Never done business with them, but that's a better price than I bought mine for from SIG.Originally Posted by wmu12071
Never done business with them, but that's a better price than I bought mine for from SIG.
Be Aware-Stay Safe. Gunfighting Is A Thinking Man's Game. So We Might Want To Bring Thinking Back Into It.
IIRC you have to get a membership to qualify for those prices. Osage is usually my Sig go to but buying from Sig is usually pretty decent.
The discussion about grips makes wonder about the Crimson Trace laser grips for the classic Sigs. (I'm still intrigued by visible lasers, in part because of Todd's writing.)
Any feedback on the Sig DASA and laser grip combo?
Optics planet has them in stock for $484
I've never known Optics Planet to have anything in stock, ever.
Yeah, be careful with what they have "in stock." I once paid next day air prices to get something I needed quickly since they wouldn't let me drive the 30 miles to pick it up only to find out that ment that it would ship from a warehouse somewhere one it was available. That was my last purchase from them.
I’d say the P226 of yester-years were well built. Newer built P226’s…not so much.
My agency issued me a P226 in .357sig from 2006. Those batch of guns had slick double action triggers, crisp single action breaks and were wickedly accurate. More importantly, I can scarcely remember anything in those guns breaking prematurely. High round count shooters like myself saw parts breakages. But even then, my issued gun kept running despite the broken parts until they were replaced at the end of the training session.
Fast forward to 2017 when we swapped out to new P226’s in 9mm. Triggers were gritty and took a while to stop feeling totally crappy. The 2017’s never did smooth out to how the 2006 vintage guns were.
The 2017 guns started out very accurate, but 4 years and 5000-6000 rounds later and the accuracy in my issued piece is meh. Not nearly consistent as it was out of the box. Not as consistent as my G19 with second hand KKM barrel with even higher round count.
And the worst are the catastrophic failures I’ve seen on low round count guns. 5 broken trigger return springs (that I know of) on guns with less than 1500 rounds on them. The guns became glorified hammers at that point.
At least 5 that had front sights break loose (again less than 1500 rounds), causing the shooters’ accuracy go to heck. Imagine if it happened when needing to take a critical shot.
Current build quality aside, I do find the ergos with the E2 grips to fit my hands/grip technique really well so I can run the gun accurately at speed with relative ease.
The 226 was the gold standard for reliability, durability, accuracy and great triggers right out of the box. Their stock barrels are some of the best in the business even still under the Cohen regime. I've put a lot of rounds through 226’s and other P-series guns and for me, the 226 is one of the most well balanced, shootable and inherently accurate pistols. That last point needs to be emphasized. The German made guns were head and shoulders above the competition in accuracy. I fired many of those guns early in my career and everyone of them was match grade. The pre-stainless slide finish sucked and was a real weakness and high maintenance for everyday carry. The barrel sits high in relation to the shooters hand but that’s just a training issue and I’ve never found it to be a big hindrance. Also, that big, high riding, all enclosed slide makes for much easier and efficient manipulation during IA/ failure drills when compared to open slide or internal rail guns. The 226/228/229 are very well vetted and battle proven weapons. As to the 226’s size and weight, I would agree with a previous poster that it is really a middleweight gun. That is, certainly light enough to be carried on a daily basis and heavier than most polymer striker fired pistols. But, that extra weight also lends to its shootability. Probably the best combo I ever had was a 226 for work and a 225 for off duty. Both were West German early 90’s manufactured, and had very tight lock-up all around. Both had well over 10K through them,(easily over 20k in the 226) mostly lead reloads and other various reloads provided during training and cross training with other agencies. Neither gun ever malfunctioned or even hiccupped and a lot of that ammo was some nasty crap. As a side note, the gen 2 9mm Glocks that we transitioned to were not as reliable, period. They were not unreliable, just not dead nuts reliable like the Sig's. They were prone to occasional stove pipe type malf's which would occur out of the blue for no apparent reason. We saw this a lot in OIS incidents. My theory, which was corroborated by Glock LEO reps at that time, (early mid 90's), was that the frames would flex under recoil. The reps would tell us to use +p/NATO spec ammo as the gun was designed to be run with hot ammo. We were using 147 Black Talons, so, this happened quit frequently especially with female shooters. I ended up shelfing my G19 for the P225 as an off duty because of the frequency of this issue. This flexing issue was apparently addressed and remedied in the design of the Gen 3 frames that were beefed up and more rigid in design. When we later transitioned to gen 3 23's I never saw the issue again and the same is true for all gen 3 and gen 4 guns that I have used.
As to newer P226's the quality and QC has suffered significantly. They are still, in my experience, reliable, and accurate but the fit and quality of the guns is not even close. The tolerances are, on average, much looser and the triggers are a step down and usually need some work to smooth them out. Just before Christmas I handled a new P229 Legion at the LGS with the intent to walk out with it. The gun felt great in the hand, but the DA trigger was gritty and stacked and one of the worst I have felt on a Sig and the SA had a lot of slip/creep in it. I took a pass. The design is still a solid one but the execution not so much anymore.
There was a time when all of my pistols were classic P-series Sigs. The quality, accuracy and reliability of those guns were top notch, with the P226 at the top of the heap. Things changed over the years and the number of Sigs I owned dwindled; I sold my last Sig this past weekend. A Beretta 92A1 and PX4 now reside in the spots in my safe that Sigs used to occupy.
How do you like this vs a DA/SA 226?
I have a '95 P226 W German with the folded slide. Always liked that gun, but found the grip just a touch too big for me. Conversely, I have a couple of Beretta 92's (my wife has a '94 that was purchased when the 1994 Crime Bill was announced, that has got the sweetest trigger I've ever felt on a DA/SA) and a PX4 worked over by Ernst Langdon, that fit my hand better.
I was looking at some newer Sig offerings and came across the AXG grip models. As you mentioned, the do look very P226'ish in the grip using the AXG. Had an original 320 Compact, but the whole drop safety thing, and the way Sig handled it, had me swear off Sigs for a bit. Then I picked up a P365XL last year, and am very fond of that one. From that, I find myself looking at 320's again. And the AXG has piqued my interest.
Is the AXG gripped 320 the same weight as a P226?
Is the trigger reach the same as a P226 in DA?
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