Last August I wrote about lawsuits filed against SIG SAUER alleging that their ultra-popular P320 striker-fired pistol is prone to “un-commanded discharges.” In plain English, the plaintiffs — many of whom are law enforcement officers — say their P320s “went off,” some allegedly without even being touched.
It’s worth reading that post as a refresher on the questionable circumstances surrounding a number of those lawsuits and the treatment they got when ABC News picked up the story. You can read that post here.
The case primarily highlighted in the ABC News coverage, and a number of others (most, if not all with cops as plaintiffs) were filed by attorney Jeffrey Bagnell, who I spoke to at the time. As I wrote . . .
Bagnell told TTAG that he believes the problem with the striker-fired P320 is an “inadequate sear/striker connection” (he has images he says illustrate this on his website). Bagnell said he thinks the discharges are due to both design and manufacturing flaws on SIG’s part.
Today, SIG filed a lawsuit against Bagnell and his firm alleging that the animated images Bagnell has on his site, as well as statements he’s made about the P320’s sear and striker, are willfully false and defamatory. SIG’s suit says Bagnell’s allegedly inaccurate statements and misrepresentations of the sear and striker were fabricated to create a belief among the public that the P320’s design is inherently unsafe…and to secure more clients for his firm.
Below is SIG’s statement about the lawsuit that was filed today.
Today SIG SAUER Inc. filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the District of New Hampshire against attorney Jeffrey Bagnell and the Bagnell Law Firm, in relation to false and defamatory statements about, and animations of, the P320 model pistol. The animations in question, created by a litigation support firm with no apparent expertise in firearms engineering or design, are published to Mr. Bagnell’s firm website and YouTube channel with the apparent intent to harm SIG SAUER’s reputation.
Specifically, Sig Sauer, Inc. vs. Jeffery S. Bagnell, Esq., LLC and Jeffrey S. Bagnell alleges that Mr. Bagnell has published a plainly false and inaccurate animation of the P320, in an effort to induce a belief in consumers that the P320 is unsafe, and to attract new clients for the Bagnell Law Firm. These falsities and inaccuracies include, among others, “false depictions of key internal components” of the P320, specifically the striker, sear, and striker safety lock and notch. These misrepresentations are then used to support false “assertions about the mechanics of the firearm that are physically impossible” in order to make consumers believe that the P320 can discharge without a trigger pull.
As detailed in the complaint filed in this lawsuit, a basic visual examination of an actual P320 quickly illustrates extensive and flagrant falsities depicted in the animation. The degree of such flagrance is illustrated in this excerpt from the complaint, comparing the depiction of the firearm sear in the animation to an actual P320 sear:
Similar misrepresentations are made in the animation regarding the P320’s striker, striker safety lock, and striker safety notch. The animation even shows separate solid components of the firearm occupying the same space – a physical impossibility – in an effort to support their theory as to how the firearm can discharge without a trigger pull.
SIG SAUER believes that these misrepresentations are willful in nature and is taking action, with the filing of this complaint, to ensure that Mr. Bagnell is not allowed to continue deceiving the public about the safety of the P320 and use such deceptions in an attempt to generate business for his legal practice. SIG SAUER is confident that it will prevail on the merits of this case.
The P320 pistol is the most tested, proven, and successful handgun in recent small arms history. It has endured extremely rigorous testing to become the official sidearm of all branches of the U.S. Military, The Department of Homeland Security, as well as military and law enforcement agencies worldwide. The U.S. Army procurement office recently hailed the P320-based M17/M18 as the “safest, most reliable, most accurate handgun ever procured by the U.S. Military.” With over two million P320’s in service, it is one of the most widely carried firearms in the world today.
I talked to Jeffrey Bagnell late this afternoon and he hadn’t yet heard about SIG’s lawsuit. He said he’d have a statement regarding the suit. We’ll update this post with the statement when we receive it.
“the plaintiffs . . . say their P320s “went off,” some allegedly without even being touched.”
A mean one will do that.
Sounds like he piggy backed on Alec Baldwin’s excuse. “I never pulled the trigger”. Balony
Guys guys, many men suffer from their guns going off without being touched. They should consult with their doctor.
Or just enjoy it.
Another ambulance chasing shyster looking to shake down a firearms mfg. Probably hoping for a nomination to SCOTUS.
