia that when the gun hit the ground the trigger would keep moving and pull itself.
This was discovered in military trials, so they fixed the flaw (with a lighter trigger that wouldn't have as much inertia combined with a heavier trigger pull) for the military, but not for the Civilian model.
A viral YouTube video came out showing how it could be reliably fired by dropping it (the video used blanks so they weren't actually shooting wildly), and they still denied it was a problem until all the gun dealers refused to sell the gun.
They did a recall, but there's still probably a million affected guns out there.
Other guns will do that as well. It isn't necessarily resolved by a trigger safety. Some guns, as shown on a popular guntube channel, will fire if dropped from chest height because the drop and angle causes the firing pin to move with sufficient force to fire the round.
A firing pin shouldn't be free-floating in a way that will allow it to strike a primer without the trigger being pulled in any modern pistol.
Shouldn't isn't doesn't.
The $4,300 Stacatto XC 2011 for instance, dropped from chest height, fired a round immediately without the hammer dropping. So did several others, and that was just one round of testing.
Most didn't, but for the most part they were only dropped once or twice and it was a fairly informal test. Literally just someone dropping the pistols from the height of being told "drop your weapon."
The P320, however, despite being dropped about a dozen times (and from much higher heights and different angles since the test was inspired by the discussions about that model going off) never discharged from being dropped.
A 2011, despite the name, isn't really a modern firearm. It's essentially a 9mm version of a 115 year-old design and too many boutique race gun companies cut corners for guns that aren't designed to anything but range queens.
As popular and fun as the 1911 is at the range, it has no place as a modern defensive firearm, and people who carry It are idiots. They're super heavy, low capacity, jam, rust, have a trigger pull so short and light they can't be safely handled while cocked without engaging a safety that's just a hammer block (leaving the pin floating), are a pain to clean, and more.
🙄
It was one example. My point is, it happens. This is literally a response to you initially pointing it out that it happens in the "modern" P320, and I'm sure you've got an unnecessarily long and complicated opinion about each make and model. 👍
The P320 still requires the trigger to be pulled to remove the stop that prevents the firing pin from touching the primer.
The problem with the 320, the Taurus G1, most 911s, and others is the trigger being pulled. It's why most of the industry has adopted trigger safeties like the one pictured that don't allow the trigger to move without something inside the trigger guard releasing the trigger.
👍
Simple. A gun whose owner doesn't ~~honor~~ respect the safety.
Right. He probably wasn't too keen on upkeep and maintenance, treating it like a used Toyota Corolla.
There are guns with flaws that cause them to discharge when dropped, like the SIG P320, so it wasn't necessarily poor maintenance.
Yeah but why buy a gun with a known tendency of randomly going off?
Because you are personally unaware despite it being "known" publicly? That'd be my first guess.
Even the ones that don't have manual safeties still have automatic safeties these days.
Congress gave gun manufacturers immunity, so they don’t have to concern themselves with safety mechanisms or quality.
That's not what that meant.
Actually yes it had that effect. Without that immunity, the market would have felt the pressure and invested more into research into better gun locks etc. The immunity laws took away that incentive. Economists have discussed this issue at length about how the gun market is different than other markets due to this.
Gun manufacturers have been building ever better internal safeties for decades. If a gun goes off from a slip and fall, somebody is carrying like an absolute idiot, or using an obsolete pistol.
Every gun in every movie I've ever watched works like that. If you drop it it fires, never made much sense.
SIG for sure has a problem with one or two of their handguns but I'm curious to know what gun this guy had.
This highlights the danger of carrying, the importance of having a quality holster with good retention, and the necessity of being properly trained in the carry and use of firearms.
I'm glad it doesn't highlight the danger of guns! That was close!
Maybe go back and actually read what I wrote? It's literally the first part of the sentence.
Relax, nerd.