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.)

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.

Two full-size pistols depart, two compacts arrive

The new small guys are in the house and the old big guys are almost all gone.

At right is my new-to-me EAA Witness-P Compact .45 ACP, which arrived today. It has a 3.6" barrel with a polymer frame and a set of mahogany grips cut and glued on with something called Gorilla Glue by the previous owner. It's not the neatest glue job I ever saw, but the wood does look nice. And it's definitely better looking than the plastic polymer grips underneath, plus the wood grips fill my hand pretty nicely.

Best of all, it's an EAA so I can buy a .38 Super slide for it and shoot not only .38 Super but 9x23mm in it. I shot both in my briefly owned Lone Wolf G20 "experiential" conversion barrel, that wouldn't feed right. That's another story that didn't end well. But both .38 Super and 9x23mm are improvements over standard 9x19mm and I'm a guy who believes more speed and longer bullets are better than slower, shorter bullets. That's why I love .357 Sig and 10mm as well as .45 ACP and 9mm. IMHO, .357 Sig is a really fast 9mm and 10mm is a really fast .45 ACP. Kinda sorta.

I know 10mm is not a .45, it's really a long .40, or more accurately the current .40 S&W is a short 10mm. But what I'm driving at is that 10mm was initially developed as an alternative to .45 ACP, a larger than 9mm round that had faster ballistics than .45 ACP. The "experts" thought it would replace .45 ACP. Shows how wrong "experts" can be. But I still love 10mm for the same reason I love .357 Sig. It's faster than .45 ACP with close to the same grain weight slugs and the foot-pounds of energy delivered are higher. Same is true with .357 Sig over 9mm, it's faster with same grain weight slugs and the foot-pounds of energy delivered is way higher. Plus both 10mm and .357 Sig are flatter shooting at longer ranges than .45 or 9mm.

And I like .38 Super and 9x23mm for the same reasons, speed and energy.

So I have carry pistols in all my favorite calibers, 9x19mm, .357 Sig, 10mm and .45 ACP and as soon as I can afford a new slide, .38 Super or 9x23mm.

I've got a Lone Wolf barrel in 9x25mm for my G20 and I could get one for my G29 too, but even I gotta admit 9x25 is way too much overkill for a carry pistol. It's so freaking loud I'd be deaf to shoot it in self defense without hearing protection. Walking around with ear muffs ain't an option.

Over at gtalk, one poster reported using 9x25mm on a deer and he said the round literally exploded inside the critter. I can see me sitting on the stand in court trying to explain why I used such a huge overkill round in defense.

So I acquired the EAA .45 ACP/.38 Super/9x23mm as a swap for my formerly owned GKK-45, the next photo. It's a great shooter, but being all steel with a 5" barrel, it's not a good candidate for daily carry unless you're big as Godzilla. I'm a pretty large guy, 6' 3" and 265 lbs., but I ain't big enough to carry that monster around.

Next photo is my new CZ 75 P-07 Duty, showing off its replacement ambi-safety levers. The gun shop guru changed out the decockers for safeties so now I can carry the P-07 cocked and locked, which is my personal preference over using a decocker.

Essentially I purchased the P-07 with the money I got for the sale of my Steyr M357-A1 .357 Sig pistol, but it's more accurately the replacement for my soon-to-be-formerly-owned CZ 75 SP-01 Custom, which is the last photo.

The SP-01 Custom has been sold through gunbroker with payment scheduled to arrive Thursday, upon which I will ship it out. It's a full-size pistol like the GKK-45, with a 4.7" barrel, being replaced by the 3.6" barrel P-07, both being 9mm.

And technically speaking the aforementioned Steyr M357-A1 has already been replaced with another .357 Sig, a Sig Sauer P229 Custom Shop Sig-Anti-Snag Generation 2, next photo.

The Steyr MA1 has a 4" barrel and the Sig P229 has a 3.9" barrel so both are compacts, but the issue here is reliability. As good as my Steyr M357-A1 was and still is for its new owner, it was not 100% reliable. More like 98 or 99%. Not bad until you compare it to 100%.

And that's what my formerly owned Sig P226 .357 Sig was for me and what the new Sig P229 has been so far. The Sig P226 was the first of my full-size pistols to be sold and the CZ SP01 will be the last to leave. And that's what my other two .357 Sig pistols have also been, 100% reliable, a 4.25" barrel S&W M&P and a 3.5" barrel M&P. So that made the Steyr M357-A1 my fourth-most-reliable .357 Sig pistol and it had to go.

