Sig sued over defective pistols

[PPGMD]

And here's what happens when a gun goes too long between roll pin changes...

It can also break off the rear corner of the forward frame rails, due to slide flex.

[KhanRad]

To clarify: are you saying that the original P228 with the welded slide was more durable than the new P229 with the one-piece slide? That seems to differ with what I've read on this board. Honest question, not trying to stir anything up.

The stainless slide and short external extractor design of the 1990s was probably the best overall design. A well implemented stainless design with no MIM parts would be superior if well implemented.......the key being "well implemented". The old stamped slide guns were VERY well implemented......better than any Sig since.

[Tamara]

I've never seen one crack the breech block on a P228 before. On a P220, yes.....twice.

That's a 228 breech block.

[Chipster]

It's definitely a rarity. Troopers are the last big department in the state that issues Sig. Some smaller departments still do, and there are also many that have a "pick from the list" issue policy. We've got a detective from another department here training with us (we get WAY more shootings, so they send people to us to get some experience) and he's got an issued Sig DA/SA they bought because that was his "pick". I'm not sure if Conservation still carries P220s or not. They were the .45 guys even when everyone else went 9mm or .40, for the stated reason of penetrating brush and other possum-cop stuff better. (No idea if that's reality, but that's what they claimed)

Quite a few agencies carry the SIG sa/da guns up in the region (NW Indiana). The DNR have carried the P220 in some form or another for at least 20+ years. They went from the P220, to the P220 ST, to the P220 ST Nitron, and then back to the P220 in a relatively short time span. Supposedly they had issue with the ST guns, which was really odd as this was shortly after Ernest ran one and won the IDPA with it A few years ago there was a few P220 ST nitrons that hit the market and they were alleged to have been overruns from the IDNR. I've never met a CO that wasn't happy with the SIG and a lot of officers in the region look down on anything but SIG.

[MattyD380]

Got some more info for you.

The department in question has had the P229 in 40S&W since 2002. All of the failing guns have been 2013 and later production. Between the 23 cracked frames and various other parts breakages, they have 36 inoperable & irreparable weapons (that's just under 1/4 of the department). There's no correlation to round count.....one of the guns developed a cracked frame in less than 50 rounds.

No idea on the specifics for the deadlined guns suffering irreparable malfunctions without cracked frames.

Trying to get more info on their other platforms.....they have a handful of P220s that their tactical guys have the option to use, and P239 for the detectives.

ETA: The P239 is suffering the same problems and counted in the deadlined number, though there's fewer of them. Two of the P220s are deadlined, but they're viewing it as a simple matter of them being shot-out or routine parts breakages due to the round count, and still view the P220 as giving solid reliable service.

Did Sig change their process on the alloy frames? You read a lot about of extractor issues or an out of spec this and that... but this sounds like a problem that's inherent to the metallurgy. Forged 7075 T6 aluminum is supposed to be pretty solid stuff... right?

[Olim9]

There's a pretty good article on Pistol-training.com that goes into some of the problems Beretta had with LE and the 92/96.

I'm kind of the opinion that Beretta didn't feel the need to work too hard with the LE side because they had the M9 contract. Sort of the same reason I think they stopped making all the "super cool" versions several years ago, they had the M9 contract to concentrate on.

Further, by most accounts, the PX4's father was the Cougar, and it is not well liked here on PF. The PX4 wasn't either until Mr Langdon gave it a fair shake out and reported favorably on it. And there was the awful 9000s that Beretta made.

I'm sort of assuming that your question was in part regarding why there aren't more Berettas in LE holsters than there are. To me it seems that they didn't really try all that hard, and when they did with guns like the Cougar, they fell on their faces.

FWIW, I'm one of our Beretta lovers here.

I apologize if the wording in my post was weird but I was asking if Beretta has ever had times where they just cranked out sub-par M9's that made people wary of buying any of them made in 2003-2006 for example. We see this a lot with Sig and even Glock has had issues with some of their guns, though I never heard of any bad things about Berettas but I just wanted to know if there were ever such cases.

It really is a shame that Beretta never got a strong presence in the LE market. I REALLY would have loved buying a bunch of 9mm Vertec police trade ins for $400-$500.

[Jared]

I apologize if the wording in my post was weird but I was asking if Beretta has ever had times where they just cranked out sub-par M9's that made people wary of buying any of them made in 2003-2006 for example. We see this a lot with Sig and even Glock has had issues with some of their guns, though I never heard of any bad things about Berettas but I just wanted to know if there were ever such cases.

It really is a shame that Beretta never got a strong presence in the LE market. I REALLY would have loved buying a bunch of 9mm Vertec police trade ins for $400-$500.

OK, I did flub your question a bit. The article does mention a PD having issues with model 96 Berettas having keyholing issues and the steps taken to resolve it. I've seen other mentions of problem batches of 92/96 series guns but not really a specific "avoid year x-y made guns because of z reason."

[Tamara]

It really is a shame that Beretta never got a strong presence in the LE market.

They had a very strong presence in the LE market in the Eighties and Nineties, but US LE's decade-and-a-half-plus flirtation with the .40S&W cartridge and Beretta's lag in making a gun specifically designed to function with it killed that.

The Beretta 96 wiped out Beretta's US LE market share.

[blues]

They had a very strong presence in the LE market in the Eighties and Nineties, but US LE's decade-and-a-half-plus flirtation with the .40S&W cartridge and Beretta's lag in making a gun specifically designed to function with it killed that.

The Beretta 96 wiped out Beretta's US LE market share.

In the late 80's through the mid 90's, when our agents were allowed to carry any personally owned firearm (above a .380 caliber) that they qualified with, several carried Berettas, (primarily 92s) but that number lagged behind Sig which lagged behind Glock.

Eventually, everyone had to carry their issued Glocks even if their personally owned Glocks were the same models.

[Tamara]

In the late 80's through the mid 90's, when our agents were allowed to carry any personally owned firearm (above a .380 caliber) that they qualified with, several carried Berettas, (primarily 92s) but that number lagged behind Sig which lagged behind Glock.

They had LAPD, Border Patrol, several state police departments...but the stampede away from 9x19mm and the fact that the 96 had the life expectancy of a mayfly with AIDS ended all that.