I remember when I had an unintended discharge. I “went off” some 48 years ago. He’s 47…is Sig prone to beta testing??? Doesn’t a lawsuit bring a lot of unwanted publicity on them? Ho hum…if Ukraine’s huge nuclear power plant blows this becomes a world war.
It would help when you are trying to communicate an idea, opinion, statement, whatever to do so in direct language so people know what you are trying to say. I read your comment three times and still can’t figure out what your point is?
It’s quite clear. Sig is idiotic. You must think TTAG matters. Or your opinion…duh.
@dprato…. Yeah, that is some 99th Level Wizard Ignorance right there…. I wouldn’t try to read it again or make sense of it, it’ll just end up making your brain hurt. Best leave guys like that alone, they’ll just suck you into their vortex of illiteracy and argue for days…
His statement is very understandable. He once relied on the withdrawal method, AKA “pull and pray” method of contraception. Although this much maligned method is actualky about as effective as condoms, he had an unintentional pregnancy.
OK, so what’s the explanation of the part about beta testing? Is “prone” just the wrong word, and he intended something else like “Does Sig perform beta testing”?
And how does a physical plant explosion in Ukraine lead to WW III? It’s not a nuclear strike, it’s an accident.
And what does that have to do with Sig, the P320, his “unintended discharge”, or his unwanted child?
@A dude…
If the reactors are compromised, the root cause is damage caused by the newly reformulated U.S.S.R.’s illegal arty & rocket barrages they launched on the facility, they were no accident & there is a raft of video to back that up.
Attacking nuclear facilities is in violation of international law & the rules of war.
Feel free to look it up, I don’t have time given the current situ. Now, I have to get back to wrecking their economy. Attention must be paid when attacking a state actor with their cyber capabilities.
“if Ukraine’s huge nuclear power plant blows this becomes a world war.”
Highly unlikely.
A nuclear reactor for producing electricity has a completely different design than a nuclear weapon.
A worst case for them would be another Chernobyl nuclear fuel ‘melt down’ creating a mess like this :
https://science.howstuffworks.com/chernobyl-elephants-foot.htm
I’m very much in favor of nuclear power and extremely familiar with the technology. However; these reactors are now in a war zone. Both sides are fighting using main battle tanks armed with 125 mm, smooth bore cannon that have a muzzle velocity of nearly 5,000 feet per second. These tanks can turn an Iowa class battleship into Swiss cheese. Three feet of steel reinforced concrete is not going to stop a sabot round that is designed to penetrate four feet of steel.
Of course my greatest fear is that someone lobs a 2,000 pound bunker into a reactor. The containment buildings, control rods and emergency core cooling systems will not matter if that happens. It will be the radiological equivalent of a 50 Megaton bomb. ( Don’t argue with me, I’ve done the calculations.)
Of course people are not listening to Russia because Putin has been cancelled, but it appears that Ukraine has been busy building nuclear weapons using Plutonium from Chernobyl. Unlike almost every other nuclear power reactor in the world, Chernobyl was designed to breed bomb grade Plutonium-239 with a minimum of contamination of other isotopes. (To much PU-238 makes it inconveniently radioactive. To much Pu-240 makes it difficult to fully detonate because of premature criticality.)
The problem with nuclear power – is it’s just like oil. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. And radioactive elements and very heavy metals, are made during the heat and pressure of a supernova. So they are quite rare, and we might need them in the future for something else, that we don’t know about.
“Ukraine has been busy building nuclear weapons using Plutonium from Chernobyl“
Source? Citation? Website with details?
Fudd doesn’t know dick about modern armor/rounds.
“The problem with nuclear power – is it’s just like oil. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”
Google ‘Breeder Reactor”…
I have had a Sig P320 civilian model since October of 2017 and never had a problem with it Not sure any modern firearm can go off by itself without pulling the trigger or dropping it but most modern firearms are designed not to fire if they are dropped. Sig Sauer is a reputable company and as the article states went through a rigorous process and competition to have it accepted by the US Military. That is one of the reasons I bought it although mine is not the military version but model sold to civilians. I am amazed at the amount of energy spent by people today to make money off of someone else’s hardship and the lack of ethics in doing so.
My advice has always been that you should never buy a newly designed weapon that is put on the market for at least two years to avoid the endless recalls that are the result of not properly testing a weapon before it goes to market. Blind greed rules the gun manufacturers and unlike in the past where new products were sometimes tested for years before being put on the market, today they rush a gun into production to appease the blind greed of the stockholders and they then let the customers test the weapon which results in endless recalls.
