Still Siggy with it.

While I was at work today, Sig posted the details of the Voluntary P320 Upgrade. (See previous post, "Damnit, man, this is the Internet!")

Got home and submitted all of ours for the program; process took maybe 5 minutes, and that included getting pistols out of the safe, and a separate submission for each of them.

No further action is required from you at this time.

You will receive an email from SIG SAUER at a later date that will include a prepaid shipping label and instructions to return your P320 pistol and any P320 caliber exchange kits that you have. It may take many weeks for you to receive this next communication, but we won’t forget about you (SIG will not begin the upgrade process for a few weeks as we prepare to make this upgrade). Once your P320 is shipped and received at SIG SAUER, the turnaround time will be approximately 4 – 6 weeks. This lengthy process is due to the high volume of pistols in the marketplace. Transit times may vary depending on your geographic location and receipt of your returned pistol. In the meantime, your SIG SAUER pistol is safe to carry and use as originally configured from the factory.

 Obviously, the 4-6 weeks to get the pistols back after the undetermined wait to ship them off is less than appealing. (The most common number I've heard for P320 sales is ≈500,000. Not sure how accurate that is, but I can see how that would be a significant number of pistols to process...)

The fact that the entire process will be free of charge to us goes a ways to alleviating that.

FAQs about the program are at the bottom of the page linked above.

BTW, if you have caliber exchange kits in addition to one or more P320s, they recommend sending in the slides, as well, as

the striker(s) will be replaced, and the slide(s) will need the disconnector cut.

I'm honestly not too concerned about toting the P320 Sub Compact in the meantime, as I don't plan on dropping it multiple times in just the right orientation to cause an ND.

Don't really care whether the hysteria brigade thinks I'm overly optimistic or a fool.

"Damnit, man, this is the Internet!"

"Gentlemen, you can't reason here! This is the Internet!"

So, you may recall over several previous posts that I (and Ms. Drang, on my advice) have switched over the Sig P320s as out primary sidearms.

You may also be aware that the entire Gunternet is having a collective meltdown over recent "revelations" regarding the Sig P320.

The American Rifleman's The Keefe Report has published a review of the situation.

This post has few links; they'll be easy to find on your own. There is so much pants shitting hysteria over this issue that I am giving myself a time out from most gun-specific fora.

Many of my fellow bloggers, over in the right sidebar, have addressed this situation, as has The Gun Feed.. The issue has been beaten to death so thoroughly at Pistol-Forum.com that the horse is not only dead, but they had to bring in a new dead horse because the first one had been reduced to a pile of rancid jelly.

To review, for any who have not been following:

• A few weeks ago a video popped up in YouTube, on a channel with only that one video and no other content, purporting to demonstrating that, when dropped in a specific orientation, the Sip P320 would fire.
• The video had no commentary at all, including a description of how many tries it took to get this to happen, or how they reached the conclusion that dropping this pistol such that it struck the ground at a specific angle would cause it to fire.
• After a week or so, during which time people generally held to be In The Know arrived at the conclusion that the circumstances surrounding the video were so flaky as to render it suspect, at best; shortly thereafter, it disappeared.
• At approximately the same time, however, it was noted that there was language in the Sig P320 manual stating that the pistol could fire if dropped, and one should take care. 
• Note that this is standard lawyerese in most if not all firearms manuals, along with "use only quality, factory-loaded ammunition", and "modifications will void the warranty."
• Also at approximately the same time, the Dallas, TX, Police Department issued a safety warning regarding the Sig P320, due to the fact that "it might fire if dropped."  (The P320 is not issued by the department, but is authorized as a personal purchase.)
• Note that, contrary to rumors, no Dallas police officer has had a P320 fire accidentally.
• Sig released a statement which pointed out that the P320 had passed all industry standard safety testing, including all industry standard drop testing; IOW, no one ever thought they had to test a gun dropped at this specific angle before.
• Just as the furor over the original video and the verbiage in the manual was dying down, other videos popped up. These were better produced, and did seem to explain what happened better.
• Note, however, that these all built on the original video, which means that they started with the knowledge that the pistol dropped in this specific orientation could or would fire.
• Then... people started claiming that this previously unsuspected flaw applied to the M17 and M18 pistols, the Army having just awarded the contract for the Modular Handgun System to Sig for variants of the P320...
• ...despite the fact that the M17 and M18 use different internal components which avoid this issue...
• ...and which it turns out, Sig had already planned to offer as a voluntary upgrade to the P320. Details to be available the day after tomorrow. (That is, Monday, August 14th, 2017.)

