Why do I love Sig pistols? Reliability, ease of operation, great triggers

I've been asked a question about "My short history with Sig pistols" that I think deserves elevation from a comment to a new post.

Kansas Scout said... I keep reading all these enthusiastic comments from Sig owners. I have not shot one yet. Being a fellow lefty, I assume they work well for you in that way. Tell us why you like them so much. I would like to know specifically what it is that makes folks like them so much.

Short answer is the Sig Sauer motto: "To hell and back reliability!" I have owned to date five Sig pistols, a P226 and two P229s, one plain and one Custom Shop, all in .357 Sig; and two P220 .45 ACP Single-Action-Only models, one full-size and one compact. And to date with hundreds of rounds fired in each of them, I have yet to have a single malfunction. Zero. A record of 100% perfect performance is the ultimate in reliability.

I have had pistols that were 99.5% reliable that I either got fixed or I sold. I will not carry a pistol I cannot depend on 100% of the time. All of my carry pistols have to meet that standard or they are gone.

No. 2 reason, my Sig pistols are simple to operate, even for a lefty like me. In the case of the P229s which are traditional double-action/single-action, chamber a round, decock the hammer, then holster it until needed. Then draw and fire. If time and circumstance allow, I will cock the hammer upon drawing to make the first and all following shots single-action. But if not, that first double-action trigger pull is smooth enough to make an accurate shot. I practice drawing and firing two shots, one DA and one SA.

With my two P220 SAO .45s, they both have ambi safeties that allow me carry them safely cocked. Draw, flip safety down just as on a 1911 and shoot. And an added feature of the P220 SAO is the safety does not lock the slide like a 1911. When I want to check to see if there's a round in the chamber, I can press-check the slide with the safety still on.

Number three I've already covered, great triggers. The Sig DA triggers are great and my P220 SA triggers are not only the equal of my good 1911 triggers, they're actually superior. Don't ask me why but I can shoot either of P220s with factory 5-lb. triggers better than any of the custom triggers of 3 to 4 lbs. in the 1911s I own. Maybe it's the legendary inherent accuracy of P220s, I don't know. I just know it works for me.

Ease of operation, great triggers and 100% reliability. What more do you need in a carry pistol?

Miss Bernadelli flunks the course; more fun with P229 .22 slide kit

Another sunny day here in the South and I made it back to Dewitt's range for round two of .22LR fun, sorta.

Plan A was to try out a V. Bernadelli .22 target pistol that I put on layaway at the gun shop where I work. It's probably purt near old as God with serial number 517, but it shows evidence of having been gunsmithed with jeweled parts and a red-fiber-optic front sight. Feels good in the hand and looks cool, so I fell in love with it. Until I shot it.

Miss Bernadelli flunked the course big-time. Maybe out of a dozen magazines I got two or three shots without a misfeed. I tried six or eight different loads, Remington, Winchester, Federal and CCI, and she wouldn't eat any of them without a hiccup.

Back to the shop she goes and I hope to God no customer asks me if she will shoot good. I don't wanta lie so I'd rather not be asked. Plan B is an Austrian-made Glock-wannabe .22 pistol I've had my eye on, the ISSC M22. I'll just transfer the cash I put down on the Bernadelli to start paying off an ISSC .22 pistol.

So then I proceeded on with day two at the range with my new Sig P229 .22LR slide conversion kit. Last Saturday I tried just Federals and the results were not good. So today I used two CCI loads, two Remington loads, two Federal loads and one Winchester Super X. It absolutely hates Winchester so that one is out.

The others were sorta so-so. It would shoot a while, then hit a dud, shoot some more, hit another dud. I was on a roll with CCI standard velocity when I got three duds in a row. And all the duds would fire on the second try.

End result is the best was from CCI Mini-Mags, which is the most expensive .22 ammo I had with me. So it appears she's got expensive tastes.

I did establish that Sig knows what they're saying when they said this slide kit is for the Sig P229R, the rail model. She works pretty good with my P229R and she works pretty terrible with my Sig P229 SAS Gen2 with no rail. All the problems with the P229R were duds. But the P229 had a lot of feed problems, as well as a few duds. So the slide stays on the P229R.

