A U.S. airman in Wyoming died last week after an incident involving an M18 pistol, the military version of the P320 handgun, a weapon long infamous among gun nerds. The incident, and other incidents where the M18 and the civilian version of it, the P320, have fired unexpectedly, have sent gun hobbyists into investigation mode, with guntubers dismantling the gun at the center of the controversy, running it through various stress tests and firing exercises in an attempt to discover the flaw that’s given the P320 a reputation for firing on its own.
Online gun nerd drama doesn’t typically bubble up into the mainstream, but what’s happening with the P320, which is made by Sig Sauer, is extreme. In the aftermath of the death of the airman at F.E. Warren Air Force Base last week, the Air Force’s Global Strike Command ordered an indefinite pause on the use of the pistol. On July 9, well before the airman died, ICE told its agents to stop using the handgun. Police departments across the country have banned officers from carrying the weapon. An FBI report published in 2024 and leaked online recently found that it’s possible for the weapon to discharge at random.
The most digestible breakdown for a non-gun-afficianado audience is this 40-minute epic from Wyoming Gun Project. In the video, host Matt Rittman shows that the slide (the top portion of the pistol) can wobble up and down. That’s not typical in these kinds of handguns, and he speculates that the instability of the slide does something to the striker (the internal firing pin that hits the back of a bullet and launches it from the gun) can make it discharge under certain conditions.
A gun shouldn’t fire without a full pull of its trigger, but Rittman demonstrates that the combination of a tiny amount of pressure on the trigger coupled with jostling of the slide can make the gun fire at random. The amount of pressure on the trigger in the video is light enough that it could be done by a rock, a piece of grit, or some other piece of debris.
Other videos in the genre are more technical in nature. Four Peaks Tactical dismantled several firearms to show the difference between safety mechanism and firing pins, explaining in detail how it all works and suggesting that a flaw with the safety may lead to the P320 firing on its own. LFD Research took the slide off the tops of several versions of the P320 and discussed how, exactly, the gun worked and why the safety doesn’t work as it should. Mongoose Guns got granular, dismantling a P320 completely and showing each individual piece screw, spring, and bolt moving individually.
But it was the Wyoming Gun Project that captured the imagination of the firearm enthusiasts and the wider public. In his video, he makes the gun discharge in his garage just by touching it and makes a soyface over the top of the pistol, creating the perfect YouTube thumbnail that others attached to their own reaction videos of his tests. Even MoistCr1TiKaL, a gaming streamer and gun enthusiast with 17 million subscribers, made a reaction video to Wyoming’s tests.
For the past few years, one of the biggest online feuds in this world has been between fans of the Sig Sauer P320 and everyone else. Guntubers and others had attempted to suss out the exact problem with the guns for years but had come to no satisfying conclusion.
In March, Sig Sauer made a long Instagram post about how safe the gun is. “It ends today,” the Instagram post said. “The P320 cannot, under any circumstances, discharge without a trigger pull—that is a fact. The allegations against the P320 are nothing more than individuals seeking to profit or avoid personal responsibility.”
“We can no longer stay silent while lawsuits run their course, and clickbait farming, engagement hacking grifters continue their campaign to hijack the truth for profit,” the post said. “What’s happening today to Sig Sauer with the anti-gun mob and their lawfare tactics will happen tomorrow at another firearms manufacturer, and then another.” The situation is so bad that Sig has a website, P320truth.com, dedicated to debunking claims about the guns safety and providing the “truth” about the handgun.
The statement was mocked by people in the firearms community. Many of the lawsuits Sig is facing were filed on behalf of police officers, U.S. military veterans, and gun enthusiasts who claimed the gun had a design flaw that made it fire when it’s not supposed to. The overwhelming majority of the P320 video content is from guntubers trying to replicate unintentional discharges and dismantling the gun to figure out what’s going on. The P320 fires by mistake so often that there are supercuts of it happening online pulled from body cam footage and CCTV. And, of course, now Air Force’s Global Strike Command and ICE have told its people to stop using the weapon.
People discussing guns online are like any other fandom or subculture. You can track what the community cares about through memes and shitposts, a collective received forum wisdom creates heroes and villains, and fans battle over their favorites with fierce tenacity. The P320 and its manufacturer Sig are, increasingly, a villain in the community.
There are a lot of anti-Sig memes. One of the most popular is a tourniquet kit with a Sig Sauer logo on it. “Free with the purchase of any new Sig Sauer P320,” it says. In another, Power from Chainsaw Man explains how the P320 never fires unless someone is pulling the trigger, before accidentally shooting herself in the head. There’s even a popular post on 4chan right now from a guy who claims he shot himself in the leg with his P320 and is considering switching to a Glock, complete with graphic photos.
In the aftermath of the airman dying, Sig posted condolences to his family, but its response to government agencies banning the weapon has been to fight. In March, a police academy in Washington State banned the handgun. In response, Sig Sauer filed a lawsuit against the academy to get the ban lifted, saying that it had hurt the weapon’s manufacturer’s reputation.
Sig Sauer did not respond to 404 Media’s request for comment.
