P320 SHORTCUTS - ACCIDENTAL SAFETY BY-PASS TESTING METHOD

This Sig Mechanics Shortcuts video demonstrates a method of testing to see if you've accidentally bypassed the internal striker safety of your P320 - especially after installing new modifications or upgrades.
DISCLAIMER: "Sig Mechanics Shortcuts" are fast paced, straight-to-the-point videos on various topics. They forgo the detailed explanations of standard Sig Mechanics videos. Viewers are advised that tampering with or manipulating their firearm in any way without knowledge of what they are doing could result in malfunctions, injury and possibly death. It is strongly advised that you seek a qualified professional to either do the work for you or provide you with an extra level of guidance as you proceed. Always unload and verify your firearm is unloaded.

[@MrHav1k]

I think it's imperative every gun owner understand how their firearm operates. Especially for these striker fired handguns. Kudos to you sir.

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@TheHvk, Agreed! That's basically what this channel was founded on. Thanks for watching!

[@02BLACKTAWS6]

This is the most underrated channel on KZbin. Thank you!!!

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@BREWINZ. Thank you for watching! I appreciate you saying that, I really do like working on this channel, lots of great friendships have come from it so it’s win-win all around!

[@Phildaexperience]

@@SIGMECHANICS is it normal for the safety to disengage after a small slide movement. I have been doing dry fire practice and take very little pull back to re-engage the trigger. This is not normal on the p365 or my XD-9.

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@Filmoe150, it sounds like you might not be racking the slide back sufficiently to engage the striker on the primary sear ledge, you might be catching the second “back up” ledge of your only slightly racking. The striker will still spring, but not at full force.

[@Phildaexperience]

@@SIGMECHANICS thanks that makes since.

[@SkipsGunz]

Another awesome well thought out video learning everyday

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@Skips Gunz, I’m glad you enjoyed it because this one’s dedicated to you! I always like it when great questions lead to helpful information for the rest of the community.

[@hopewilliams6705]

@@SIGMECHANICS ha of course skip asked the question lol another great mind doing awesome things!!!

[@eugeneasher3788]

Another awesome video explaining and demonstrating exactly how the striker works for the P320, and again I have learned something new and for that I thank you very much 👍🔫

[@SIGMECHANICS]

Thank you Eugene Asher. Nothing beats learning something new and useful about your guns! Glad to have you here! Thanks for watching!

[@deucedeuce1572]

Great test. Have seen a few different methods, but not these.

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@Deuce Deuce. Cool! Can you reference me any other methods you’ve found? I’d like to see what others are doing.

[@wvultra]

Another excellent video providing solid information on the importance of checking and maintaining the safety systems. Very important for those that enjoy personalizing/modifying their firearms for enhanced performance! Thank you for proving this exceptional service!

[@SIGMECHANICS]

Hey @Ben Beverly! It really is important to continually know the status of your pistol. I think this particular video is important because so many people I’ve talked to asked me this very question. So it must be something people run into a lot.

[@hopewilliams6705]

Amazing tips and information!!! Thank you!!!!

[@SIGMECHANICS]

Hey @Hope Williams! Good to see you again. Thank you for watching!

[@pew_stuff]

Such a great video! I did something similar to test if the pretravel adjustment on my AC trigger disabled the striker safety.

[@cdutch513]

Thank you for this! After the P320 firing by itself scare, I found your videos. After learning that pulling the trigger disengages the striker safety, I worried about my AC adjustable trigger. Now I know why they recommend 0.07" of travel left in the trigger. I will be checking this ASAP.

[@SIGMECHANICS]

It’s going to be REALLY difficult to know when you’ve hit .007”, unless you have a tool like I do in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qaCWk2uAja93osk, you’d be hard pressed to be able to tune with that kind of accuracy. I will mention that improper tuning WILL at least partially disengage some safety… video on that will come soon.