I thought I was going to use my new Caldwell Pistolero pistol rest (first photo) to zero in the sights, but instead spent all my time trying to find a .22 load the slide likes. All told I shot more than 500 rounds of .22 today. At least I didn't go broke doing it, which is the whole point of .22 shooting.

I finally used the Caldwell rest on my Sig P220 with the .45 ACP slide on it to see if I could do as good or better than I did last week standing up. First set of targets, 10 yards on the rest, has 16 holes in target at right and eight in target at left. Last week my best of three mags loads was all eight in the black. Today my best was at left, all eight in the 10 ring and at right with only one out of 16 in the 9 ring ain't too bad. This P220 is so easy to shoot well it makes me look real good. It's definitely a carry gun, even fits my Galco P229 paddle holster.

And since I had my P229R with a mag full of .357 Sig Ranger hollow-points, just in case some yahoo thought it would be smart to rob somebody at the range, I decided to try it from the rest also. The bottom set of targets on the left is 13 rds., one magazine full and one in the pipe. Not as good as the P220, but not too bad either. The post-dot contrast sights on the P229R aren't as exact for me as the three dots of the P220's night sights. Bottom target at right is a scattering of .22 shots with the 229 slide kit.

Teddy Roosevelt said there's something about the outside of a horse that's good for the inside of man. TR probably said the same thing about guns and he'd be right. I left the range as usual with a big smile on my face. See you there next Saturday if I ain't working.

.22, .44, .45 and 9mm Day down on the farm at Dewitt's Range

Bad news is state budget cuts has closed the public range at Millstone 4-H Camp where I've been shooting for the past few years.

Good news is private enterprise is alive and well in Richmond County, NC. I found out a local sporting clays range has expanded from shotguns to rifles and handguns so I visited there today to check it out.

Shot six of my pistols, I'm happy as a pig in deep crap and joined up on the spot.

The range is Dewitt's Game Farm and you will find me there most Saturdays from now on, as long as the Good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise -- or I have to work Saturdays.

The Sig .22LR slide conversion kit I bought for my two Sig P229 .357 Sig pistols is not an immediate hit. For some stupid reason, I took two different Federal .22 loads to shoot in it, high velocity and hyper velocity, and it didn't like either. Feed problems. But that's stupid because I know Sig .22 pistols like CCI and I didn't try CCI first, then others later. Next week a diet of CCI for the Sig P229 slide, which fits and works equally well or badly on either the rail model or the non-rail model.

There were two unqualified successes of the day. First was the .45 ACP slide I just got for my Sig P220 Rimfire Classic. Shoots like a dream, witness the .45 holes in the target. It's easy to see which are .45 and .22 aside from the size. The .45 holes, all eight of them, are in the black from 10 yards standing, while the .22 holes are mostly high as I fiddled with the sights until I gave up on misfeeds.

Second unqualified success is what I did with the extra bucks leftover from the sale of my Glock 20 10mm after buying the P220 .45 ACP caliber exchange kit. I'd had my eye on a Hy Hunter Six Shooter .44 Magnum single-action pistol for some time, a copy of the Colt Single Action Army with a 6" barrel and genuine fake pearl grips. I even took it out for a test run some time ago and found it to be a great shooter (one of the benefits of working in a gun shop, shoot before you buy with used guns).

So I finally had some money for a fun gun and brought the Hy Hunter home the same day the P220 slide kit arrived. I did a bit of research on it and found out it was made by J.P. Sauer & Sohn in West Germany in the 1980s before the Iron Curtain collapsed. Sauer later merged with the Swiss pistol company Sig and became what we know today as Sig Sauer. So you could technically say I shot not three but four Sauer pistols today. Three Sig Sauer semi-auto pistols and one Sauer single-action revolver.

I also shot my Dan Wesson .22 revolver a bit and ran a few mags through my S&W 469 9mm pistol. They're both new-to-me so they need the work and so do I.