 Of course, this latter fact gets reported to the effect of "What did Sig know and when did they know it?"

Notes for those who have been following along:

1. I left out the lawsuit by a Connecticut police officer who alleges he was injured when his P320 unintentionally discharged, which came to light about when this was happening, on purpose. Claim is made that his holstered pistol went off. The lead time on a lawsuit is such that the timing may or may not be suspicious, and the description of what happened is still unproven.
2. I am also not addressing the fact that one or more highly regarded personages came out and said that the P320 was as safe as any other gun, and questioned the original video, leading to their character and integrity being called into question when the full feeding frenzy hit.
3. Seriously, Gunternet-wide the knicker-twisting approached Bernie Sanders rally proportions...

Tamara's take (more or less) here: View From The Porch: Absolutely unprecedented!

Note that she is not commenting on the allegations or sequence of events, just that this is not the first time we've seen the "blood-in-the-water" effect of a new, successful pistol design which might have a weakness.

And as Mr. Keefe says in his article referenced above, this whole thing has gone beyond "blood in the water" into full-on Sharknado. (Naturally, the first comment on that article claims Sig bought the NRA's compliance...)

Mr. Keefe also references a report from Soldier Systems Daily: SIG SAUER Acknowledges P320 Trigger Issues With -30deg Drop, M17 MHS Unaffected, Announces Voluntary P320 Upgrade. 

Although SIG was already working toward introducing the MHS-inspired Enhanced Trigger to the P320, this -30deg drop issue has hastened their effort. They have lightened the Trigger, Striker and Sear by about 30% overall and added a Disconnect (commercial only, not MHS). The trigger pull weight is unaffected, but rather the trigger part actually weighs less. The reason they lightened those parts is to mitigate the momentum gained by the heavier parts during a drop.

Taylor laid it out, “There is a vulnerability with the P320 at the -30deg drop.” They plan to incorporate the trigger enhancements for the M17 into the P320. They’d been working on them, but implementation wasn’t imminent. Based on what they’ve found, that has been accelerated. Details on their voluntary upgrade program will follow soon.

I want to put this perspective. Since it’s introduction in 2014, they’ve sold around 500,000 P320s. There are three recorded cases of unintended discharges in LE channels . There is one additional commercial incident which I am familiar with but was not formally reported to SIG. That’s four known incidents from 500,000 weapons, many of which are used on a daily basis. Additionally, those incidents have all been within the last year.

This report concludes with the following paragraph:

My take is that despite building their pistols to industry standards, SIG has acknowledged the issue and is taking steps to fix it. They didn’t waste any time. They’ve stopped commercial production of the P320 and are concentrating on the upgrade. It’s going to be more than just swapping parts. The slide and frame will need some work as well so the pistol will need to go back to SIG. Details will soon follow on how to participate in the voluntary upgrade program.

 As I noted earlier, details of the upgrade will be available Monday.

Not gonna lie, I'm not too crazy about the idea of sending our guns to New Hampshire to be upgraded, but expect to be doing so, if only to ensure parts compatibility down the road.

This whole series of events has left me disgusted with a large swathe of humanity, though.

TriggrCon, Media/Industry day.

When we last we saw our intrepid blogger, he was stuck in traffic, heading home from Triggrcon Range Day.

In case you hadn't heard, the Seattle-Tacoma area has nasty traffic these days. Besides, all that free ammo can really take it out of a guy, you feel an obligation to not let it go to waste.

So, first things first: Today and tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday July 29th and 30th, TriggrCon is open to the public for "Enthusiast Days." Go to the website to register, for free.

Up front, I did confirm that the last pistol caliber carbine and sub machine gun I fired at Range Day was by Battle Arms Development, and made that correction in my previous post.

The show itself is being held at the Greater Tacoma Conference Center.

Which bans guns and knives on site, and has security pawing through your bags and checking you with a hand wand.

