Nothing wrong here: The story of a SigP320

[skrapyard]

Posting this here to see if anyone has had a similar experience with either Sig customer service. Good, bad, ugly experiences? Also posting this to help out anyone who may have the same issue with the gun. Its a simple fix...even if Sig cant do anything about it.

 

The TLDR is that my friend sent his full size P320 in .45acp back to Sig TWICE for a fail to extract / fail to feed issue and the gun came back worse than before each time. Then he turned it over to a local gunsmith in Roselle. Gunsmith said there was nothing wrong with it, and gave the gun back to him (they did not charge him anything for the awesome service of doing nothing). He then gave the gun to me to take a look at.....a couple trips to the range for test fire and a clipped extractor spring later and now it runs fine.

 

The first time he sent it to Sig it was having a fail to extract issue. To my understanding after a little googling there were some extraction issues with some of the early ones and that Sig redesigned a few parts. Because the gun came back from Sig without any documentation on what they repaired we are assuming they replaced the extractor, extractor plunger, and extractor spring with the redesigned parts.

 

The gun was slightly better, it would extract rounds from the chamber more often than it did before. Except now it was having an occasional fail to feed issue where the gun wouldnt fully feed a round into the chamber and be stuck out of battery. So he sent it back to Sig again for more warranty service.

 

He received the gun back from Sig the second time and now it is still having the fail to feed issue. Except it is so bad that it cant go through more than 2 rounds without choking. IF you can even get it to feed a round in the first place.

 

Angry that Sig couldnt get it running after two trips back to them he turned it over to the local gunsmith in Roselle to see if they could help. We have no idea if they even looked at the gun. It was there for more than 6 weeks and when they called him to say he could pick it up they told him there was nothing wrong with the gun and that there was no charge for their services of doing nothing for 6 weeks. Maybe it could have fixed itself from being around such an awesome gunsmith and gear?

 

At this point he asked me to take a look at it. So I kindly accepted the free .45 ammo and gun to go give it a test at the range. Before even going to the range I checked out a few things, and hand cycled some dummy rounds through the gun. It was very obvious that the extractor tension was very tight compared to any other guns I have checked. It did not want to allow the cartridge rim to slip behind the extractor.

 

Off to the range I went to see what happens in live fire. There was very little live fire with this gun. Maybe 2 out of 10 rounds would chamber. This picture was the common theme for the day. The cartridge rim is pushed up against the side of the extractor because it couldnt get behind it due to the tension.

 

 

Occasionally a cartridge rim would make it behind the extractor. But the gun would not go into battery because the recoil spring could not overcome the amount of force needed to just push the rim of the cartridge behind the extractor.

 

 

 

So I went back home completely amazed at the quality and reliability of the Sig P320!

 

Being the shade tree mechanic I am I decided the extractor spring needed to lose a little weight. I clipped a little bit off at a time, testing hand cycling rounds in between each cut that I made. Once I got to about 1 1/2 coils cut it hand cycled flawlessly. Back to the range and it now reliably eats any ammo you feed it.

 

So there you go. Sig continually returned a gun that functioned maybe 20% of the time, the local smith said a gun that functions 20% has nothing wrong with it. And a guy who never held a Sig320 before in his life fixed it with a set of side cutters.

 

On that note...anyone else have a P320 with extraction/feed issues? Take a look at the extractor tension. Too tight or too loose is no bueno. And I guess the Sig armorer in their warranty dept forgot this the two times the gun was sent back.

 

 

[domin8]

That's a long post to fail to mention sooner important things. Let's talk about the ammo. Is it factory new, reloaded, etc. Bullet weight and type, powder, etc. This is crucial info to have regarding the function of the gun.

 

I have a P320, but it's in 9mm. It's a safe queen, meaning I've never fired it. The customer service I received from Sig for the voluntary recall a little while back was phenomenal, imo.

 

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

 

[gangrel]

That's a long post to fail to mention sooner important things. Let's talk about the ammo. Is it factory new, reloaded, etc. Bullet weight and type, powder, etc. This is crucial info to have regarding the function of the gun.