[@cdutch513]

@@SIGMECHANICS not .007, just .07. I think that’s what it called for in the manual. Maybe it was 7mm. I can’t remember exactly, but they did mention making sure you still have some travel. My educated guess based on your videos is to ensure that the striker safety is not disengaged accidentally

[@ryanburbridge]

Right on!!! Been checking in on you to see what’s new…

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@ryanburbridge, Thanks! I've been working on some new stuff as well as making some new relationships, so I lagged a bit on video production, but I'm definitely still here and definitely still going! Thanks for checking in!

[@ryanburbridge]

@@SIGMECHANICS glad to hear just picked up my Wilson combat carry grip. Thinking of getting the one notch shoerter version. Feels great in the hand. Waiting for other parts

[@NotMyRealNick]

As always, great information.

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@Brnz. Thanks!

[@GHOSTWARRIOR117]

Great work love the vid

[@SIGMECHANICS]

Hey @GHOSTWARRIOR117, thank you for watching! I’m glad to see these videos are getting such great reception!

[@rpf23543]

Very great guide, thanks a lot!

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@ Jeff Vinter. Glad it was helpful!

[@LL-fi4rr]

Great video! You seem to have the P320 system down very well. Any chance we could see comparison videos in the future? One theory I'd love to see tested is the famed "half-cocked" striker theory in Glock's Safe Action. You may be familiar with that already. Personally, I don't buy the theory, but it seems easy to test by removing the firing pin safety, and releasing the cruciform/striker lug from the ready to fire position, seeing if a primed cartridge case would pop. Somehow this theory has been going on for decades, and now it's regarded as fact by many, despite Glock never substantiating it. It'd be nice to see someone with your camera, and communication skills put this to the test once and for all.

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@Rhino, thank you. I just might do a comparison video, I get the request pretty often where people want to know how it operates against a Glock.

[@troyfortsch4440]

These are great !

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@Troy Forsch, thank you!

[@jonathanpforr3844]

Brilliant

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@Jonathan Pforr, thanks!

[@Cantdr55]

Hello. First, thank you very much for all your videos. It made understanding all of the components and mechanics of the FCU and the entire gun easy to follow along. I have a question for you, though, out of pure paranoia, with all the talk of guns going off by themselves. All of the safety features throughout the entire system make complete sense. With this video here I tried to check my striker safety to make sure it was working. I Followed along the exact instructions. After the initial trigger pull and releasing the striker. I tried part two: of pressing the striker back in and hearing the click. I couldn’t always get the click, I’d then press down on the back of the striker and release it with trigger while holding it down with a punch. If I pushed the whole striker assembly, sometimes I would see the firing pin come through the breach face. Other times id get it to hold and have to pull trigger while holding striker with punch as you did in video and it would release. As I understand the click I’m trying to hear is the strikers safety arm getting back into position? Now I was wondering if the strikers safety was not engaging. Spent an hour fooling around with the one in the gun and a brand new one. Sort of the same thing, I couldn’t get the click to happened the way you showed it in the video. I guess I’m trying to ask is alternatively, I took the slide off the gun put the striker back in fully installed and pulled back on the hook of the striker and every single time the strikers safety arm did click back in. If I pushed it with my finger nail ( as the FCU would) it would release and you could push the entire striker forward and it would appear through the breach face. Grab the hook and pull it back, and it would then click again every time. That’s what it should be doing as you had shown in the video with it installed on the FCU and in the grip handle? I’m just wondering without the back plate and me pushing it in with a punch I just wasn’t getting it to operate the way it does full assembled. As far as I can tell with my knowledge of this gun, everything is in proper working order. I can rack the slide, pull the trigger,gun goes click, keep the trigger pressed, rack the slide and ease off the trigger and you can hear the reset click. Thanks again for all your advice.

[@SIGMECHANICS]

If I’m understanding you correctly, it sounds like the system is working as intended. If you’re not getting a click, you may not be holding the striker housing in deep enough to compress the main spring. Other than that it sounds like you’re good to go.