It was fun and as Bogey said, this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship: me, my pistols and rifles and Dewitt's Game Farm. See you there next Saturday.

Humility Day: Double-Tap 2 Bad Guys Drill at range with carry pair

Got a couple of hours of range time Saturday and started off with some forgotten fun, shooting a .22LR rifle.

I bought a Marlin-Redfield Model 75 carbine a while back because I had one just like it several years ago and really loved shooting it. I gave it to my son after he got grown and gone.

We had one like it marked down for clearance at the shop so I bought it because it was cheap.

Alas, I discovered my fuzzy eyes could no longer get the iron sights focused and aligned, the latter due to the Monte Carlo stock.

I bought the earlier Marlin carbine with a scope already on it so it never occurred to me I'd have a lefty alignment problem.

But Saturday morning I finally got around to mounting a Simmons 4X scope on it that had been gathering dust on my shelf for more than a year. So I started off the range trip with zeroing the scope.

The scope was so far out of zero I had to break out one of my few Blue Man full-size target to get the shots where I could find them.

Then since I already had the Blue Man out, I decided to invent a new drill to simulate two idiots who might try to rob the gun store.

Believe it or else, this actually happened a while back but they changed their minds about it quickly when confronted with a Glock .40.

So I set up a smaller black bull offset to the left of the Blue Man target, which simulates a second BG some distance behind the first BG.

I had already planned to do some draw and shoot practice drills with two shoulder rigs for my two favorite carry pistols, my Sig P229 SAS Gen2 .357 Sig and my Para Ord P12-45.

I drew and fired double-taps at each target as quickly as I could get the sights aligned, sorta practicing "panic mode" as in a genuine armed robbery attempt.

I wore the Bianchi rig for the P229 so I started off with it. I knew the long double-action pull of the first shot would likely adversely affect the first shot.

What I wasn't prepared for was the single-action shots at the second target also missing an equal amount of time. Shazzaam! as Gomer Pyle would say.

After the first round of 3 mags of 12, I had 12 holes in the blue man, 12 holes in the black bull and 12 holes off either target.

As the King James says, that sucketh. Can't blame that on the DA pull for the first shot.

So I put up a fresh set of targets and strapped on my Para 12-45 with its Galco leather shoulder harness rig.

After four mags of .45 ACP, one 12, one 14 and two 15s, I had only a very few holes out of the blue or black.

Conclusion: nothing beats a great single-action trigger in a 1911 pistol, not even the great DA/SA SRT Short-Reset Trigger in P229 SAS Gen2.

I think I'll be practicing more with my pair of Sig P229 .357 Sig pistols and carrying my Para P12-45 a lot more until I can improve my P229 shooting.

Nothing like a little simulated "panic mode" pistol shooting to remind me I ain't near as good as I think I am. More range time needed.

Then I finished off the day with a little double-action revolver shooting with my two backups, Charter .327 Magnum and S&W 65-3 .357 Magnum. The Charter with Crimson Trace Lasergrips is definitely a hand cannon as it's nearly the equal of the .357 Magnum in ballistics.

It's at least a slight insult to call either of these powerful wheel guns a backup, but until I get the Colt Cobra .38 in the layaway safe paid off, they'll have to assume that lesser role. When the Cobra is ready for action, I'll work out some other combo with the two magnums in lead roles.

Sig P250 9mm Compact Nickel Slide is tempting deal

Dang, just when I figure I'm gonna lay low for a while on purchasing handguns (before my wife kills me) the gun shop where I work gets this great deal on Sig P250 9mm compact pistols with a nickel-plated slide.

I guess free enterprise is at work here as the price has dropped significantly on the P250 since it was first released. Prices started out well above $700 but have been dropping since.

We have this same model listed on gunbroker with a camo polymer frame for $675 and now we're competing with ourselves with this great deal on the nickel slide model for only $485.

The P250 is a double-action-only pistol, unlike the classic Sig pistols which are all double-action/single-action. And the response from the buying public has been a bit lukewarm up until now. But with a price drop like this, I imagine demand will rise quickly.