It was hardly a TSA-level search, and I suspect I could have gotten a pocket pistol in, in my bag, but it's still annoying that they couldn't find a venue that either had more reasonable policies, or was willing to make an exception.

Especially since you walk in and turn left, and Freedom Munitions was selling ammo by the case, and knives, and if you turn right the Triggrcon Proshop is selling guns.

While wandering over to the Proshop I stopped at the Sig Sauer station -- they have a trailer set up as a traveling display, I've sen it elsewhere -- and confirmed that Sig does have plans for a .22LR P320, it's just that no one knows when...

But first... Before you got to the security station, there were several tables set up out front, mostly of local operations.

Mostly... The first stop I made was at the booth/table/display for PHLster Holsters. I've been admiring their Flat Pack Tourniquet "device"
(Another pic-heavy post, after the break...)

Triggrcon, Range Day

TriggrCon is the Northwest Shooting Sports Expo, which has been described as a "Mini-SHOT Show."

Well, I have a had time making it to Vegas for SHOT Show, but I can sure make it to Tacoma for this...

Signing up for tickets for Mrs. Drang and I for the "Enthusiast Days", I went ahead and applied for a Media Pass, because, hey, New Media and all that. I wasn't sure I'd get it, but what the heck...?

Sometimes I feel like the guy that does the police blotter for the Resume Speed Shopping News and gets invited to a press conference with the Times and stuff.

Anyway. Thursday was Range Day. The invite said it was at an "undisclosed location" which changed "at the last minute." I dunno about that. From the route the bus driver was taking I was pretty sure I knew where we were going, especially when someone said "I heard we were going to a sheriff's range."

Yep.

So here's the layout:

It's a pretty good set up. We were last there probably10 years ago (!) or more, for a muzzleloader shoot, when the range complex was pretty new, and still mostly bare dirt and rock. The best part is that it is far enough out in unincorporated King County that development stops before it gets this far, and the commute is too much for anyone.

Also, it shares the grounds with the before-mentioned King County Sheriff's Office range, as well as the Seattle Skeet & Trap/Boeing Employee's Shotgun Club range. (A friend of mine who worked on building the new range complex told me that, one night during the construction work, they came out of the club house after  meeting and witnessed a cougar taking down an elk. It's waaaaay out there...)

Anyway. A close up of who was at the range:

Click to enlarge.

Mostly pictures after the break:

Product review, Detroit Holster "Hastings"

(Consider it a "First Impressions" review, with a follow-up to come, if you like...)

Some time ago I became aware of an outfit calling itself "Detroit Holster".

While not one of the Big Names in kydex benders, they have gotten good reviews, which intrigued me as a native of the Motor City.

As a native Detroiter, I confess to getting a bit of a kick from the fact that most of the holsters are named for significant Detroit roads: the 8 Mile (thank you, Slim Shady), the John R, the Dix, the Hastings...

When I signed up for Tom Givens' Combative Pistol class at the end of June, I decided that I needed an out-of-waistband holster for my Sig P320 Carry, with Streamlight TLR-1.¹

Most of the Big Name kydex benders are advertising a 6-8 week lead time, or more, whereas Detroit Holsters says

CURRENT LEAD IS APPROXIMATELY 2-4 WEEKS.  ** Most “8 Mile”, “Hastings”, “John R” and “MoTown”, models without light/laser are currently shipping in about 1 – 2 weeks **  

I placed my order for a Hastings OWB holster on Monday, May 15nd.

It arrived up on Friday, May  26th.  Note that the disclaimer says "without" light/laser, this was with.

With the Hastings, you have a choice between a paddle, and Tek-Lok; I went with the Tek-Lok, because I've seen paddle holsters come out on the draw²...

Holding the holster in my hands fit was very tight, enough so I was wondering if the draw would be awkward.

Based on 15 or 20 minutes of dry practice, draw and present, holster, repeat, the concern was not warranted. I'm hardly Mr Coordinated, so I'm sure the draw wasn't pretty, but I had no problems.³ With the Tek-Lok the holster does stick out far enough to be less than ideal for concealability, but that's what the Sub-Compact P320s are for.

I got black, out of some sort of frugality. They have lots of colors available. And patterns. Including The Colors and the Lone Star Flag. The gun is Flat Dark Earth, I probably should have spent the extra fin or sawbuck and gone with FDE or Coyote, but...

