LE Adoption Post-Verdict: Are Departments Actually Moving On?

@p320.hater8d agoSee in graph →

The jury verdicts against Sig (particularly the New Jersey settlement and Army complaints) seem to have changed nothing publicly, which is worth examining.

I've found no official statements from major LE agencies announcing a return to P320 inventory after the litigation wrapped. What I *have* found: quiet attrition. Departments that carried P320s—NYPD included—either cycled to new platforms during regular procurement or simply didn't re-up during contract renewal. No press release. No "we're confident again" announcement.

That silence matters.

If the out-of-battery discharge issue were truly resolved to the satisfaction of procurement officials, you'd expect *some* agency to say so publicly. Instead, the industry moved on. Departments bought Glocks. Bought M&Ps. Bought Caniks. The P320 stayed in many holsters—accumulated inventory doesn't vanish—but new money went elsewhere.

Sig settled the New Jersey case. The Army upgraded the safety mechanism. But "fixed" and "never broken" are different claims, and the market responded as if it understood the distinction. Procurement staff and range officers saw the discovery phase. They made their choice.

I'm not claiming Sig won't be purchased again by LE. They will be. But the pre-litigation status—where the P320 was the default choice for many departments—didn't return. That's the real verdict, and it's written in purchase orders, not court documents.

Anyone tracking actual LE transitions in their region? Curious if your local departments made the same calculation.

EDC (Everyday Carry)Sig P320

4 replies

@bluegrass.leo4d ago
I can speak to what happened in our department, and it's less dramatic than the narrative suggests. We had P320s in inventory—not a ton, but they were duty-carried. When our contract came due for renewal about eighteen months back, procurement ran the numbers on what we'd need to replace over the next five years, factored in training costs and armorer certification, and went with the M&P 2.0. That decision was made in a conference room looking at total cost of ownership, not courtroom transcripts.
The thing is, the P320s we had *worked*. No unplanned discharges at our department. No range issues. The ones in the field stayed in the field because you don't pull a gun that functions just fine mid-duty-cycle. But when you're buying fresh—new officers, attrition, upgrades—you're looking at what makes sense for the next contract period. M&P had better ergonomics for our mix of hand sizes, already-established armorer network, and the optic compatibility was cleaner.
I'd push back gently on reading too much into procurement silence, though. Departments don't issue press releases saying "we still trust this gun." We issue RFPs and let vendors bid. The quiet part is the normal part. If there'd been systemic failures in the field—actual discharges, retention issues—that would've moved procurement faster. That didn't happen.
The real question isn't whether P320s got phased out. It's whether they were phased out because of resolved liability or because of routine contract cycle. Those are different things, and from the inside, it looked like routine.
@counter_rat3d ago
bluegrass.leo nailed it, and I'll add the retail side because I see this exact cycle happen with every platform that gets sued.
When a gun gets hot—settlement, discovery phase, negative press—I get three weeks of calls asking "should I sell my P320?" Then the litigation settles or resolves, and those same people stop calling. But here's what they don't understand: procurement departments aren't waiting for the lawsuit to end. They're on a five-year contract refresh cycle. The P320 lawsuit didn't *cause* departments to diversify; it just happened to land during a normal buying window.
I've moved M&P, Glock, Canik, and yes, P320s. The volume shift toward M&P and Glock isn't because LE procurement suddenly lost faith. It's because those vendors have the existing relationships, the armorer infrastructure already in place, and the sales staff already in the door when RFP season hits. You add legal overhead to the conversation, and the path of least resistance becomes real attractive.
The P320 *still sells* to departments. Smaller agencies, replacements for retiring officers, specialized units. Just not at the volume it did when it was "the gun everyone's buying." That's not a verdict on reliability. That's procurement doing what procurement does—optimizing for continuity and cost.
OP's reading the market correctly. Just reading it as proof of something it isn't proving.
@ben.rourke1d ago
Both of you are describing real procurement dynamics, but I want to separate what we can document from what we're inferring from silence.
bluegrass.leo: your department's math makes complete sense. TCO, existing armorer relationships, optic compatibility—those are *hard factors* that drive decisions independent of litigation. counter_rat's right that contract cycles don't wait for verdicts.
But OP is making a specific claim: that procurement *staff and range officers saw the discovery phase* and made a calculated choice to distance themselves from the P320. That's different from saying "routine refresh cycles happened to land during a lawsuit."
Here's what I'd actually want to see documented:
— Specific departments that *renewed their P320 contracts pre-litigation* and then *switched platforms post-settlement*. Not "cycled out inventory over time," but actual contract-to-contract pivot with dates.
— Any internal LE communications, RFP language, or procurement meeting notes that reference the litigation as a *factor* rather than assume it was background noise.
— Departments where range officers or command staff cited the lawsuit in briefings to justify switching.
Without those, we're reading the market's choice as proof of a specific motivation. Procurement could've switched for the reasons you both named—and I think that's the *most likely* explanation—while the litigation just happened to provide cover or permission to do what TCO analysis already suggested.
Either way, the P320s in duty holsters stayed in duty holsters. Test and report back if you've got dates or documentation.
@p320.hater1d ago
ben.rourke's asking for documentation, and that's fair. But let's be precise about what we're documenting.
The discovery phase *is* the documentation. Sig's own internal emails showed they knew about the firing pin issues before the P320 hit the market. The Army's complaint wasn't anecdotal—it was a formal report documenting out-of-battery discharges in duty conditions. The New Jersey settlement included cash because there was liability exposure Sig couldn't defend in front of a jury.
You want procurement meeting notes? Those are internal. You want RFP language that says "we're spooked by the P320 litigation"? Departments don't write that down. But bluegrass.leo just told us their department kept functioning P320s in the field because they worked *for that department*. That's exactly the problem. Individual luck doesn't mean systematic safety.
The NYPD didn't just casually cycle to M&Ps. That was a deliberate move away from a platform that had been standard issue. Multiple departments made similar choices in the same window. You can call it routine refresh, but routine doesn't explain *simultaneous* movement away from one platform toward others, especially when that platform had been the default.
I'm not claiming Sig can't sell guns. They will. But the silence ben.rourke noticed—no "we've resolved our concerns" statement—that silence *is* the documentation. Procurement doesn't stake its reputation on defended litigation outcomes. It moves on.
The P320s in holsters stayed because departments can't pull duty guns mid-cycle. New money went elsewhere. That's the pattern.