One of my co-workers at the gun shop bought one of the camo models and likes it a lot. And it's a great concept, buy one any size or caliber and then change the polymer grip frame, slide and barrel to a zillion different combinations in 9mm, .40S&W, .357 Sig or .45 ACP in subcompact, compact or full-size.

At prices like this, even the old die-hard Sig classic lovers like me may have to come across. I've got several DAO pistols already, two Glock 10mm, G20 and G29; two S&W M&P .357 Sigs, commander size and compact; and a Steyr M9A1. So the DAO Sig P250 isn't off-putting to me.

It's just that I really love the Sig traditional double-actions. My two P229 .357 Sigs are my absolute favorite pistols and my next acquisition will be a Sig P220 .22LR I tried out over the weekend. Converting it to a .45 ACP Single-Action-Only Sig P220 is the follow-on plan.

After that, a P250 with nickel slide may be next.

What's better than a Sig Pistol? Three Sig pistols!

One of my favorite gun writers, Clint Smith of Thunder Ranch, says if you have a gun you really like, get another one just like it.

Well, I can't afford to get another Sig Sauer P229 .357 Sig SAS Gen 2, which is both my most expensive handgun and my favorite. But when the gun shop where I work bought a used Sig P229R .357 Sig at a recent gun show, that was close enough for me. The R stands for rail, which my SAS Gen 2 does not have, being strictly a concealed-carry pistol. And the P229R also has a couple of features the SAS doesn't have, a stainless-steel barrel and guide rod.

You'd think on such an expensive pistol as the SAS models, Sig would at least give you a staineless-steel guide rod instead of plastic. And the SAS barrel is Nitron-black finish, though it is stainless steel under the black.

Anyway, that's the P229R in the top photo and the SAS Gen 2 in the second. It does have lots of bells and whistles the P229R is lacking, night sights, stainless slide, fancy P229 Elite wood grips, Short Reset Trigger and of course the Sig Anti-Snag SAS treatment on the slide and frame, smoothing out all the sharp edges.

But there ain't nothing wrong with the new-to-me P229R, which has quickly become my second-favorite Sig pistol. It's what Sig calls a CPO, Certified Previously Owned, meaning it was a law-enforcement trade in that was completely refurbished by Sig.

• Before receiving its Factory Certified Pre-Owned status each pistol is stripped, refinished, refitted with original factory parts where needed, cleaned and lubricated, function tested and hand-inspected by a certified SIG SAUER armourer.

If it can pass the Sig factory armorer's inspection, that's more than good enough for me.

And the third photo is very likely destined to become my third favorite Sig pistol. It's a gently used Sig P220R .22LR pistol which some idiot traded in at the gun store.

It's one of a new series of pistol Sig calls their Classic .22s. Buy a Classic .22 Rimfire and you get a $400 coupon to buy the full-caliber slide, barrel and recoil system plus a magazine to covert the .22 into whatever caliber the frame is designed for. In this case, it's a P220 Single-Action-Only .45 ACP which comes with no decocker and ambi safeties. Which is just exactly perfect for a lefty like me. So I get a great .22LR pistol for training and plinking and also what is perhaps the best .45 ACP pistol on the planet, IMHO, including custom 1911s that cost multi-thousands.

All three of these Sig pistols went to the range with me and a shooting buddy on Saturday and we burned up a bunch of ammo and had a bunch of fun. I also took along my customized Glock subcompact G29 10mm (fourth photo) because my shooting buddy has a full-size G20 10mm and wanted to see how the G29 shoots. He loved it.

But this was also his first experience shooting .357 Sig pistols and guess what? This former "Gotta be .45 or 10mm or I won't have it!" guy has decided there is another caliber he loves.

Finally the last photo is my Sig P229R after I got her all cleaned up following the range trip and installed a set of Hogue Pau Ferro grips on her. She dresses up real nice, don't she?

(P.S. The unnamed shooting buddy referred to demands photo credits. OK, he took the first four photos. With my excellent digital camera. Set on "Auto" which makes it foolproof, even for this fool. And I'm leaving him unnamed because I outshot him so bad it would be embarrassing to name him. But I'll give you a hint: His first name is Jerry and his last name is Andrews.)

