Читать книгу The Gun Digest Book of Sig-Sauer - Massad Ayoob - Страница 7

Introduction

It was an honor to be asked to write the Gun Digest Book of SIG-Sauer handguns with which I’ve had a long and most agreeable acquaintance. My work, as a firearms and deadly force instructor and as a writer/tester for gun magazines, has brought me into contact with more of them than I can count. It brings me into contact with lots of other fine guns, too, and that’s been useful in putting the SIG pistols in context.

When it was announced at an executive meeting at SIGARMS that I’d be writing this book, one fellow blurted, “They can’t let him write it! He’s a Glock guy!”

After I stopped laughing, I realized he was partly right. I am a Glock guy. I’m also a Colt and Smith and Ruger guy, and a Beretta, Browning, and HK guy … and yes, a SIG guy too. Damn it, I’m a gun guy.

And that’s the angle from which this book comes. I was hired by Krause Publications, not SIGARMS. I’m not here to sell the guns. I’m here to tell you what we’ve learned about them. I’ve shot SIGs in matches, carried them on and off duty, taught classes with them, and kept them for home defense. But far more has been learned from the collective experience of law enforcement and military, and a vast nation of law-abiding armed citizens.

Sure, I’ve carried the SIG-Sauer from Alaska to Miami, but it’s a lot more important to know that SEAL Teams and SAS troopers have used them from Arctic cold to desert sands, and found them not wanting. One of the most popular law enforcement sidearms of modern times – probably the second most popular in the U.S. right now, outsold only by the Glock – the SIG has proven itself accurate, ergonomic, and above all, reliable and safe.

Safety

Colt’s classic 1911 pistol did not become drop-safe until the Series 80 firing pin safety, nor Browning’s High Power until the introduction of the Mark III series in the late 1980s. Smith & Wesson’s double-action autos did not get passive firing pin safeties to prevent inertia discharge until their second generation, and the Glock did not become 100 percent safe against impact discharge until 1990. The SIG-Sauers were drop-safe from the beginning. Some pistols require the trigger to be pulled on an empty chamber to begin the disassembly process, which has led to the occasional negligent discharge with a missile in the launch tube, but SIG-Sauer disassembly requires that the slide be locked open before takedown can even begin.

For many in law enforcement and the military, the long, heavy pull of a double-action trigger to fire the first shot is seen as a bulwark against accidental discharge. It is easy enough to shrug and say, “Just keep your finger out of the trigger guard until you’re going to shoot,” but that’s too pat an answer. Take a walk through a video store and look at how many of the video and DVD jackets portray someone holding a gun…and notice how many depict the actor with his finger on the trigger. This sort of subliminal conditioning, along with a childhood of playing with toy guns, has left many people with a finger-on-the-trigger habit that takes a lot of time to train away. A firm resistance to an unintended pull is some degree of a safety net, and the SIG-Sauers have that.

I can think of three good-sized police departments who won’t buy or authorize SIG-Sauers because these pistols do not have thumb safeties. Those three agencies require all personnel to carry their pistols on-safe. The SIG design parameter from the beginning was for these to be point-and-shoot pistols, simple to learn and simple to operate. It was felt that with a drop-safe gun, a manual safety was redundant, and not in keeping with the principle later heard at SIGARMS Academy, “Simple Is Good.” Although a few P226s with magazine disconnector safeties were made up per government requests – one from a U.S. agency, one from a foreign buyer – the SIG-Sauer has always been “an automatic that you shoot like a revolver.”

Reliability

There will be comments from knowledgeable sources in this book about the final duel between SIG and Beretta for the U.S. military contract in the 1980s. It should not be taken as Beretta-bashing. After all, Beretta won. The final tests showed them neck and neck for reliability at virtually faultless levels. In 9mm service pistols, the comparison between the SIG P226 and the Beretta 92 is much like a comparison of the BMW and the Audi automobiles. In each case, both machines operate at the highest level of reliability and performance. Little things will dictate the choice. If you prefer to carry your pistol on-safe, you want a Beretta 92F. If you prefer to carry off-safe, you probably want a SIG P226, because it can’t be found unexpectedly on-safe at the worst possible time. While Beretta offers the decock-only G-series, I don’t find its operation nearly as ergonomic as the SIG’s.