 

I have a P320, but it's in 9mm. It's a safe queen, meaning I've never fired it. The customer service I received from Sig for the voluntary recall a little while back was phenomenal, imo.

 

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

Care to enlighten us on how exactly bullet weight would impact the (non-)function of a pistol that won't go into battery due to too much extractor spring tension?

 

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

 

[domin8]

Are you here to split hairs out get a resolution? You still haven't discussed the ammo. However, since you asked, I've found many 200 grain .45 acp are cone shaped and I've experienced difficulty having them load in my Glock 21 and Glock 30S.

 

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

 

[MagSlap]

That's a long post to fail to mention sooner important things. Let's talk about the ammo. Is it factory new, reloaded, etc. Bullet weight and type, powder, etc. This is crucial info to have regarding the function of the gun. I have a P320, but it's in 9mm. It's a safe queen, meaning I've never fired it. The customer service I received from Sig for the voluntary recall a little while back was phenomenal, imo. Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

 

So...basically....You have no clue if it even works....

(Somebody had to say it...

[domin8]

 

That's a long post to fail to mention sooner important things. Let's talk about the ammo. Is it factory new, reloaded, etc. Bullet weight and type, powder, etc. This is crucial info to have regarding the function of the gun. I have a P320, but it's in 9mm. It's a safe queen, meaning I've never fired it. The customer service I received from Sig for the voluntary recall a little while back was phenomenal, imo. Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

So...basically....You have no clue if it even works....

(Somebody had to say it...

It has functioned flawlessly so far. It's a safe queen. You're suppose to look at it. It's doing that quite well, lol.

 

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

 

[skrapyard]

No harm in asking about ammo. That was actually considered when testing it but I didnt go through posting about all of that because it turned out that ammo wasnt the issue. I thought maybe the rim thickness or cartridge dimensions may have had an effect on the function so I tested a few.

 

Heck, I even made fun of my friend saying he was probably just limp wristing the gun...turns out he wasnt. I guess I owe the guy an apology...LOL

 

When hand cycling the gun I used some dummy rounds made up out of PMC cases with a 230gr FMJ loaded to 1.250 OAL. I also used some A-zoom snap caps. Neither one would chamber properly. Both got hung up by the extractor.

 

Then I raided the ammo cabinet for any random boxes of .45. I had some PMC, Magtech, and Tula Steel (along with the Winchester white box ammo supplied by my friend for testing his gun). I tried a plunk test using the barrel of the gun for all of these and with the dummy/snap caps. All rounds plunked into the barrel perfectly.

 

When live fire testing I used all of the ammo listed above and I bought a box of Sig Elite Performance ammo. I figured maybe the Sig would eat its own brand.

 

The funny thing when live fire testing the gun was that the Tula Steel ammo functioned the best. More rounds actually fully chambered and were able to fire with the lowest price/grade ammo I had!

[Raw Power]

I would have to think that the there would be a hard stopping point on the extractor that would be well before it would prevent the gun from going into full battery, but perhaps there's something that I'm not considering there. Why would you design a semi-auto like that? I'm not super familiar with the 320, but is the frame size for the .45 and the 9mm the same? That would be the only reason I can think of for the extractor being allowed to move enough to cause there to be failures to feed. I wonder if maybe they put a 9mm spring into a .45acp extractor? It's really surprising (to me at least) that the a longer/heavier spring would cause this to happen.

[skrapyard]

It was a first for me too. I have never personally seen a gun not go into battery because of extractor tension. But here we are. Since the round being fed was being held up and not able to slide behind the extractor it was trying to be shoved into the chamber on an angle. It was never able to slide up behind the extractor to allow the round to straighten out and feed straight into the chamber.

 

Sig uses the same extractor/spring/plunger for all calibers of the 320. I found this out because I ordered a backup extractor and spring just in case and because they were cheap. So that could definitely have something to do with it.