Where there is smoke there is fire and the P320 has not had a good record so far. You can argue about the causes but the problems were there.
Another fake dacian. Childish, 4th grade level remarks.
True. The “real dacian” has never surpassed THIRD grade remarks. Shouldn’t you be on the bus to school at 8:32?
yeah, no- that would be an indication of genuine jeffropedo.
or is 4th grade too generous?
“My advice has always been……”
When pro-2A TTAG readers start taking lil’d’s advice into consideration, it’s a sure sign they need to suck start a 12 gauge shottie. 🤔
Made me think of the “myth busters” episode to see if loud Reggaeton music could cause a firearm to discharge.
Despite extreme sound pressures the answer was NO for several different test weapons.
Given the amount of shock energy in the area as a semi is cycling, we can kinda guess only a very robust hammer / striker to seat could get past development testing.
“he thinks the discharges are due to both design and manufacturing flaws on SIG’s part.” I am curious how come these “flaws” cause a gun to fire by itself only when handled by the user.
What’s with all the short-term memory loss here? Do you guys not remember that the Sig 320 was absolutely not drop safe, and TTAG even did an article and video where they demonstrated that their own store-bought 320 fired when dropped.
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/mechanics-behind-sig-p320-drop-safety-failures/
And SIG completely redesigned the internals because just replacing the trigger shoe wasn’t enough to fix it. Yes I remember it quite well. It was the day I pulled off the highway and fell out of my car laughing because our military had just purchased the P320 contract too.
“What’s with all the short-term memory loss here?“
Hey, you gotta stick with the narrative!
Remember, all gun manufacturers good, all lawyers bad.
Don’t let the actual facts interfere with your opinion…
“Unfortunately, the SIG SAUER P320 has shown an unacceptably high potential for firing when dropped on a hard surface in at least one general orientation: on the back edge of its slide. SIG refers to this as a “negative 30 degree angle” and agrees that the P320 has shown a specific vulnerability to it“
“They didn’t care when they sold a pistol for combat use to the US army that wasn’t drop safe leading to two individuals being shot in the legs”
Reading comprehension whiner, work on it.
This case has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the overall condition of the P320.
This case is ALL about alteration/fabrication/misrepre-sentation of evidence used by a schister of an attorney.
Everyone’s still laughing at you on TTAG. đź‘Ť
Keep up the good work.
And their Sig 365 “suffered” from broken firing pins. Which is pathetic. I’ve fired one & it ran fine. You Sig fan boys are worse than glock idiots…
Sig polymer handguns have never been on my to own list so I am speculating. Compared to the Sar9 chassis design the Sig chassis design appears to be more complicated than necessary. To help determine if the lawsuit is valid inspect the entire FCU. My guess is even if the pictured component failed the striker would not make it beyond the striker safety plunger which requires the trigger bar cam or something similar to depress.
SIG can suck it!
Now SIG cares about their reputation? They didn’t seem to care when they had P938 pistols sheering extractors and told people it’s not a defect or recall and you must pay $50 to send in your P938 to get it fixed!
They didn’t care about their name when they discontinued the SIG 556xi overnight without spare parts or explanation rendering all the buyers with an instantly obsolete rifle.
They didn’t care when they sold a pistol for combat use to the US army that wasn’t drop safe leading to two individuals being shot in the legs. But hey somebody said something that hurt their feelings.
I’ll stick with my Smith and Wesson Third Generation pistols with a manual safety that rotates the firing pin out if alignment with the primer.
S&W Novak 6906 for 35 years, no ADs.
ELMER FUDD [sounds about right!]. Penetrate FOUR FEET of ARMOUR. Have you any idea as you how much a cubic metre of ARMOUR weigh’s?? That’s a SQUARE METRE or approximately three.3.1 feet feet by a metre thick PLATING weighs, Are you serious or are you delusional?? Exactly where do you get the ideas that Ukraine has been building nukes? More bloody self justifying RUSSIAN propaganda Doyoun really. think that PUTIN would have invaded if Ukraine had a couple of nukes.
I’m not a Military Strategist by any means but I’d not take it for granted that going for UKraines cities is a such a great idea. Think about it going for Ukraine Cities, is unless it breaks the will to resist a waste of resources especially when they could have been bypassed. Going for cites, at least with conventional weaponry did not cause Germany, The UK, China, Japan, OR Vietnem or Korea to collapse or to break down moral.
