What dates are 'pre-cohen' for Sigs?

[jeep45238]

I have a w. German P226 that I know is pre-Cohen that I truly enjoy. While on the hunt for second, I realized that when it comes to the stainless slides people have a preference for pre-cohen for better chances at getting a good one; but rarely do people define what that date is on here. I hear folks reference 2004 and 2005 for the beginning of Sig QC decline; so which is it?

The stainless short extractor one I found comes with 6 mags and has a serial number of U634XXX - I think that puts it in 1999-2000 manufacture and should be good to go.


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[LSP552]

I have a w. German P226 that I know is pre-Cohen that I truly enjoy. While on the hunt for second, I realized that when it comes to the stainless slides people have a preference for pre-cohen for better chances at getting a good one; but rarely do people define what that date is on here. I hear folks reference 2004 and 2005 for the beginning of Sig QC decline; so which is it?

The stainless short extractor one I found comes with 6 mags and has a serial number of U634XXX - I think that puts it in 1999-2000 manufacture and should be good to go.


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I've seen good and bad examples of SIGs (and just about everything else) since they started comin to the US. It was a folden slide gun that drove me to Glocks after continuing issues and failure of SIG to do anything except want to charge me for a replacement slide or breach block, even though the gun was purchased new through a LE distributor in the early 90s. I carry either a 239 or 226R everyday, the 226 from 2007 and the 239 made in 2012.

I've heard people use the 2006-2012 time frame for problem guns, but the most perfect SIG I own is from 2007. Me personally, I'd buy a new one for the lifetime warranty and not worry about it. If looking for a used gun specifically, I'd advoid the folded slide guns if you plan on running them hard. A non-rail stainless slide 226 would be nice, and I'd hop on that if I saw a deal.

[jeep45238]

That's what I found, just trying to hedge the odds a bit.


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[Flintsky]

As LSP552 has said, guns produced from around 2005-2012 were considered the "Cohen Era" problem guns. We bought 2 lots of P232s and P229s for officers in 2007 and 2011. The guns functioned okay, but the attention to detail was abysmal. Out of a total of 23 guns we sent back 3 for unacceptable issues such as poor fitting dove tails(sights were falling out), metal burrs left over from slide cuts, and one P229 that was missing a slide cut for the slide release lever. Clearly Sig did not even do a basic inspection of these guns before they left the assembly line.

My experiences really soured me to any Sig that was made after 2004......and I have stuck with 1990s Sigs for a long time. However, in the last couple of years I have been impressed with new Sig quality. The new guns are much more refined overall, and I recommend to anyone who is looking for a Sig to just buy new.

Just for clarity, I ran into a lot of problems with old school Sigs as well. The old stamped slide technology, and stainless steel slide milling process was not nearly as refined and precise as it is today. Particularly in the P226 series, I would often run into slide-to-barrel fits that were not uniform, requiring different sight heights than the standard #8/#8 to get a decent point of aim. I think I ran into more problems with 1990s stainless slide P229s and P226s not having a standardized point of aim, than the stamped slide guns though. Really, I would go new now days.

[jeep45238]

I considered new, but the price is a bit hard to swallow. Not saying it isn't worth the money, but I try to avoid being the person that buys something that depreciates in most items in life (cars, guns, bikes, dogs (let's call puppies the depreciation phase), etc).

I'm finding w german folded guns for 500-550 if you're lucky, and older stainless short extractors for 600-800. I found one great deal on a P226 and jumped on it, and am hunting for another. A stainless, railless model with 6 mags for 650 is a bit better deal than new if you ask me.

There's no denying what modern techniques/machinery can do when coupled with engineers that understand the product and improvements, and what good QC can weed out. But I think I'm another 10 years from getting one of those models.

[11B10]

I considered new, but the price is a bit hard to swallow. Not saying it isn't worth the money, but I try to avoid being the person that buys something that depreciates in most items in life (cars, guns, bikes, dogs (let's call puppies the depreciation phase), etc).

I'm finding w german folded guns for 500-550 if you're lucky, and older stainless short extractors for 600-800. I found one great deal on a P226 and jumped on it, and am hunting for another. A stainless, railless model with 6 mags for 650 is a bit better deal than new if you ask me.