Pau Ferro takes a back seat to Sig P229 Elite wood grips

Is there anything more pleasant than an unexpected gift? When I ordered a Sig P229 SAS Gen2 .357 Sig pistol from Sig Sauer back in February, the Sig factory rep promised the boss lady at the gun shop he would see if he could find me a set of the nice wood grips they used on the Generation 1 SAS model that were phased out for Generation 2.

That's the promised grips on the Sig Gen1 in the top photo, stolen from the Sig site where it's no longer to be found.

So when my new Sig 229 SAS Gen2 arrived May 1, it had black composite grips on it, as shown in the second photo. Nice and functional but not nearly as sexy as those SAS Gen1 grips.

So I figured maybe they'd arrive in a week or two. I waited. Then I waited some more.

After a month, my patience ran out. I've never been long on patience so a month is probably close to a record for me actually waiting for something.

So I googled wood grips for Sig P229s and found a nice set of Hogue Pau Ferro grips. Who is Pau Ferro, you may ask, and why can't he spell Paul?

Actually, Pau Ferro ain't a he, it's a Bolivian hardwood and quite a beautiful one at that.

My new Hogue Pau Ferro grips arrived in late June, I installed them, tested them at the range and was happy as a pig in deep mud.

And then, lo and behold, as King James often says, today that pleasant unexpected surprise arrived.

A package from Sig for me was thrown in with an order of various accessories, the long-promised but now forgotten Sig P229 Elite grips, as the package billed them.

The Sig Elite series is an all-stainless steel line of their various models and the grips are exactly the same as the former SAS Gen1 grips I so admired.

So today, I removed the Pau Ferro grips and installed the new Elite grips. Ain't they prettier than a speckled pup?

Now I gotta get me another P229 so I can have something to put my Pau Ferro grips on. And it just so happens that we have a CPO, which is Sig lingo for Certified Previously Owned, Sig P229 .357 Sig which someone traded in at a recent gun show. It's all Nitron black with a rail, vs. the 2-tone slicked-up Sig-Anti-Snag SAS, but I bet those Pau Ferro grips will dress it right up.

I shall ascribe to the wisdom of Clint Smith, the famed gunwriter and chief shootist of Thunder Ranch, who says if you have a pistol you really like, get two of them. Then if the one you carry has to go out of action for any reason, you've got a backup ready to step up to the plate.

Sounds like a perfectly good reason to get another P229 .357 Sig pistol to me.

And another little unexpected surprise also popped up last week. We have so many long guns at the gun shop that the boss marked a bunch of them down and set them out on racks out front to move them out of there.

And lo and behold again, there's a little Marlin .22LR semi-auto carbine that's the twin brother of one I had years ago. I shot the whee out that little Marlin when I was living on a farm and appointed myself the designated slayer of snapping turtles in a big pond in a pasture out in my front yard.

When I moved off the farm, I gave that little Marlin .22LR to my son and it's still being shot by him and his two grandsons. And here was another just like it, marked down to $85! As they used to say at the tobacco warehouses, "Sold American!" I bought myself an early birthday present.

Haven't been to the range lately, but I'll be there Saturday teaching my first NRA Basic Pistol Class, so the little Marlin is going along for the ride and its baptism by fire. It's gonna be fun.

Who is Pau Ferro? And why can't he spell "Paul"?

When the boss lady at the gun shop where I work ordered a Sig Sauer P229 SAS Gen 2 .357 Sig pistol for me, I asked her to see if the Sig factory rep would get me a pair of those nice Rosewood grips that Sig put on the SAS Gen 1. He said he'd try to get me a set. It's been about two months now and no Rosewood grips have yet appeared and I got tired of looking at those black plastic grips on my P229. That's it in the top photo at right.

