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 testing,” and the gun had a “high” risk of firing unintentionally upon impact — after being dropped or bumped, or sustaining vibrations — with the potential to “kill [a] person unintentionally.”

Sig Sauer’s own analysis identified 13 different situations where P320s could fire unintentionally, but many were left unresolved. While seven were “eliminated” according to Sig Sauer, six were still designated as posing a “medium” risk to users. Notably, many of the “recommended actions” to address the issues, either partially or fully, involved user training — not a design modification.

In total, the FMECA identified 17 hazards that could result in a person being killed unintentionally by a P320. Even after Sig Sauer’s proposed mitigations, nine of those remained at a “medium” risk level. Of the eight initially rated as “high” risk, only three were fully eliminated, leaving five at a “medium” risk. Four of the six hazards initially classified as “serious” also remained at a “medium” risk.

Sig Sauer also stated that the manual safeties on M17 and M18 pistols would resolve some of the issues, but the vast majority of P320s sold to civilians do not feature such safeties.

putting soldiers in danger

The FMECA, combined with a fiscal year 2017 Department of Defense report referencing failed drop tests, demonstrates that Army officials were aware of the dangers yet moved forward in issuing the M17 and M18 to soldiers, and subsequently other branches of the military. 

Since then, multiple unintentional discharges have been reported across the military, with some causing serious injuries. In June 2024, New Hampshire Public Radio reported that it identified nine service-related incidents, at least some of which involved injuries, where “pistols fired without a trigger pull.” The Army denied that the guns involved in these incidents showed any “material flaws,” and said the guns were rigorously tested and would remain in “service with all [branches] at this time without restrictions.”

But just last month, the U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command announced that it had temporarily removed the M18 from service “[o]ut of an abundance of caution and to ensure the safety and security of our personnel” after the death of an airman on July 20. Days later, some units within the Air Force’s Air Combat Command also temporarily restricted use of the M18.

undercutting sig sauer’s claims

Despite these findings — and dozens of lawsuits filed by plaintiffs alleging that their P320s fired without intentional trigger pulls — Sig Sauer has repeatedly denied that the P320 is defective. On July 29, 2025, the company published a blog post promising customers “full, complete, and accurate information” regarding the P320, but reiterated that the gun “is one of the safest, most advanced pistols in the world -meeting and exceeding all industry safety standards.”

The company also said that the P320 “CANNOT, under any circumstances, discharge without the trigger first being moved to the rear.” This phrasing is slightly different from what Sig Sauer said in March after the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission (WSCJTC) banned the gun from its properties and courses, stating that the P320 “CANNOT, under any circumstances, discharge without a trigger pull.” In that statement, the company also blamed the “anti-gun mob” for attacks on the P320.

Sig Sauer later sued the WSCJTC, but a judge recently denied the company’s petition to reverse the academy’s P320 ban.

In its July 29 blog post, Sig Sauer also refuted an FBI report — which concluded that “movements representing those common to a law enforcement officer” could disengage a safety mechanism inside the P320 — and instead pointed to a later report that “resulted in zero instances of failures.” The company also denied reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had removed the P320 from duty. Instead, Sig Sauer said that it “is honored to continue aiding ICE in their mission to protect America.”

Nonetheless, multiple law enforcement agencies have pulled the P320 from duty over safety concerns, including police departments in Chicago, Dallas, Denver and, most recently, Houston. Gunsite Academy and the International Defensive Pistol Association, a competitive shooting program, have banned the pistol as well.

The unredacted FMECA undercuts Sig Sauer’s claims that the P320, M17, and M18 are among the safest pistols in the world. It raises pressing questions about how known design flaws were allowed to persist, and why the responsibility for mitigating them was shifted onto the people ordered to carry the weapon. In an August 2023 interview, Tom Taylor, Sig Sauer’s chief marketing officer and executive vice president of commercial sales, said, “If someone can just show us how to replicate [these uncommanded discharges] we will absolutely look at this from all aspects to make sure there isn’t any truth to this. In a company of our size, would anyone ever believe that there was a real issue going on, and we wouldn’t address it?”

As claims that P320s can fire without an intentional trigger pull continue to emerge, it appears that Sig Sauer documented the potentially deadly issues with the pistol years ago as part of its Army contract.