 

I havent looked into it but I would assume Sig has different slides for each caliber conversion (breechface and the hole cut in the front for the barrel would be different?). So its possible that the positioning of the extractor cut, length of extractor tunnel, and any number of other small changes could have been made to the different slides for different calibers.

[Raw Power]

Is it the same size frame for the p320 in different calibers? I know there are different frame designs/sizes for the 320, but I mean will a .45acp slide fit on the same one that a 9mm will?

 

If so, there has to be an incorrect part in there somewhere, but if they're using the same size extractor and spring, that's pretty baffling.

[skrapyard]

Just did a quick search. Apparently you are on the right track about frame sizes. The frame for the .45 version is not compatible with any of the other caliber conversions.

 

The .45 stands alone for the 320. You can only mix and match with the 9mm, .40, and .357sig.

[Raw Power]

Just did a quick search. Apparently you are on the right track about frame sizes. The frame for the .45 version is not compatible with any of the other caliber conversions.

 

The .45 stands alone for the 320. You can only mix and match with the 9mm, .40, and .357sig.

That sounds to me a likely cause for the direction of where the problem is coming from. Something might to be installed in your slide that was designed for the other version.

[skrapyard]

Just another observation about the frame/magazine combo for the .45 version: With a fully loaded magazine (10rds) the magazine width swells and it takes a good amount of pressure to jam that sucker in far enough to actually engage the mag release tab and hold the mag in the gun. Hopefully the mag spring lightens up enough over time and there is less pressure causing the mag to swell. With the slide locked back you can get it to lock in, with the slide forward you would probably need a hammer to get it in all the way.

[skrapyard]

That sounds to me a likely cause for the direction of where the problem is coming from. Something might to be installed in your slide that was designed for the other version.

 

 

 

 

When I was going through part numbers and exploded diagrams for the components in the slide I noticed that the small parts are the same for each caliber. The only difference is the metal body of the slide itself, barrel, and recoil spring assemblies. All of the striker and extractor components are the same for all models/calibers.

 

There are so many 320s out there that people have no issues with so it seems to work most of the time.

[brianj - now in Kansas]

To domin8's point about ammo: I have a 9mm 320 that is in my carry rotation. It runs every commercial 9mm round I've ever fed it. However, it flatly refuses to chamber any of my handloads: they get physically stuck halfway into the chamber. These handloads work perfectly well in my VP9, 365, G19, PPS and PPQ. I've just come to the conclusion that the chamber in that barrel is close to minimum tolerances. I figure that my handloads are crimped within spec, but bigger than the chamber in that 320 can tolerate.

 

As long as it continues to eat Critical Defense without burping, I'm a happy guy.

 

Bri

[Mike]

I can't help troubleshoot but I do want to say this seems to be a rare problem. I have 3 9mm P320's, two with around 1,000 rounds each and a recent one with around 200, and I've never had any feed problems with any of them. Not once has one failed to chamber a round and go bang. I've got 2 P365's, one with around 500 rounds and another with around 1,500, same story. I frequent the SigTalk forum and I haven't seen anything like this reported there.

 

That said, I have several Dan Wessons that I love and used to be my daily carry. One of them had intermittent problems that I never solved so I know how frustrating it can be.

[skrapyard]

Mike,

 

Im with you on the rarity of this malfunction. I dug around on SigTalk and anywhere else I could get a hit on the combo of keywords "320 extractor problem". I saw a few threads about the fail to extract issue found on some of the early guns. But nothing about a fail to feed/ out of battery issue. Let alone anything that was directly related to the .45 version.

 

It seems it was just an oddball issue related only to this single gun in particular.

 

And by no means is this thread a gripe about Sig products. I cant speak of their customer service though since I was not the one who called and sent the gun back to them. It seems it was good enough for them to say "send it in" and warranty the gun twice. But not actually fixing the problem is a bit concerning.

 

I own and carry a P938 that has never had any sort of hiccup except the fact that it didnt like being fed Rem Golden Saber that one time. Now it gets a strict diet of Win Ranger-T or cheap WWB for practice.