So I googled around online a bit and found some nice Hogue wood grips I liked and could afford called Pau Ferro. Which raised my curiousity. Who is Pau Ferro? Some grip designer who can't spell Paul? Not really. Wikipedia sez:

"Pao ferro" or "pau ferro" (Caesalpinia ferrea or Machaerium scleroxylum Tul.) is an exotic tree found in Brazil and Bolivia. Its wood is often used for making fingerboards for electric basses and guitars. It has a similar feel and similar tonal attributes to rosewood, but is harder and has a slightly lighter colour. The wood may also be used for flooring, fancy furniture, and handgun grips. It is also known by the names morado, palo santos, caviuna, Brazilian ironwood, and Bolivian rosewood, though it is not actually rosewood.

I read a little further and found that "Stevie Ray Vaughan's Signature Fender Stratocaster comes with a Pao Ferro fingerboard."

Hey, if it's good enough for the best rock guitar picker since Jimi Hendrix, surely Pau Ferro is good 'nuf for me. They're quite lovely on my new Sig and I'll give them their baptism of fire at the range tomorrow.

Another candidate for blasting tomorrow is my new-to-me EAA Witness P-Compact, which I purchased as a .45 ACP. The previous owner glued some Mahogany panels to the grip, so it looks OK. But I've been wanting a .38 Super pistol for some time, so I ordered a .38 Super conversion slide and mag from EAA last week. I ordered a blue-steel slide to match the frame, but they sent me a matte-stainless-finish slide instead. Hey, it's even better looking than a blue one for the same price. I'll take it gladly.

So I've rounded up some .38 Super ammo and the Witness P-Compact will get its baptism of fire tomorrow, too. And if it is shoots .38 Super good, then I'll order some 9x23mm ammo in FMJs and hollow-points and that will be my carry load in the Witness P-Compact. IMHO, faster ammo with more foot-lbs. of energy delivered is better than slower ammo with less foot-lbs. of energy put on target. And .38 Super is about identical to 9mm +P while 9x23mm is right there with .357 Sig, if not a bit ahead of it in both departments.

Caliber	Grains	Type	Mfg.	FPS Muzzle	Ft.Lbs. Muzzle
357 Sig	125	JHP	Gold Dot DoubleTap	1450	584
9mm	124	JHP	Gold Dot DoubleTap	1301	473
.38 Super	125	JHP	Winchester	1240	427
9x23	124	JHP	Winchester	1460	587
10mm	180	JHP	Gold Dot DoubleTap	1300	676
.45 ACP	230	JHP	Gold Dot DoubleTap	1010	521

Here's a little comparison table I put together of my favorite pistol calibers with the hottest loads I could find data on, trying to keep the grain weights as close as possible for comparison purposes.

I had an "experiental" .38 Super barrel from Lone Wolf briefly for my Glock 20 10mm. I shoulda known a guy who can't spell experimental is not a good candidate for trying out a new product. It was experiential indeed, as it jammed about half the time with .38 Super and about a third of the time with 9x23. The two rounds are virtually identical in dimensions except that .38 Super has a small rim, called semi-rimmed, while 9x23 is a true rimless. And that semi-rim does tend to cause feeding problems with .38 Super. But 9x23 not only feeds smoother, it's also hotter.

My daddy always said I lived by the philosophy that if a little bit was good, a whole lot was more better. He was right. I guess that's why I have a love for all those oddball pistol calibers like 10mm, .357 Sig, .38 Super, 9x23 and also the true 9mm Magnum, 9x25mm. I swapped the "experiental" .38 Super barrel for a 9x25 barrel from Lone Wolf and lived happily ever after.

Range report coming tomorrow if the Good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise.

Sig P229 shines at the range, ready for prime-time

What's the most fun you can have with your clothes on? Shooting .357 Sig pistols is right there at or near the top of my list. So in addition to taking my brand-spanking-new Sig P229 SAS Gen2 .357 Sig pistol to the range for its debut, I also packed my two S&W M&P .357 Sig pistols, compact and full-size (or in most other pistol makers formulations, compact and subcompact).

And I took my Charter Patriot .327 Fed. Magnum along for more fun with a couple of boxes of .32 S&W Long wadcutters to take a break between shooting hot .357 Sig loads.