There's no denying what modern techniques/machinery can do when coupled with engineers that understand the product and improvements, and what good QC can weed out. But I think I'm another 10 years from getting one of those models.


jeep, I realize this is not the model you're talking about, but - have you looked at, shot - any P320's? I've had zero issues with mine in the past year, granted a rather low (1,000) round count. The main reason I say this is they are currently priced at my FFL: $424.00 w/contrast sights, $494.95 w/SigLites. FDE models are also $494.00. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another.

[jeep45238]

I've played with them, but as I'm getting older and having more things going on in life, the more I'm appreciating simplifying other items. Spare parts, changing how simple things like a grip or trigger, magazine commonality, holsters, and reducing the variables in how I interact with them are becoming more priorities. The TDA system provides a lot of "don't kill yourself" resistance while still allowing for a great opportunity for single action triggers - sure, no 1911, but close enough for me.

As much as I appreciate the P320, I don't see it coming into my life for several years other than an alternative option to a Glock 34/VP9/P30L/FNS 9L for limited competition games and purposes. I still remember the P250, it's modular things, and how it was supposed to be the latest/greatest, and the lack of support long term, and I am hesitant that the P320 might fall down the same path. I hope that isn't the case, but I'm going to pass for the moment. Even dating back to 2012 I remember a pilot coming in to look at some HK pistols we had, and he divulged how he moved solely long to the P250 for it's modular/caliber changes for him and his wife and how they traveled constantly. The P250 was supposed to provide the most flexibility for them, but he eventually realized that even Sig had left the platform high and dry.

A local competitor that I greatly respect recently moved to the P320, and has encouraged me to give them a look. With the grip frames and some other things he pointed out they definitely seem to have a lot of things going for them. But for the time being, I'd rather put the money into supporting the hardware I have, making ammo, and hopefully taking classes from people more knowledgeable than me to work on the software side of things.

Sort of like cars for entertainment in driving - I lean towards pushrods, carbs or simple EFI, turbos or large displacements and a vetted history these days than improved chassis, specialty EFI, and variable valve trains. Simplicity in maintenance/parts/and plenty of fun, just in a different way. 500 horsepower and 400 foot pounds is easy to come across with either path, but one comes with 1500+ less weight and costs thousands less - albeit at the cost of less refinement.

[Sero Sed Serio]

I'm a bit of a SIG fanboy, and collect pre-Cohen guns in 9mm and 357 SIG when I can find them NIB/unfired (of which there are a surprising number around; Guns International is a good source). I have a P226 and a pile of P229s (all short external extractor) ranging in manufacture date from 1994 - 2014, with another NIB 06 or 07 P226 on the way in January. None of these guns have had any issues to date.

The 2014 probably has the best trigger, followed closely by the guns manufactured up until 2006. The 07 and 09 guns have triggers that are a bit heavy with a little stacking, but are still very shootable (the 07 gun is my primary carry SIG).

All my guns have a good slide-to-frame finish, but I have noticed some inconsistency in the current guns--some are tight, some rattle quite a bit.

The guns from 09 and beyond are a little rougher in their manufacture, particularly noticeable in some rough machining in the cocking serrations. This seems to be pretty consistent across all the late-manufactured half-serration P229s that I have seen, as well as the 2014 P226 that I used to own.

While serial numbers are very helpful, like a lot of manufactures, SIG has been known to mix and match slides, frames, and other parts that might be floating around the factory. Here's a few things that might be helpful when buying SIGs from this era:

Box: guns from the 90s have a large dark gray case, while guns from the early 2000s (IRRC) until around 2011-2012 have a blue case. Sometime around 2006 "SiGARMS" changed its name to "SIG Sauer," with a corresponding change in the raised lettering on the blue boxes. From 2012-2014ish, SIG was shipping guns in cardboard boxes, and from 2014 on they have black plastic cases.