Once you appreciate a SIG-Sauer, you won’t be satisfied with just one. Firearms instructor Steve Denney with just the three SIGs he takes on the road while teaching; cases contain spare .40 S&W and .357 SIG barrels for further versatility.

While I am one of those who likes the idea of an on-safe pistol, primarily from the handgun retention standpoint, the absence of that feature is not necessarily a deal-breaker. The selection of any firearm is going to be a balance of perceived needs with the features of the given gun. The SIG has a lot going for it, and should not be discarded from consideration because it does not have one particular feature.

Warts And All

This book will cover each of the SIG-Sauers, no holds barred. The good, the bad, and the ugly. No one has ever accused a SIG-Sauer of being a sleek or pretty gun. It’s a tool, and a heavy-duty one at that. There is the occasional ammo incompatibility with this or that model, and these will be discussed with a view toward prevention and rectification.

SIG has been good about listening to constructive criticism and responding to it positively. One model would sometimes cycle too fast and fail to pick up the next round when loaded with +P+ ammo. That model is no longer imported. Another came with magazines that could jam during a slide-lock reload when wide-mouth hollow-points were used. Those magazines are no longer furnished with SIGARMS pistols.

SIG-Sauer evolves the product as they find better ways to build guns. Left, an early P226 with separate breechface block, internal extractor, hollow pins. Right, current P226 with accessory rail, milled steel slide, solid pins, heavy-duty modern extractor.

Note that you can see daylight through the hollow slide pin of this older SIG. Current production uses stronger solid pins.

It’s a stretch to call the SIG-Sauer “southpaw-unfriendly,” and this book explains the left-handed manual of arms for this pistol.

One model was known to occasionally suffer frame cracks when fired extensively with hot loads. It was beefed up and the problem was solved. The hollow slide pins on the P226 used to start to work their way out in the course of long shooting sessions – I remember pounding them back in place with a plastic Kubotan – but SIG replaced them with solid pins in the mid-1990s and cured the problem. SIG grips screws had an irritating habit of loosening up in the course of intensive firearms training…and damn it, they still do.

In their first incarnations, the P220 American and the P226 had magazine release springs sufficiently light as to be occasionally culpable in unintended dropping of magazines. For years, I advised students to replace them with aftermarket springs offered for the purpose by Trapper Gun in Michigan, and did so with my own. SIG fixed that problem quietly in the mid-1990s.

Some criticisms levied against the SIG-Sauer are simply unfounded. A good example is the allegation that they are not southpaw-friendly. I think we can prove in this book that it’s no trick at all for a left-handed shooter to manipulate the SIG-Sauer swiftly, positively, and effectively. Some make a big deal out of transitioning from a double-action first shot to single-action follow-ups. It’s easy, and this book will show you how to do it. It’s all a matter of knowing the correct techniques.

Have It Your Way

Europeans as a group can sometimes be arrogant about what they choose to sell to Americans, vis-à-vis what those Americans ask them for. The people at SIG and Sauer have listened to the Yanks better than most. Those of us who’ve watched the SIG-Sauer pistols evolve over the years see this in a number of ways. Nowhere is it more graphic than in the development of no fewer than three significantly different trigger systems.

The standard SIG duty pistol is a traditional double-action (TDA), the first shot requiring a long, relatively heavy pull of the trigger. Subsequent shots offer a short, light trigger pull as the pistol cocks itself with each cycle. This is the overwhelming preference of military and civilian purchasers. It has also proven to be the most popular among police, though by a lesser margin.

Three SIG P226s. Top, early production with internal extractor, folded chrome molybdenum slide. Center, current production, milled and blackened stainless slide, traditional configuration. Below, current production with integral accessory rail.

ATF, FBI, DEA, IRS, Secret Service, Air Marshals, U.S. Marshals, and others have acquired SIGs by the thousands, and to the best of my knowledge all or virtually all have been TDA. Back around 1990, Supervisory Special Agent John Hall – then head of the FBI’s elite Firearms Training Unit, and the man most responsible for bringing semiautomatics to rank and file Bureau agents – explained to me his rationale for favoring the TDA firing system. Recognizing that the main reason for double-action in a service auto is to reduce the likelihood of accidental discharges, he said, “The great majority of accidental discharges occur with the first round. When it comes time to fire a second shot, the agent is in a gunfight, and I want that shot to be as easy as possible to put in the right place.” Frankly, I find it hard to refute that argument, and all the SIGs I personally choose to carry are in the TDA format.