Fighting In Built UP Areas [AKA FIBUA] is THE worse possible scenario for any invading force and THE most wasteful of both material and manpower. After a certain point all bombing does is to reduce rubble to smaller rubble. If Ukraine has any sense at all, and the pointers are that it has far, far more than PUTIN counted on, it will have saved the best for later. So far as I can ascertain the actuall casualties ocurred by PUTINS bombing campaign have been remarkably light which indicates that Ukraine has been well prepared.
Pewrhaps PUTIN shoiuld look at how many casualties the Sovites took overccoming STALINGRAD defended by a rag-tag undersupllied German Army [ an admitted 1.5 million and an estimted at least 2 million] or in the Battle of Berlin that had been subjected to months of air raids and the heaviest artillery of WW2 and on the point of starvation. The two things Ukraine is NOT short of is small arms and food. ThoughWARSAW wasreduced to rubble it still took a whole SS Division to over come no more than a couple of thiousand lighty armed Polish Jews
Though defended in the main by old men of the VOLSTURM and Hitler Youth none-the less the Soviets lost MORE men taking Berlin that the Western Allies lost in the entire war in ALL theatres. In those terms Russia simply does not have enough men to hold Ukraine and a if to emphasie the point has begun to call up it’s own ‘ VOLKSTURM of fat old men. It will come to the point that the Russian Soldiery will not beable to leave their Armour. Also unlike WW2 the Russians will have difficulty in distinguishing just who is who!
As for bombing out Nuclear plants even PUTIN cannot control the wind!!
This is NOT just a European situation now andthe rest of the world waits for wa hatb the uSA is actually going to do butbthe fact is that the West and Europe in generral have NO been geared up for this kind of situtaion nd to even suggest that they should be just a few short years ago would have been met with derision.
There are also those that tell us thatv this IS NOT the Russian Peoples war. Yes it bloody well is. They have allowed the like of PUTIN to rise to power without, apart from a few brave and ineffective souls protest. It is THEY, the Russian People, that are pulling the triggers and dropping the bombs and driving the tanks and mostly willingly not PUTIN, And it is they that deserve to be reduced to penury as they surely will. By the time this is over PUTIN will have used up it has been esimated over 75% of his available war material which will take a many years and at great cost, with money he may no longer have, to replace.
Ukraine has asked for FIGHTER PLANES but who would fly and maintain them and it’s not a lot po of good sending them for ‘one shot’ missions. RANT OVER and what it’s got todo with gun-control even I’m not too bloody sure about
I’m a fan of SIG guns, although I sometimes question the release of a gun that’s not ready for prime time. Case in point, the P320 and the P365. As far is I could see, the initial releases of the P320 did have an issue with “drop safe”. The P365 had failure to go into battery and striker failure after as little as 500 rounds. The P320 issue was a safety issue that never should have been in the customer hands. All gun manufacturers can and do have issues, Glock, Beretta, Ruger, etc, but it seems that SIG was allowing the final QC to happen at the customer level too much and too often. I bought a latter production P365 and have never had a issue with it, basically because the early issues had been rectified. I hope the lawsuit nonsense goes away and let it be a lesson for everyone.
You are way too rational and well reasoned to be posting on a sig article (or caliber war). Glad to see much of what I observed is shared though.
Many would disagree, most of them related to me. (About me being “way too rational and well reasoned” ) LOL. I have 3 SIGS, Best shooting and durable guns I own, but I’m still apprehensive about buying a P320….
I like the design idea behind the 320 and 365 (got one of the latter) but yeah was absolutely not drop safe on rollout, had a “voluntary recall” to fix the issue and can be tricky to figure out if your fire control unit got the safety upgrade or not. With that said being able to swap out anything without issue and going from a full size 9 to a subcompact 40 without having to change your pistol permit entry is a amazing thing for NY but they didn’t have any in stock near the beginning of the pandemic so went a different (and more identifiable if mentioned) way for my 9mm fullsize
I’m no fan of SIG US, but if this attorney falsified evidence,, he needs to face serious consequences.
I lost respect (~20%) for SIG when I compared a German production P226 LDC and a US production P226 LDC sided by side.
