SIG P320: The Sidearm That Fired Before You Felt Like Shooting It

Once hailed as the sleek new face of America’s service pistol, the SIG Sauer P320 (aka military M17/M18) is suddenly getting ghosted by the very institutions that adopted it. Cue the awkward silence.

Why the Military Is Putting the M18 on Shelf

In late July 2025, Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) abruptly halted all use of the M18 pistol—its military derivative of the civilian P320—after a tragic fatality at F.E. Warren AFB. The pistol will stay out of service pending investigations and 100% inspections across every AFGSC base. Airmen are now packing M4 rifles instead of pistols for the time being.

Meanwhile, ICE quietly banned the P320 entirely and ordered replacement Glocks ASAP—with an internal memo demanding a transition plan within 10 days.

Call it a bureaucracy's version of tapping out.

Claims, Counters, and Courtrooms

Sig Sauer maintains the pistol cannot fire without a trigger pull, attributing incidents to user error or improper holsters. Too bad that narrative hasn't held up in litigation. Hundreds of complaints and lawsuits claim the gun fired uncommanded, leaving at least 80 people wounded across dozens of agencies.

Recent jury verdicts: an Amputated-leg award of $11 million in Philadelphia and $2.35 million in Georgia. Some legal observers now call the P320 “America’s most dangerously defective firearm.”

SIG’s optional external safety (standard on military M18/M17) is still optional for civilian use—and that choice is fueling lawsuits claiming the lack of safety mechanisms is a design defect. And good luck suing in New Hampshire—SIG helped pass a law effectively shielding them from lawsuits based on the absence of such safeties.

Six Figures to Six Deaths: A Pattern Emerges

Dozens of agencies have followed suit: Milwaukee PD, Dallas PD, SEPTA (Philadelphia transit police), Washington State academies, and more have pulled the P320 from duty. Military reported at least nine cases in Army/Air/Marine units from 2020–2023, including soldiers shot in their guard booths—not trigger disciplined, holstered, zero warning.

Despite the 2017 voluntary upgrade program—which tweaked the trigger weight, sear, and striker and added a mechanical disconnector—users report incidents continuing even on retrofitted units. For some critics, the upgrade was too quiet, too slow, and still inadequate.

SIG’s PR: Denial, Diversion, Deletion

Sig Sauer keeps repeating: no recall, no defect—they did a voluntary upgrade. Only they decided whether yours got upgraded. Lawsuits say injured people, not corporate press releases, reveal the pattern.

Their legal strategy: protect the company with sympathetic state laws and litigate heavily. But five and six‑figure verdicts are accumulating—and federal cases involving dozens of plaintiffs are still moving ahead.

Final Thought

If you’re an organization that hires people to carry sidearms—and not have them fire on their own—maybe P320’s time is up. Sure, it looked high-tech in 2017. But at some point, "modular draft‑pick of the decade" morphs into "why are our officers bending steel and bones on the range?"