If you are a regular reader of the Gunner’s Alley blog or newsletter, then you know most of the staff here at GA are big Sig Sauer fans. I carried a Sig (P226 and P228) through most of my law enforcement career, and we all own a number of Sig models personally. So we were very surprised at the reasons that Sig Sauer has been in the news over the last 2 weeks.
If you missed these recent developments, here’s a quick recap:
#1 – Steyr Arms Files Patent Infringement Case Against Sig Sauer over the P320 Modular Trigger Housing
https://taskandpurpose.com/sig-sauer-p320-steyr-arms/ – On Friday, 5/5/17, Steyr Arms files a patent infringement case against Sig Sauer alleging that the P250 and the P320 models use the “plastic housing and multifunction metal part removeably mounted” which Steyr patented back in 2001. The patent infringement suit goes on to say that the modular polymer framed chassis used in both Sig models is in violation of a Steyr patent called “Pistol, Whose Housing is Composed of Plastic”, which was filed in August of 1999 and successfully patented in July of 2001. The patent was originally designed to protect the components of the Steyr M series of pistols. Interestingly enough, Steyr is also going after other manufacturers who use similar modular trigger housing as they had previously filed a patent infringement case against Beretta in 2015 for the serialized chassis platform found on the Beretta Pico, and are believed to be amending that filing to include the new Beretta APX model in the near future as it also uses a similar modular trigger chassis like the Pico series.
Commentary – As the P250 has been on the market since 2007 and the P320 since 2014, the question to be asked is why would Steyr wait until now to file this case? As mentioned in the attributed article (and I’m inclined to strongly agree as well), the filing is most likely tied to the $580M US Army handgun contract that was recently awarded to Sig for the P320/M17. Along those same lines, Glock has pending protest against the P320/M17 award that was filed with the US government, which has yet to be decided. Keep in mind that not only does having military adoption equal substantial revenue directly from the contract itself, but it also creates a huge trickle down effect that means higher visibility and sales within the civilian handgun market. Don’t believe that? Just ask Beretta how they fared after winning the military contract in 1984. Civilian sales of the model 92 shot through the roof over the next 5-8 years. I’m guessing that Steyr is hoping to get a piece of that pie as well in the form of a licensing agreement for each and every P320/P250 that has been and will be sold. Sig has yet to release any responses to this on-going case.
How does this affect the pending military contract for the P320/M17? Hard to say at this point but it’s going to be interesting.
#2 – New Jersey State Troopers Sue Sig Sauer
https://www.thetrace.org/2017/05/gunmaker-sig-sauer-sold-defective-guns-police/ – On 5/17, The Trace reported that Sig Sauer was being sued by the State of New Jersey (specifically the New Jersey State Troopers) for a breach of contract in the amount of 2.5 million dollars. The suit alleges that in 2014, the NJ Troopers awarded Sig the sidearm contract to supply the State Troopers with more than 3,000 P229 pistols in 9mm. The suit also indicates that right after the pistols were deployed, Troopers began experiencing situations where the pistols “sporadically exhibited a failure to extract,” or an FTE in layman’s terms which potentially puts the Troopers in danger as “An FTE malfunction renders a gun unfit for police use because a Trooper may be unable to fire more than one round of ammunition in a life-threatening situation”. Subsequent follow-up revealed that the Troopers had been provided a test and evaluation Sig P229 model called the P229 Legacy, but were actually sent 3,000 models of the Sig P229 Enhanced Elite, which is very similar to the Legacy model, but allegedly uses a different extractor system. Sig replaced the Enhanced Elite units with Legacy units in October of 2015, but the FTE issues persisted. In early 2016, the NJ State Troopers recalled all the Sig P229 models deployed and replaced them with Glock 19 Gen 4 models.
On 5/21/17, Sig released the following statement to The Outdoor Wire about the pending lawsuit:
“May 21, 2017 – Sig Sauer, Inc. is aware of the lawsuit recently filed by the State of New Jersey regarding its purchase of the Sig Sauer P229 model handgun by the New Jersey State Police (NJSP).
The NJSP selected the Sig Sauer P229 handgun as its new duty weapon after conducting an in-depth review and exhaustive testing of available handguns. Sig Sauer developed a version of the P229 specific to the requirements of the NJSP, and delivered to the NJSP as scheduled in the summer of 2014.
Following delivery, the NJSP informed Sig Sauer that it was experiencing failures during qualification training with their training ammunition. Sig Sauer immediately began working with the NJSP to determine the cause of this failure and resolve the issue.
Sig Sauer’s investigation of the failure mode indicates a contributing factor may be a compatibility issue between this unique NJSP P229 and the specific training ammunition used by the NJSP. Importantly, these failures were limited to the training ammunition used by the NJSP, and the P229s functioned when using their duty ammunition.
Sig Sauer had been diligently working with New Jersey officials to resolve the issues associated with the P229 handguns it purchased. In light of these discussions, Sig Sauer was surprised that New Jersey filed a lawsuit. Sig Sauer is committed to customer satisfaction, and stands ready to continue these discussions and work with NJSP to reach an equitable solution.”
Commentary – It’s unclear as to how this will play out as the NJ Troopers have already transitioned to Glocks so that part of the contract is a done deal. That being said, my experience with Sig Sauer has been very good, even with Sig models that were released with issues (think Sig P290 first generation). The fact that Sig released a statement specifically addressing this lawsuit says that they value their reputation and will most likely try to rectify this situation before it ever gets to court.
We love to hear your thoughts, opinions, or comments on either of these situations so feel free to leave a comment below.
Sig Sauer P229’s have also been recalled at various federal agencies for FTE and shattering firing pins. My personally issued P229 has been recalled twice already. I have so little confidence in the repairs, I have switched to a P239 which is the only other authorized weapon for my agency. I am not a Sig hater, love my P225 and my P220, however off duty I carry a Glock.
from what i can recall this was not the first problem sig sauer has had with malfunctioning guns as some years ago the mass state police had similar problems and cancelled the contract with sig.