The US example was lacking in many ways. Fit, finish, trigger quality, markings……..
Lost more respect (~75%) when SIG US intentionally lied on End Use Certs. SIG shipped loads of guns from Germany to US, claiming they were for the US market, then shipped them to countries that weren’t supposed to be receiving firearms. Scumbag move.
I’ve imported firearms from Germany, and had to submit End User Cert documents. If I had lied on those EUCs, I would be bankrupted and spending decades in prison.
HOW DID SIG US GET A PASS ON THIS?
I lost what little respect I had left (~5%) when the German Eckernford production facility was shut down.
Even with no respect for SIG, I don’t accept “ends justify the means” logic when it comes to false/modified evidence being summited into evidence during a trial against them.
If they messed up, use the FACTS and TRUTH to hold them responsible, not fabrication and lies.
And yes, I take NO pleasure in watching my favorite sports team take a “W” due to bad calls and cheating.
Call balls and strike honestly, and apply the rules/regulations to both sides EQUALLY. 🤔
James – there are a lot of bad facts in your post, so I’ll point out problems with with just your major (75%) gripe. You are correct that Sig Germany shipped product to Sig US under EUCs that declared resale in the US. Where your facts go bad is that Sig US did not export that product. Sig US resold in the US as required by the EUC – to the US Army – who then exported. The German Government was unhappy that the US Government used a German product to fight the war on drugs in Colombia, and Sig was stuck in the middle. Hopefully this helps you to restore at least some of your lost respect.
Thank you for this information. đź‘Ť
The US coverage of the SIG EUC debacle totally omitted the critical detail that the arms were sold by SIG to the US government prior to transfer into banned countries.
This open up a bigger question. If SIG US sold them to the US.gov, why was SIG Germany heavily fined for the incident. Eventually leading to the German.gov closing SIGs Eckernford production facility? This lead to the German.gov taking possession of all SIG Germany assets to secure the fine? Seem like SIG Germany was made a “fall guy” in this.
Unless, SIG US was provided info the guns were ultimately heading to banned countries, but sold them to the US.gov anyway. 🤔
“Compared to the Sar9 chassis design the Sig chassis design appears to be more complicated than necessary”
Having dealt with the innards of German Automobiles for the last 45 years, I would expect nothing less. BMW is presently the worse of the lot. They have lost their way, and are the poster child for “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should” And yes, I love my SAR K2C 45!
“when SIG US intentionally lied on End Use Certs. SIG shipped loads of guns from Germany to US, claiming they were for the US market, then shipped them to countries that weren’t supposed to be receiving firearms. Scumbag move.
“I’ve imported firearms from Germany, and had to submit End User Cert documents. If I had lied on those EUCs, I would be bankrupted and spending decades in prison.
HOW DID SIG US GET A PASS ON THIS?”
Because Douchland’s government is VERY pro-business. Unless it’s made blatantly public (See Diesel-Gate), no whistles are blown. After all the emission testing done over there, it took a couple of guys at the University of West Virginia to nail basically all German Auto Diesel manufactures to the wall. The TUV (Germany DOT) had no idea….ya right.
WENT OFF WITH OUT BEING TOUCHED ,,, ” JUST LOVE THAT COMMENT .
AAA BANG Y’ALL PICKN ON SIG P320 , SORRY JUST WENT OFF .
IS THAT LIKE ME TOO , JUST WENT OFF WITH OUT TOUCHN
THANKS FOR INFOR.
YOU MAY WANT TO TRY THINKING ABOUT YOUR GRANMA EATIN OATMEL, OR OLD GARBAGE WITH MAGETS. THAT MIGHT HELP!
Wish Steyr could have sued them blind on their chassis patent infringement. Modern US SIG is trash that beta tests on suckers.. I mean their customers;)
They’re the type of company to do unannounced rolling product changes, they’re the type to finally issue a recall when they have no other option, only to spin words and term it something other than a recall.
This is the same Sig that couldn’t produce a functional 550 series rifle after multiple attempts even though the OG SIG had been making them for decades just fine in Europe to which they had the entire TDP and tooling to draw from. SIG fanboys have somehow managed to become worse than Glock fanboys.
I am willing to sacrifice at least one year to personally carry that P320 death machine as my edc. At sigs cost and enough ammo to test it once or twice a week. We can split the cost at the range. I think it a fair trade-off. Don’t forget the left-handed holster.
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