I started off with the P229 naturally as the new kid on the block. First shot with the P229 was smack dab in the center of a full-size blueman target at 10 yards offhand. Precisely the same experience I had with the first round out of my Sig P226 full-size pistol, so I wasn't really surprised. Pleased, delighted, happy as a pig in deep doo-doo, but not really surprised.

It shoots like a dream with the Short Reset Trigger system, the SigLite Tritium Night Sights are easy to see in the daylight too and overall I just couldn't ask for an easier-shooting, perfectly balanced pistol in my favorite caliber.

I only had the one magazine supplied by Sig (you buy a pistol that costs just shy of $1K and they give you one mag. Go figure. But so does Kimber and several other pistol makers, so you just gotta get your own mags). So I reloaded a lot with my UpLula mag loader and kept shooting. Holes in the center of the blueman are from the P229. Then I fired a few mags from my two M&Ps at the head of the blueman. No jams, no slams, no errors, nothing but perfection from all three pistols.

Only problem is operator error. You'll notice that the holes tend to stray a bit right of center, where I was aiming. I'm a lefty and when I pull the trigger off-center just a bit, it pulls the rounds to the right. I gotta work on that. Pulling the trigger straight back without pulling it right or left is the essence of good pistol shooting.

Then I took a break from .357 Sig and shot a few loads of .32 wadcutters with my Charter Patriot. I hadn't tried the .32s with my Crimson Trace grips and was delighted to find the zero was only off a couple of inches low from where I set it with the Speer Gold Dot .327 Magnum carry loads I use.

After shooting hot .357 Sig loads, the .32 wadcutters were like shooting .22s. I've found it's good to lighten up with easier shooting in between rounds of higher recoil loads. Seems to keep me from developing flinches.

The .357 Sig loads I fed the Sig P229 ran a wide range but all were hot. I used hollow-points by Speer, Winchester and Cor-Bon and for range ammo, Georgia Arms Canned Heat FMJs, Speer CF Frangible and Winchester White Box FMJs.

The Sig chewed 'em all up and spit 'em all out without ever missing a beat. It's true what Sig says about their pistols, "To hell and back reliability." I've never had a Sig pistol jam in my limited experience shooting them. I plan to widen that experience as early and often as possible.

After the .32 wadcutter break, I loaded up the last of the range ammo for the P229 and launched it at an orange 8" bull on top of the blueman at the same 10 yards.

The Sig's Short Reset Trigger just begs you to shoot quickly and even though I tried to slow down at first and be deliberate to check the sights, after the first few rounds of the day, I found myself shooting faster and faster, as quickly as I could realign the sights and launch another round downrange.

As the French cop said to Bogey, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful relationship, me and my Sig P229 SAS Gen2. I shall be carrying her when I go back to work on Monday at the gun shop.

Now for a name. How about Sexy Sally? She's slick and smooth, quick and dangerous. And unlike some women I've known with those qualities, I think this one can be relied upon when needed.

Happiness arrives early in a blue Sig Sauer box

Have you ever noticed that good things come in small packages?

The boss lady where I work, Village Pawn & Gun Shop in Wadesboro, NC, is a little dynamo named Jennifer. She's about 5-feet-nothing and wouldn't weigh 100 lbs. in a wet raincoat.

Technically, she's not the boss. Her dad Billy has been in the gun shop business for more than 20 years, first as a partner and for the past 18 months or so as owner. His wife Dorothy, Jennifer's mom, is a retired school teacher who got no retirement at all as she went to work full-time at the gun shop immediately. Jennifer's husband Jonathan helps run the gun shop, so it's a mom and pop and daughter and son-in-law business.

Me and a couple or three other nonfamily members make up the entire staff. I've only been there full-time since January, but I quickly figured out that Jennifer is the boss. Nobody there, including mom and pop and husband Jonathan, can do hardly anything without asking Jennifer how to do it.

The whole family is a gaggle of work-a-holics, working 12 hours a day seven days a week with few breaks. They go to a gun show almost every weekend, putting in long days Saturday and Sunday and then returning to the shop Monday to start all over again. They love it and so do I.