[@Cantdr55]

@@SIGMECHANICS Thanks for quick response. Yes I may not of pushed housing in far enough, but just making sure I understand, the click I'm looking for IS supposed to be the striker lever resetting?

[@SIGMECHANICS]

It’s the noise of the lock lever “tab” dropping in front of the ledge on the lateral shelf of the striker (I hope that makes sense). For this to work, the lock lever spring mush be installed and functional.

[@Natural_XBL]

At 2:30 you mentioned a chance of the safety being disengaged without a trigger pull. What causes that issue? Would normal shooting use wear out one of the safeties?

[@SIGMECHANICS]

No, they won’t. That would indicate that the safety is already gone, which would mean the trigger was pulled far enough to remove that safety, in the case of a adjustable trigger this would be more plausible. (I’m coming out with a video about that very soon so keep an eye out for it!)

[@Natural_XBL]

@@SIGMECHANICS thanks man! I’m sure most people searched for this video due to all the recent NDs (Montville). I’ll keep an eye out for it!

[@ryanburbridge]

Well done. Love all the not so common checks. Did you polish that FCU? Thing sparkles

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@ryanburbridge, I did polish it, I wanted to make a video as a “how to” for all the people asking me about it, but a few other new (big) things came up. So it’s still going to happen (just a little later). Glad you like the videos. Stay tuned!

[@02BLACKTAWS6]

@@SIGMECHANICS I won't lie. I'm waiting for that, too! 👍

[@johnjohnson7397]

Looks like striker reset spring is not pushing back the striker during the test on a half striped gun. So I can only do the test once and if I press of a striker housing with my thumb there is no click, it is just sticking out of the back.

[@johnjohnson7397]

No striker spring. Just checked rolling your other video. Thanks for those vids. 👍

[@SIGMECHANICS]

@John Johnson, glad it worked out! Let me know if you need any help. Thanks for watching!

[@slowslowslowrobot]

At :43 I think the striker should return when you let get of it. The firing pin remains protruding from the breach face. Is your striker reset spring is broken or missing?

[@SIGMECHANICS]

For that part of the video I removed the spring in order to show function of the lock tab. I should note however, that the recent spring was recently discontinued by Sig. They no longer include it in the newer firearms (hot or miss, some new guns still have the spring for some reason and others don’t). Therefore, even if it was not there, it has been proven to not require the reset spring for correct operation since the slide generally will re-position the striker when it retracts.

[@slowslowslowrobot]

@@SIGMECHANICS ah I totally you missed you have a whole video on that spring! Unrelated topic, I'd love to see your trigger measurement data for a couple of the more popular triggers, but also installing the other parts from their kits. I.e., the greyguns kit and the TSA kits are the ones I'm personally interested in. Do you have any plans for something like that? Thanks for the great videos.

[@SIGMECHANICS]

I absolutely do plan on it. I just finished up another project and my workshop was under construction for a while but I’ll be back soon.

[@thecadillacoftokyo8788]

So what do you do if your internal safety is compromised?

[@SIGMECHANICS]

Revert back to stock. It’s really the only way to be sure you’ve maintained all the safety. Although. It would be hard to both remove ALL safety and still use the P320, I’m working on a video that will touch on that point, coming out soon.

[@thecadillacoftokyo8788]

⁠okay does this video work for all p320 or just the full size? I have the compact. When I push in the spring at 1:55 it doesn’t click. I bought the p320 compact with a flat trigger is that normal?

[@SIGMECHANICS]

Make sure the striker is resting on the rearmost shelf/ledge of the sear. That is what will give it the resistance you need to “reset” the striker. Yes, this applies to ALL P320s regardless of size or configuration.

[@thecadillacoftokyo8788]

@@SIGMECHANICS when I put the striker on the ledge closest to the backplate it doesn’t click

[@SIGMECHANICS]

Double check that you haven’t lost the spring that holds down the lock lever.