SIGs are designed to function – and to interface with the human hand –in the nastiest weather. The author has just come in from firing a60-shot qualification course in freezing rain, but the target score is a perfect 300. Ergonomics of the P226 were critical to success; Blackhawk combat shooting gloves helped too.

Next came DAO, the double-action-only trigger system. Where TDA is self-cocking during fire, the DAO is self-decocking.For decades before autoloaders replaced revolvers in the holsters of most American cops, police departments of New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, and others rendered their sixguns double-action-only. They had discovered that the hair trigger effect of a cocked gun could precipitate an accidental discharge, and that even the presence of single-action capability could bring a false accusation that an officer had cocked a gun and set the stage for a negligent shooting. The double-action-only concept was soon applied to autos.

Thoughtful accessorizing enhances the pistol’s abilities to perform its missions. This P226 “rail gun” mounts InSight flashlight, pre-ban 20-round magazine, SIGlite night sights.

“The insurmountable challenge of switching from double-action to single” is BS, says author, who shows you the proper techniques in this book. This is the result of two strings from a SIG .45, draw and fire twice (one DA, one SA) at 3yards in three seconds.

When properly sized to the hand, the SIG is an excellent choice for males and females alike.

The DAO SIG was pretty much the standard gun without a single-action mechanism. The stroke was full length and the same weight as the first shot on a TDA gun. Many officers found it tiresome, and few civilians wanted anything to do with it. Beretta’s DAO, their D-series, had a lighter trigger pull thanks to the elimination of a single-action sear in its mechanism, and Smith & Wesson designed a new action entirely for this market with a shorter, lighter double-action stroke.

Several departments chose the SIG version. One example was the Ohio State Patrol, which adopted the P226DAO in caliber .40 S&W. The nation’s two largest municipal police departments also went DAO. On both agencies, officers purchase their own guns off an approved list, and in both cases the SIG made the list. NYPD authorizes three DAO 9mms, and the P226DAO immediately became the “prestige gun” on that force. SIG has even produced what might be called an “NYPD Special,” a P226DAO produced to the exacting demands of the end users in the Big Apple. Chicago PD authorizes 9mm or .45, and both the P226DAO and the P220DAO are very well represented there.

Petite Nancy Crenshaw has just easily qualified at double speed. Her pistol? A SIG-Sauer P239 “subcompact.”

The third variation is the DAK, which stands for “double-action, Kellerman.” Explains Joe Kiesel, Technical Director at SIGARMS, “Harold Kellerman is in charge of engineering on all the Classic pistols at Sauer, and he was the one who supervised development of the new design. As the slide comes forward, the hammer comes to rest in a slightly pre-cocked position. The trigger pull is a very comfortable 6.6 to 7 pounds. If the shooter should fail to return the trigger all the way forward under extreme stress, he will still be able to fire, although the pull will now be about 8.5 pounds. In dry fire, or if he has a bad primer, the hammer will go all the way forward. The shooter will have a second-strike capability as in our TDA and DAO guns, but the pull will be heavier, again about 8.5 pounds.”

The DAK version of the SIG fires the same ammo, fits the same holster as a TDA or DAO variation of the same model.

DAK is a new type of “self-decocking” mechanism and cannot be retrofitted into earlier SIGs.

This has proven to be a much more “shooter-friendly” trigger than SIG’s traditional DAO, and I predict that before long it will replace the latter. The new trigger cannot be fitted into older guns, and we’re already seeing departments trading up to it. The New Hampshire Department of Fish & Game many years ago replaced their .357 Combat Magnum revolvers with SIG P229 DAO .40s, and reportedly will be replacing them with P229s in the DAK configuration and chambered for .357 SIG. Numerous other departments are looking at them. Says Kiesel, “The Rhode Island State Police have just accepted delivery of their first shipment of P226 .357 SIGs, with the ‘rail gun’ (flashlight mounting) frame and DAK triggers.”

Dana Owen with a prototype P229 DAK. The new gun is drawing enthusiastic interest from law enforcement.

The author tested this DAK prototype P229 .40 when it was so new that a P228 left grip panel had to be fitted to allow for its new mechanism.

This is the P229 DAK. Note the rounded hammer spur and absence of decocking lever behind trigger guard.