I believe that when SiGARMS became SIG Sauer, this marked the increased use of MIM parts in the guns. For a while SIG was continuing to use frames that had been made in Germany, but the newer guns are marked "SIG SAUER INC, EXETER - NH" as opposed to "-SIGARMS INC. EXETER NH-." The easiest way to distinguish the use of the older, non-MIM parts is the trigger--MIM triggers have 3 voids on the back of the trigger, while the older triggers are solid. If you look at the hammer on an MIM gun, you can also see a straight line running front-to-back through the middle of the hammer, which I think is caused by the seam in the two parts of the mold used to form the part. The non-MIM parts also tend to be a slightly different color, more of a green/gray than solid black. For the most part, SIG MIM parts seem to be holding up quite well, and my 2014 gun has an excellent trigger, but the older guns tend to polish themselves up quite well after a few thousand rounds, and I prefer the feel of a well-broken in non-MIM gun personally.

The newer the gun, the better the finish. The 90s SIGs finishes tend to wear the fastest. The early 2000s to 2010-ish is better, but the current finish seems to be holding up quite well. The best way to tell is the barrel--the mid-2000s guns have shiny barrels with the top of the chamber being silver and very small font for the caliber, while the current manufacture guns are matte black, with the top of the chamber being the same color, and larger rollmarks for the caliber. 90s guns can have larger rollmarks, and may have the serial number as well. The mid-2000s guns also have a little more gray to their finish, while the current guns tend to be more of a true black.

In around 2007 or 2008, SIG changed the font on rollmarks of the slide--the newer guns have a more combressed, bolder rollmark, and the model number is a bit larger.

At some point in the late 2000s or early 2010s (I'm not sure exactly when), the slides were changed where they now have sharper edges, where the older guns were more rounded. This seems to coincide with the move from German-made frames to US made frames, and the change in the finish.

Firing pin positioning pins: up until around 2010 (again, I don't have an exact date), the guns used solid black FPPP (on the top of the slide behind the extractor) with a domed finish and spines holding it in place. These look nice, but cannot be removed without a liberal application of four letter words. The later guns have a silver coil pin that can be removed with ease.

Magazines: the earliest mags from the 80s and early 90s were the "zipperback" mags, with a small weld line up the back that looked like a zipper. In the mid 90s these were replaced by a larger zipper seam, and then in the 2000s SIG went to a solid mag body. For a while in the mid-2000s the mags were primarily Mec-Gars with a shiny blue finish--these are my preferred mags and have been awesome over lots of abuse. My second choice is phosphated Mec-Gar mags, which seem to function as well as the shiny mags, but do not drop free as smoothly. The shiny mags are out of production, while Mec-Gar was doing runs of the phosphated mags under the name "OEM" this year (Greg Cote said these runs may be coming to an end). Any mags labelled "made in Italy" should be good to go, while I try to avoid the Checkmate "made in USA" mags with a dull black finish. Mec-Gar is also manufacturing mags with a higher capacity than the original mags (15 round P228 mags, 18 round P226 9mm, etc.) that work well, but it is my understanding that you cannot get replacement springs for these mags.

To sum everything up, my preferred SIG would be an early to mid-2000s gun marked "SiGARMS" that came in the blue case, with non-MIM parts, the shiny barrel finish and shiny Mec-Gar mags. However, I would be comfortable carrying a properly-vetted gun from any era, but would definitely have a more critical eye for guns manufactured between 2007 and 2014. When buying used, the Gray Guns guide is excellent, with the most important thing being frame rail wear. I would avoid any frame that has been refinished.

If you have any questions about a particular gun or want more info in general, please let me know. There are definitely some SIG guys on this forum with more experience than I, but I do know some of the quirks of carrying, shooting, and maintaining these guns and am happy to help if I can.

[Dagga Boy]

I'm a serious snob about this on SIGs....if it doesn't same "West Germany" on it, then not really interested.

[jeep45238]

I can understand that after thinking back to the gun counter days, and the new sigs vs the w German one I have now. But I won't feel bad about abusing a stainless one one bit compared to a folded slide model.


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[Lon]

They were still delivering problem guns in 2014. 5 or 6 out of 30 226Rs we bought for our agency have shit the bed. Most within 1K rounds. 2 of them were problems that completely stopped the gun from working (pin holding the sear spring under tension sheared off). The other 3 or 4 forced the shooter to manually reset the trigger.

