P320 Upgrade

In what can only be described as quite the coincidence, the SIG P320 purchased by TTAG to drop test arrived back, all voluntarily upgraded, right as news of the Honor Guard’s safety failings was hitting the TTAG Drop Safety Desk. As you’d expect, we hit the range to make sure SIG’s changes did, in fact, result in a “drop safe” pistol and to see if this affected trigger pull quality . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jddekKVkxAc

As with the Honor Guard, I used a large rubber mallet to smack the rear of the P320’s slide. Despite wailing on it extremely hard, the gun did not discharge. In fact, the striker never slipped at all and the trigger remained active with a standard pull weight, distance, and break after any amount of hammering.

This was not the case prior to the voluntary upgrade, and is a far cry from what we found on the Honor Guard, which was dropping its striker and discharging with a fraction of the impact force.

No, sorry, we didn’t drop this pistol onto concrete again. Two reasons: SIG satisfied us with their own demonstrations of the upgraded gun’s drop safety, and the mallet test had been fully sufficient to cause pre-upgrade P320s to fire. No need to go mucking up the rear sight, slide, and frame (and RF’s garage floor) again.

I still wouldn’t call this the drop-safiest gun on the planet or anything, but I now trust it to handle any reasonable drop, impact, or vibration that a gun may see in regular EDC or duty use.

SIG has replaced the trigger shoe with a lower-mass version. Hollowed out on the back, it’s light weight and low drag. It increases drop safety by reducing the trigger’s inertia. It even looks better, too.

As for feel, it’s effectively the same. Same pull weight — this one’s right at 6 lbs, which is actually lighter than many pre-upgrade guns measured — same pull length, same clean break, same short-ish reset.

Some users will notice that the little “click” feel part way through the pre-upgrade gun’s trigger pull is now gone. If that was a gripe for you, as it was for some, then this voluntary safety upgrade can also be considered a trigger pull quality upgrade.

If you own a P320, go to SIG’s upgrade page here and get your gun upgraded. There’s zero cost to you and, as far as we can tell, zero reasons not to do it. The upgraded trigger looks better, feels slightly better, and is, of course, safer. Wins all around.

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41 COMMENTS

  1. I received the volunteer-upgraded P320 in return last week. The trigger experience was quite the opposite of yours. There’s now a notch in its pull, and an additional detent. In other words, it’s like a THREE-stage trigger. Sent a note in to Sig and have yet to hear back about it …

    • Well THAT’s weird! That’s definitely not the experience with this one or what I’ve been hearing from other people (including public comments on the YouTube video above and elsewhere). Everyone who noticed the “double click” thing in the old one is happy to see it gone, and most folks just find it to be effectively the same as it was before. Something’s definitely wonky with yours, I’m afraid 🙁 …maybe give it a look and compare it to the photos above?…

    • I, too, received my P320 back from SIG but my trigger pull experience is as good as it was before if not better.

    • This is ancient history now, and I’d be surpised if anyone sees my comment, but I decided recently that I’d like to get my VUP-ized P320 slide cut for a red dot, and I’ve noticed a few things that bothered me initially and now make me question my intentions.

      First, my slide was not recoated during the VUP process, meaning my slide has exposed steel where the disconnector cut was added. Also, there is what I assume to be a factory weight-reduction cut just ahead of that cut, which has created an issue where my trigger will not reset without a full-length rack of the slide. Now I’m considering a custom cut over a pre-cut option due to cost and availability, but not sure if I want to continue dealing with these quirks. Sig has already been notified about the reset issue, and assured me it falls in “normal operation”, or in real terms, they don’t intend to correct it.

      Any suggestions/recommendations?

  3. That particular piece is a local celebrity in these parts. It should be a prize in a contest or drawing now… or has one of you already called “dibs” on it?
    🤠

    • RF paid for it so it’s technically his. Which, as RF is generally concerned, actually means it’s more or less TTAG communal property. I’m fairly confident he’d be willing to part with it in exchange for the right number of U.S. dollars, though 😉

  4. Mine came back last month just in time for a course at the Sig Academy. Was very pleased with it.
    As a side note the folks at the pro shop told me there would be a new line of 320 caliber conversions kits to go with the upgraded 320’s as the current/old ones are not compatible. No ETA though.