The DAO is visibly distinguishable from the TDA only in that it has an empty space on the frame where the traditional gun would have a decocking lever. The DAK gun also comes sans decock lever, and in addition can be identified by a smaller, more rounded hammer configuration. When the hammer is all the way forward, as in dry fire, it disappears within the silhouette of the pistol.

Noted gun expert Walt Rauch, not usually a fan of conventional DAO semiautomatics, has had good things to say about the DAK. So, I expect, will Chuck Karwan, the gun-wise author of the third edition of the “Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery”; Chuck hated the conventional SIG DAO trigger mechanism. Tactical firearms expert John Farnam absolutely raves about the DAK, and considers it a most valuable option. On all SIG-Sauers, no matter what the trigger mechanism, the takedown lever and slide release lever are all in the same place, except for the .380s, which do not have slide lock levers.

The SIG remains extremely popular with the police establishment. I’ve worked on the range with SIG-carrying cops from Australia, Belgium, Canada (where RCMP SWAT was the first to get them), Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, and of course Switzerland, as well as the USA. When one department adopts these guns and has tremendous success with them, you see the brand spread in the region. Around the Dallas area, you see more SIGs on cops’ hips than anything else. The SIG-Sauer is the predominant sidearm I see cops wearing when in Virginia. Indeed, whole regions are dominated by SIGs. Four of the six New England states issue them to their state police. Rhode Island, as noted, has adopted the P226 .357; Vermont and Connecticut issue the P229 .40; and troopers in Massachusetts wear the .40 S&W caliber P226. The other two states carry .45s of different brands – the S&W 4566 in New Hampshire, the HK USP in Maine – but at least one of those states is strongly examining the SIG P220 .45 for adoption at this writing.

SIG-Sauers deliver two ingredients of Jeff Cooper’s defensive handgun recipe: Accuracy…

… and Power. Speed is up to you.

The first-generation SIG P226 was, for some time, the nation’s most popular police service pistol.

Continuing SIG-Sauer evolution. The breechblock is fitted into the stamped slide of this early P226…

… and milled from a solid block of stainless steel which was then blackened in this later version of same pistol.

SIG-Sauers have commonality of operating controls. Behind the trigger guard: magazine release. Above the trigger guard: takedown lever. At top of left grip panel, slide lock lever (not present on P230 and P232 models). Above and behind trigger: decocking lever (TDA models only).

A Very Brief History

This particular book was never conceptualized as a history of SIG, the SIG-Sauer collaboration, or SIGARMS. It’s a user’s guide, not a collector’s reference. Schweizerische Industrie Gesselschaft (meaning, literally, “Swiss Industrial Company”) of Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Switzerland built a long and honorable history as one of the world’s most respected arms makers. Their first, classic pistol, in production for more than half a century, is the beautifully crafted and famously accurate P210. Though the SIGs have a Teutonic aura today due to the Sauer influence, there’s also a Gallic thread in its history. A key element of the P210 is a slide that runs inside rather than outside the frame rails, and SIG licensed the patent for this, originally granted to Charles Gabriel Petter of France’s Societe Alsacienne de Construction Mechaniques for the 7.65 mm French service pistol of 1935. The P210 is often called the “SIG-Neuhausen” by American shooters. (Yanks tend to pronounce it “New-howzen,” but those who’ve been there say “Noy-hawzen.”) SIG began arms making in 1860, producing muzzle-loaders, and around 1865 perfected a breech-loading military rifle. It was SIG that manufactured the bolt-action Vetterli rifle, which changed the face of military small arms in 1869; before WWI, SIG was building the Mondragon automatic rifle for international military contracts. The P210, which was born in 1947, was actually SIG’s first handgun.

Left, heavy-duty sheet metal stamping was the method of production for this early P226 slide; the slide on the new production pistol at right is machined from a solid block of steel.

These were the first P226 grips. Checkered plastic was well liked by shooters and considered good looking. However…

… SIGARMS felt that these stippled grips gave better grasping security, and they’ve been standard on the Classic models ever since…

… and these extremely ergonomic, non-slip, and adjustable stocks are a keynote feature of the ultra-modern sig pro line.