Personally, I consider anything post 2004 suspect. Our prior guns were 04 manufactured and ran like scalded dogs.

[Sero Sed Serio]

I can understand that after thinking back to the gun counter days, and the new sigs vs the w German one I have now. But I won't feel bad about abusing a stainless one one bit compared to a folded slide model.


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For those that love the folded carbon guns (I've never owned one, in part because of the difficulty in getting parts like the internal extractors, and in part because of a desire to maintain consistency with the 7 short extractor "legacy" guns I own), I'd probably use the W. German as a low round count dedicated carry gun, with a stainless slide training gun that will see the higher round counts. For a carbon gun a wet or humid environment, I would probably do a Robar "Norton Special" with NP3+ on everything but the frame.

[jeep45238]

That's kind of the game plan, but the folded still gets shot a decent amount. I made sure to get spare hard-to-find parts before the gun for a reason.


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[Tabasco]

I'm a bit of a SIG fanboy, and collect pre-Cohen guns in 9mm and 357 SIG when I can find them NIB/unfired (of which there are a surprising number around; Guns International is a good source). I have a P226 and a pile of P229s (all short external extractor) ranging in manufacture date from 1994 - 2014, with another NIB 06 or 07 P226 on the way in January. None of these guns have had any issues to date.

The 2014 probably has the best trigger, followed closely by the guns manufactured up until 2006. The 07 and 09 guns have triggers that are a bit heavy with a little stacking, but are still very shootable (the 07 gun is my primary carry SIG).

All my guns have a good slide-to-frame finish, but I have noticed some inconsistency in the current guns--some are tight, some rattle quite a bit.

The guns from 09 and beyond are a little rougher in their manufacture, particularly noticeable in some rough machining in the cocking serrations. This seems to be pretty consistent across all the late-manufactured half-serration P229s that I have seen, as well as the 2014 P226 that I used to own.

While serial numbers are very helpful, like a lot of manufactures, SIG has been known to mix and match slides, frames, and other parts that might be floating around the factory. Here's a few things that might be helpful when buying SIGs from this era:

Box: guns from the 90s have a large dark gray case, while guns from the early 2000s (IRRC) until around 2011-2012 have a blue case. Sometime around 2006 "SiGARMS" changed its name to "SIG Sauer," with a corresponding change in the raised lettering on the blue boxes. From 2012-2014ish, SIG was shipping guns in cardboard boxes, and from 2014 on they have black plastic cases.

I believe that when SiGARMS became SIG Sauer, this marked the increased use of MIM parts in the guns. For a while SIG was continuing to use frames that had been made in Germany, but the newer guns are marked "SIG SAUER INC, EXETER - NH" as opposed to "-SIGARMS INC. EXETER NH-." The easiest way to distinguish the use of the older, non-MIM parts is the trigger--MIM triggers have 3 voids on the back of the trigger, while the older triggers are solid. If you look at the hammer on an MIM gun, you can also see a straight line running front-to-back through the middle of the hammer, which I think is caused by the seam in the two parts of the mold used to form the part. The non-MIM parts also tend to be a slightly different color, more of a green/gray than solid black. For the most part, SIG MIM parts seem to be holding up quite well, and my 2014 gun has an excellent trigger, but the older guns tend to polish themselves up quite well after a few thousand rounds, and I prefer the feel of a well-broken in non-MIM gun personally.

The newer the gun, the better the finish. The 90s SIGs finishes tend to wear the fastest. The early 2000s to 2010-ish is better, but the current finish seems to be holding up quite well. The best way to tell is the barrel--the mid-2000s guns have shiny barrels with the top of the chamber being silver and very small font for the caliber, while the current manufacture guns are matte black, with the top of the chamber being the same color, and larger rollmarks for the caliber. 90s guns can have larger rollmarks, and may have the serial number as well. The mid-2000s guns also have a little more gray to their finish, while the current guns tend to be more of a true black.

In around 2007 or 2008, SIG changed the font on rollmarks of the slide--the newer guns have a more combressed, bolder rollmark, and the model number is a bit larger.