As you may have heard, since the election -- and really for several months before -- the public has been on a guns and ammo buying binge and it shows little signs of easing off any so far. A slim majority of voters were foolish enough to elect Obama, but the gun-buyers were not fooled. They know a gun-grabber when they see one and they've been acting accordingly, buying up AK and AR rifles, high-capacity short-barrel pump shotguns and handguns of all types.

So when Jennifer promised last week to special order a Sig Sauer P229 for me, I wasn't disturbed or even surprised that it was Monday before she found time to place the order. The usual waiting time for any order from Sig Sauer, AR-type rifles or handguns, is usually weeks and since I was ordering a P229 from the Sig Custom Shop, I didn't expect it anytime soon.

But to our amazement at the shop, my new Sig P229 SAS Gen2 .357 Sig pistol arrived today!

Happiness is indeed a small blue pistol box from Sig with my name on it. It's got everything, Sig Anti-Snag SAS Generation 2 carry-melt treatment with all the sharp corners and edges smoothed out, Short Reset Trigger System and the Short Trigger, SigLite Tritium Night Sights, Two-Tone Stainless Steel Slide and black polymer frame.

And best of all, the Sig Sauer factory crew in Exeter, NH, bent the rules and made this model for me in the Sig Custom Shop in .357 Sig, while the SAS Gen2 is supposed to be offered only in .40S&W and 9mm. I suspect Jennifer did a lot of sweet-talking to the Sig factory rep.

And that factory rep also promised Jennifer he'd send me a set of those really nice Rosewood grips that were offered on the SAS Gen1, which is now discontinued.

The pistol arrived with black polymer grips, so I'll just have to wait on those Rosewood grips. But I don't have to wait to shoot it. Range trip tomorrow!

Gotta sort it out so I can carry it to work on Monday. I'll be giving it a workout with Speer Cleanfire Frangible, Georgia Arms Canned Heat FMJs and an assortment of hollow points. I'm sure it will do fine, but never carry a pistol until you know it's gonna work when you need it. Sig's have well earned their motto: "To hell and back reliability," but as Ronald Reagan said, trust but verify. I shall verify tomorrow at the range.

Another .357 Sig is being built for me in the Sig Custom Shop

Top photo is
step two in my new concealed carry campaign. Step one was my new Charter Patriot .327 Fed. Magnum with Crimson Trace Lasergrips. Step two is a special order I placed today through the gun shop where I work for a Sig P229 SAS Gen. 2 Custom Shop pistol with Sig-Anti-Snag carry treatment, Short-Reset Trigger, Night Sights, Stainless Slide, Custom Wood Grips and of course, it's a .357 Sig.

Sig Sauer's website says:

Quote:

The P229® SAS Gen 2, joining the recently updated P239® and P220® Carry versions, features a melt treatment on frame & slide, SRT Trigger System, short trigger, SIGLITE® Night Sights, and black polymer grips. The slide features an engraved SIG SAUER® Custom Shop logo. The Generation 2 SAS is available in a Nitron or Two-Tone version. The P229® SAS Gen 2 comes in 9mm, .357SIG, and .40S&W calibers. This P229 pistol from the SIG SAUER Custom Shop has gone through a radical dehorning process resulting in an ultra smooth, snag free profile that’s ideal for concealed carry.

The Sig rep said he could get the nice wood grips from the now-discontinued SAS Gen 1 shown in the photo above and put them on my order. "To Hell and Back Reliability" and beautiful, too!

Second photo is what I think will be step three of my plan, a Smith & Wesson Night Guard revolver. I'm mulling over three models, .45 ACP, 10mm/.40 S&W or .44 Special.

Third photo is probably an alternate, say step 3A, a S&W 632 Carry Comp Pro Series in .327 Fed. Magnum. I probably won't have the funds to get both the Night Guard and the Carry Comp, so it will end up being one or the other. For now. But before I do any of the above, I gotta sell off at least two and perhaps three of my current pistols.