J. P. Sauer & Sohn (not “Sauer & Son,” as commonly misquoted in the U.S. gun press) is located in Eckenfoerde in what at the time of their link-up with SIG was known as West Germany. They had produced modern, high-quality pistols before WWII. Sauer stood ready in the early 1970s when SIG approached them with a design for a highly reliable, modern service pistol which could be cheaply mass-produced but whose reliance on sheet metal stampings would be antithetical to the “Swiss watch of the pistol world” image that had been so carefully cultivated for the P210. The SIG-Sauer collaboration was born.

SIG absorbed the famous precision gun manufacturer Hammerli in 1971, and annexed J. P. Sauer in 1974. The SIG-Sauer concept was now locked in place.

In turn, SIG-Sauer begat SIGARMS as an American branch for sales and, ultimately, manufacturing. Much assembly is now done at the SIGARMS plant in Exeter, New Hampshire, and slides and frames for the P226 and P229 pistols are now manufactured there. (That had been true of the P239 as well, and may be again, but at this writing SIGARMS tells me that they are so overwhelmed with production demand for the 226 and 229 that the P239 components are currently being produced by Sauer.) Hammerli, famous for the accuracy of their precision target pistols, produces the barrels. This is doubtless one reason why the SIG-Sauer guns are so accurate. By the 21st Century, the Mauser trademark, the exciting Blaser rifle, and assorted shotguns had also come into the SIG family.

As the years went on, the European Community concept encroached more and more around and even in what some consider the last truly free country on the Continent, Switzerland. There were those among the decision makers at SIG who felt that the future did not bode well for either the political correctness or the profitability of the gun industry, which was only a part of SIG’s business. Enter Michael Lueke (pronounced Loo-Kay) and Thomas Ortmeier, German entrepreneurs who had become wealthy in the textile business, establishing the flourishing European firm TWE Technische Weberei GmbH & Co. Rifle enthusiasts and hunters, they at first wanted to purchase the rights to the ingenious Blaser hunting rifle. They ended up with a package deal, purchasing SIGARMS, Blaser, Hammerli, Mauser, Sauer, and the SIG assault rifle line. Those assault rifles are, in my opinion, quite possibly the finest in the world. It is Lueke and Ortmeier who are steering the SIG-Sauer pistols through their second quarter-century of triumphant performance.

From The Author’s Perspective

If we’re going to show the subject warts and all, we should do the same with the author. I’ve been shooting handguns for about 45 years at this writing, and SIG-Sauers, since they came out in the U.S. I’ve carried the P226 9mm and P220 .45 in uniform, and those and others as a plainclothes officer and off-duty armed citizen. I’ve taught the use of the SIG on four continents (including the nation of Switzerland). The very first Lethal Force Institute class I taught included one, a Browning BDA .45 in the hands of a capable student of the gun named Shelley Ivey, and the SIG has been a constant presence among the student body ever since.

I’ve shot matches with them, legally carried them concealed in the four corners of the United States and in between, and monitored their large-scale use in more police departments than I can remember. I’ve taught shooting classes, and taken them, with the SIG-Sauer. I’ve come to respect these pistols. The first fully automatic firearm my younger daughter ever fired was a Sturmgewehr 90, the splendid Swiss assault rifle produced by SIG, when she accompanied me to Switzerland at the age of 11 while I was teaching there for the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors. When I was gone on long trips, the pistol my gun-savvy wife of 30 years chose to keep at her bedside was my SIG P226 DAO with an extended magazine loaded with 20 rounds of 9mm +P+. You could say that I have a lot of positive memories of SIG-Sauers.

This book focuses on the development, selection, and safe and effective use of the SIG-Sauer pistols. There will be only brief attention paid to the other SIG handguns: the legendary SIG-Neuhausen P210, the sweet little Hammerli Trailside .22 which is so particularly well suited to smaller sport shooters, and the latest, the well-conceived and executed SIGARMS GSR 1911. The Mauser M2, which has been marketed by SIG, is left out entirely. Despite its excellent accuracy potential, its poor human engineering, second-rate workmanship, lack of reliability, and minimal projected service life don’t make it fit to appear in the pages of book concerning SIGARMS. I don’t have any say what goes into the SIGARMS catalog, but I do have a say on what goes into this book, which is why we’ll focus on the proven and enduring excellence of the true SIG-Sauer pistols.

Massad Ayoob

Concord, NH, U.S.A.

November, 2003

Ayoob testfiring SIG-Sauers.