  5. I too, got mine back last week. I noticed nothing appreciably different in the trigger pull. It’s always been one of my best ones.

    I really appreciate TTAG taking the time and risk with his/ their testing.

    I feel much more confident with this pistol.

  8. “I still wouldn’t call this the drop-safiest gun on the planet or anything, but I now trust it to handle any reasonable drop, impact, or vibration that a gun may see in regular EDC or duty use.”

    And that’s kinda the point, I’d say.

    Sig just demonstrated what a company that wants to be perceived by the gun-buying public as a responsible company *does* when a potential serious safety issue is found.

    As Jeremy S. has noted very recently :

    ““But, safety should be your utmost concern.”

    Yes. Yes it should. For consumers and manufacturers alike.”

    The ball is in your court, Honor…

    • ““But, safety should be your utmost concern.”

      Safe is defined as the absence of risk. No such state exists. The best one can hope for is understanding the risks and mitigating them through action. This is why I don’t drop my babies.

  9. Just sent all 5 of mine and my 2 Xchange kits in today. With a sample size of 5 and two halves, I’ll let y’all know if I have any problems and what the turn around time is. I am also having them upgrade all the slide stop levers to the newer version.

  10. Are new pistols coming from the factory “upgraded”? If I went to a gun shop today, how would I tell?

  11. Poppycock in my case. Trigger now has a Wall that was not there. Slide lifts on dry fire, also a New condition. Sent in 2 , 1 came back clean w/factory regrease 1 came back dirty. IMHO the Upgrade was not an Upgrade

  13. I had my 320 sent in at the beginning of this month but not for the upgrade. The reason I sent my 320 was because I had three blow outs or what looked to be out of battery fires. Ammo was blamed and according to sig my 320 was in spec. I guess the gun going off when it’s dropped as well as blowing up in my hand is something that is supposed to happen. So after talking with Sig’s customer service about what to do next, I asked for the upgrade and was told it would take a few weeks. I was fine with this as there where no more USPSA matches for the rest of this month. I got a surprise two days later seeing that my gun was on it’s way back to my house. Unfortunately I opened my case and noticed that the upgrade was not taken care of. Because of all of this I have lost interest in this firearm (which sucks because I fell in love with my 320 for USPSA) and will be selling it as I don’t feel like loosing a finger or worse. The last time the gun blew up in my hands was right in front of Ben Stoeger and boy was that embarrassing but the one thing that I got a laugh out of that was what he said ” I can tell you none of my stock 2s have done that”. You can find pictures of what my gun looked like on his Facebook page or just Google p320 firing out of battery.

    • I was told they would only do the upgrade on 320s sent in for the voluntary upgrade no additional work. I had asked if they could install some night sights at the same time.

  14. My 320 trigger pull was over 9lbs prior to “upgrade”. On return, trigger pull is 7lbs, but now has some creep. I thought I’d appreciate the lower pull weight, but actually preferred shooting with the 9lb trigger that was very crisp with no creep.

  15. Sig had my gun two days before they sent it back (for the voluntary upgrade). I’ll take that turn-around time any day of the week. It runs great btw.

  16. I like mine the way it is. The reason I bought it was the trigger pull and don’t really want to mess with it. I talked to my gun shop, who specializes in Sig. Very few of their customers are sending theirs in.

  17. Got mine back I under two weeks. I like the feel of the new trigger. I would never intentionally drop a firearm but if it happens it’s nice to know it shouldn’t now also be a negligent discharge….

  18. Whats the real truth behind P320 triggers voluntary upgrade ? I have already switched to APEX trigger which appears to be lighter. Why the extra grinding and other parts?

  19. Late to the party on this, but I’m sure I’m buying that the weight of the trigger caused the discharges. Especially since the hammer test was so effective before. The mass of the gun isn’t all moving with that test. I’m suspicious that the slide enhancements were the real fix, and the trigger is the scapegoat.

    Can you test using the OLD trigger with the NEW slide upgrades, and see if the gun still discharges using the hammer? I wouldnt be surprised if it does not, and theres more to this story.

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