Pictures follow. Not sure what trick of the light caused the flat black holster appear to be brown in the pics...

Detroit Holster's Hastings OWB Holster.
©2017 DW Drang & The Cluemeter

Holster and gun.
©2017 DW Drang & The Cluemeter

Front view.
Like most holsters for light-bearing handguns, retention is on the light, and is pretty tight.
©2017 DW Drang & The Cluemeter

Back view of the Tek-Lok.
©2017 DW Drang & The Cluemeter

Business end view. That's the cell phone flash, not the light itself.
©2017 DW Drang & The Cluemeter

Regulars will recall I had Holster Issues at Ernest Langdon's Tactical Pistol class last October; while it is too soon to say that I, personally, will perform any better at Tom Givens class next month, I certainly should be better off, equipment-wise. (Not blaming the gear for my being behind the power curve, but I made some dubious decisions that resulted in self-induced snake-bite...) My review of the Tom Givens class will certainly include a more detailed gear review, so stay tuned..

I may need to order myself a Hastings in Old Glory for my 1911 Rail Gun w/Surefire U400.

Unless Detroit Holsters offers a custom "Spirit of Detroit" pattern⁴...

***

1. While I hate it when we, as Gun Geeks, start getting all specific about the gat we have, what features or options it has, etc., when buying a holster the specific model and any options, such as a light, matter.
2. This might have been operator error, i.e., not ensuring everything was securely in place, but still...
3. Wilderness Frequent Flyer belt, if anyone is wondering. 
4. The Spirit of Detroit - Wikipedia

Gettin' Siggy

Hit the range today, just shy of 200 rounds through the Sig P320s.

Benchmade Barrage, Sig P320 Carry, SigP320 Sub-compact.
Benchmade Knives was having a special event at the PX when I bought the P320 Compact.
Copyright 2017 DW Drang

This is a photo-heavy post, so click to read and see the rest after the jump...

Stick it! A product review

Once you start shooting regularly -- or irregularly, as the case may be -- you will, as I have mentioned before, want to acquire more magazines, since the magazine seems to be the most common point of failure in a semi-automatic pistol.

And once you start shooting regularly and using all your magazines, you will find that, sure enough, some fail and you need to ditch them (or repair them, if possible) but if they all look alike...

So you need to be able to identify which magazine it was that had the damaged feed lips, or whatever.

There are many options. On my 1911 magazines, I used paint pen:

"Drang G.I. 7rd. #4"

Paint pen wears off, but is easy enough to re-apply.

But if you have my penmanship, it looks like crap. If it matters to you...

Anyway, I was looking for a better way to manage my ammo cans, and went looking to see if there was a better looking option than a stencil and a can of spray paint. (Yes, Avery labels and a printer are usable, but ink jet ink runs in the rain. I spent 20 years in the Army. It always rains when I train...)

And I found these folks: STICKIT2THEMAX - Stickers, Banners, T-Shirts and more.

SI2TM (hope they don't mind my abbreviating their name) does ammo can stickers, in a variety of calibers and colors:

Keep reading for some info on the ammo cans!

Turns out that SI2TM also does magazine base plate stickers for several different firearms; they have both "Number and Caliber" stickers in a decent section of text  colors, and what might as well be called "morale stickers." The number stickers come in sets of 1-6 and 7-12, but for the true magazine hoarder it would be easy enough to have, say 1-12 with white on black, and 1-12 with yellow on black, etc.

(For the Sig 250/320, subcompact magazines are a different order item than the compact and full magazines)

(For some foolish reason I neglected to get a picture of the full sheet until I was over halfway through.)

The stickers are printed on a heavy duty vinyl, and seem to have a pretty good quality adhesive, although when I attached on sticker askew, I was able to peel it off and re-apply it.  Obviously, I haven't tried these out with a full destructive testing regime, and I doubt I will, but they seem to be a great option for keeping track of range/training ammo versus defensive/match ammo, both in a magazine and in the can.


I had no idea how we have been conditioned by e-commerce.  I ordered these on Tuesday. Got the order confirmation and receipt in email, then... nothing. No tracking number. What's wrong with these people?!