At some point in the late 2000s or early 2010s (I'm not sure exactly when), the slides were changed where they now have sharper edges, where the older guns were more rounded. This seems to coincide with the move from German-made frames to US made frames, and the change in the finish.

Firing pin positioning pins: up until around 2010 (again, I don't have an exact date), the guns used solid black FPPP (on the top of the slide behind the extractor) with a domed finish and spines holding it in place. These look nice, but cannot be removed without a liberal application of four letter words. The later guns have a silver coil pin that can be removed with ease.

Magazines: the earliest mags from the 80s and early 90s were the "zipperback" mags, with a small weld line up the back that looked like a zipper. In the mid 90s these were replaced by a larger zipper seam, and then in the 2000s SIG went to a solid mag body. For a while in the mid-2000s the mags were primarily Mec-Gars with a shiny blue finish--these are my preferred mags and have been awesome over lots of abuse. My second choice is phosphated Mec-Gar mags, which seem to function as well as the shiny mags, but do not drop free as smoothly. The shiny mags are out of production, while Mec-Gar was doing runs of the phosphated mags under the name "OEM" this year (Greg Cote said these runs may be coming to an end). Any mags labelled "made in Italy" should be good to go, while I try to avoid the Checkmate "made in USA" mags with a dull black finish. Mec-Gar is also manufacturing mags with a higher capacity than the original mags (15 round P228 mags, 18 round P226 9mm, etc.) that work well, but it is my understanding that you cannot get replacement springs for these mags.

To sum everything up, my preferred SIG would be an early to mid-2000s gun marked "SiGARMS" that came in the blue case, with non-MIM parts, the shiny barrel finish and shiny Mec-Gar mags. However, I would be comfortable carrying a properly-vetted gun from any era, but would definitely have a more critical eye for guns manufactured between 2007 and 2014. When buying used, the Gray Guns guide is excellent, with the most important thing being frame rail wear. I would avoid any frame that has been refinished.

If you have any questions about a particular gun or want more info in general, please let me know. There are definitely some SIG guys on this forum with more experience than I, but I do know some of the quirks of carrying, shooting, and maintaining these guns and am happy to help if I can.

FYI- My P229 purchased in 2000 has a black box that says SIGARMS. My P220 purchased a year later has the Blue SIGARMS box.

[jwperry]

I bought a CPO Mk25 2 weeks before the election for $699.

Unless you really, really don't want a railed P226, I'd watch gunbroker for a CPO Mk25 or Combat. You won't get 6 mags, but should get 3 and would get the benefits of a modern manufactured gun.

[Sero Sed Serio]

I bought a CPO Mk25 2 weeks before the election for $699.

Unless you really, really don't want a railed P226, I'd watch gunbroker for a CPO Mk25 or Combat. You won't get 6 mags, but should get 3 and would get the benefits of a modern manufactured gun.

I think the MK25 is the best P226 variant out there--short extractor, and the true Picatinny rail instead of the curved proprietary SIG rail which is better for WML. If buying an FDE gun make sure it is a later version that has the black anodizing under the cerakote--early versions had cerakote over raw aluminum, and the finish quickly wore off the frame rails, leaving them unprotected. The way to tell is the frame rails will be black, not FDE.

If I came across a NIB non-railed 226 or an early "SiGARMS" roll marked 226R (there are 2 in 9mm on Guns International right now--an all stainless DA/SA and an alloy DAK--I already have a deposit on the 357 :) ) I would buy that, but otherwise the MK25 would be my first choice for a new SIG.

[jeep45238]

Had a little disagreement in pricing, and went with another w German p226. iAMMO has Israeli trade ins of various conditions starting at 500, and take $50 off with coupon code of SIG50.

https://www.iammo.com/pre-owned-west-german-sig-sauer-p226-9mm-15-round-semi-automatic-pistol.html

I snagged a 'c' to use as a trainer and dryfire gun, and keeping my current as a carry gun. Will probably carry this when I do side gigs throughout the city since I'm far less attached to it.

Eventually I'll upgrade it to a srt, short reach trigger, and the new hammer strut assembly.


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