My order arrived on Saturday. From the east coast. Never mind...

By the way, in the photo above with the can sticker on the cans, the two cans on the right hand side of the photo are old GI 7.62mm cans. The two flat OD Green cans on the left were acquired at... Costco.

$20 for a set of one .50 caliber can and one .30 caliber can.Going back for more, I hope they're still in stock...

Gettin' Siggy With It

OD Green and Full Dark Earth as well as Black, and 9mm, .357 Sig, .40 S&W, and .45 ACP

I was told that this is soon to be a factory option.

Range Day

Well, Range Hour-And-A-Half...

So, I'm not really the only member of Pistol Forums.com to NOT have a Shooting/Training Journal on there, but if I have any New Years Resolution it's to shoot more, and, in fact, to attempt to shoot some of the drills on there, so that I can cease embarrassing myself when shooting in front of people I know...

So, having spent the last several weeks stuck at home pending a plumber or appliance technician, or dying of the creeping crud, I told Mrs. Drang I was hitting the range no matter what.   She, alas, is still dying of the creeping crud I gave her for New Years (Sorry, Sweetheart!), and declined to join me, which is a shame, since one of my plans was to test fire her Star BKM. ("Bearcat gets her gun")

A word about the range: Federal Way Discount Guns actually has two ranges as part of Federal Way Indoor Range, one with standard rental bays, and another, used for training,  which can be configured in several layouts, and which is also used for competitions and leagues.  As a shot trap it uses the newer (to me, at least) rubber bullet traps.  Lighting is excellent, and environmental controls are also very good.  I highly recommend the facility to anyone in South King County or northwestern Pierce County.

Back to the guns: Since the Star is a 40-odd year old gun of uncertain history, and (frankly) rattles when you shake it like GI lore says a 1911 will, I loaded one round into each of the four magazines we have, and tried them.

Offhand, seven yards, Federal Eagle 115 grain Full Metal Jacket.  I am particularly gratified that shot number one broke the ten ring, especially since I was mostly wanting to ensure the darned thing would fire.  Slide locked back on each empty mag.  You might recall that of the four magazines Mrs. Drang got with the pistol, two had metal followers, and two had plastic ones.  The plastic followers seemed to work as well as the metal ones.

Subsequent targets, same ammo, looked like this:

Still getting used to the sights, and the grip and feel is slightly different than what I am used to.  All these were at 7 yards; I did put one mag down at 15 yards, which didn't go so well...

We'll see if this is going to be a range gun, or if we need to get a holster for it.  Even if Mrs. Drang goes for "off-body" carry  (i.e., concealed in a purse) I think we'll want some leather to keep it in.  (Interestingly, even the PX is carrying Concealed Carry purses these days!)

I also needed to put some rounds through the Ruger Mark III 22/45 she gave me for Christmas. ("I have the bestest wife in the world").  No pics, but I did manage to keep every shot inside the "7" ring, which, considering that I was shooting off some of my stockpile of "Not sure what is is other than .22 Long Rifle" ammo, is OK.  (Actually, I'm trying to figure out where that one round of .22 Short came from...)

(The McFadden Machine Ultimate Clip Loader works pretty well, BTW.  I think it was Barron who recommended it at GBR a couple of years ago.)

That done, I discovered that the "rental" privileges that go with my range membership have been upgraded, and I now get unlimited rentals, with the caveat (which applies to all rentals) that I must use their ammo.  I've been thinking about expanding my horizons beyond the 1911 (Forgive me, JMB!), so I borrowed a Glock 19, Gen 4, and a Sig P229R, and put a box of Winchester White Box 124 grain FMJ through each.

I just can't get used to a Glock.  Maybe if I owned it and could do some Dremel work on the grip, but the combination of holding a 2 x 4 with the silly finger bumps in the front just doesn't work for me.

The Sig, OTOH, is excellent.

Shot at seven yards.
 Didn't take a pic of the target I shot at 15 yards,
it obviously wasn't as tight as the 7 yard one, but it wasn't too bad.
 "Combat accuracy" and all that.
 /gun magazine writer

Note that I said that "the Sig is excellent", not that "I am excellent".  I still suck.  This is why I need to be hitting the range at least twice a month.

Maybe I'll even start keeping a training journal.