So all the swapping and selling is done, or will be done on Thursday when the payment for the SP-01 arrives and it ships out.

So come Saturday, I'll be shooting my new-to-me EAA .45 ACP compact and my brand-new-in-the-box CZ 75 P-01 Duty 9mm. C'mon Saturday!

Fun with a pair of .357 Sigs and a 9mm pocket pistol

Had some more fun at the range Saturday with my new Sig P229 SAS Gen2 and my almost-new S&W M&P Compact, both .357 Sig pistols.

I had four new mags for the P229 to test plus the M&P Compact still needs breaking in with only about 200-300 rounds through it.

The M&P Compact trigger is not nearly as user friendly as the trigger in my M&P full-size .357 Sig, so I'm hoping that as I shoot it, it will break in and get as smooth and slick at its big brother was and is right out of the box.

I ran one 12-rd. mag full of hollow points and four mags of FMJs and Speer CF Frangible through the Sig P229 standing at 10 yards, one at the head and the rest at the body of the 11x17" small red-man target shown at right.

And then I followed that with one 10-rd. mag and two 15-rd. mags with the M&P Compact, one at the head and the rest at the body.

All rounds with both pistols were rapid fire as quickly as I could get the sights back on the target after each shot.

A few rounds landed off the paper but the vast majority were in the "kill zone."

Then I fired one 8-rd. magazine from my Kel-Tec PF-9 9mm back-up pistol to try out a new carry load, Hornady Critical Defense 115-gr. FTX.

I was aiming at the thumbnail-size little redman in the top-left corner of the 11x17" target, standing at 10 yards.

Six of the 8 landed in the region of the thumbnail, with one in the red and one in the rectangle.

Total spread of those six is about 4-5", which isn't bad with a 3"-barrel pocket pistol.

I use the PF-9 for my "church gun" as a sole carry and backup the rest of the time and for an inexpensive pocket pistol, it has surprisingly good accuracy. If you take your time and squeeze off rounds, you can put 'em where you want 'em.

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.

Downsizing 'Baddest Tactical Pistols' to carry size

I got on a full-size "Tactical" pistol binge in late 2007 and bought the following handguns in reverse order:

Baddest Tactical Pistol No. 6: Glock 20 10mm Baddest Tactical Pistol No. 5: S&W M&P 357 Baddest Tactical Pistol No. 4: Steyr M9-A1 Baddest Tactical Pistol (Revolver) No. 3: S&W 21-4 .44 Special Baddest Tactical Pistol No 2: CZ75 SP01 Custom 9mm Baddest Tactical Pistol No. 1, Llama IX-C .45 ACP

The S&W Model 21 .44 Special was traded straight up for the Sig P226 when I acquired a S&W Model 29 .44 Magnum/.44 Special and the Model 21 became surplus.

And since I started work as a gun shop salesman in January, I've gone in the other direction, buying a S&W M&P Compact .357 Sig and a Charter Arms .327 Fed. Magnum snubnose revolver.

And now I've decided to take it a step further and divest myself of some of my full-size pistols and downsize for carry weapons.

The Sig Sauer P226 .357 Sig and the CZ 75 SP01 Custom 9mm are the first two up on the block and are now listed on Gunbroker. Though I love both pistols, neither is very concealable and both are fairly heavy so are not good carry candidates.


I'm thinking about replacing the Sig Sauer P226 with 4.4" barrel with a Sig P229 with a 3.9" barrel. Sig Sauer has a Sig Anti-Snag (SAS) carry model of the 229, which I want in .357 Sig with night sights and the Short-Reset Trigger. A set of those nice wood grips shown would be good, too.



And I'm thinking about a new 2009 model of Para Ordnance as the replacement for the CZ SP01 Custom. Para has a .45 ACP model called the Carry 12 which is a subcompact with 3.5" barrel and Para's Light Double Action trigger. The LDA trigger is IMHO the biggest improvement made to date to John Moses Browning's famed 1911 single-action .45 ACP pistol design.

But then there's also that S&W NightGuard model in 10mm. Six rounds of 10mm in a lightweight carry revolver sounds mighty attractive. And Smith has also brought back the incomparable classic Model 24 with a 3" barrel in .44 Special. So many choices and so little money to buy with.

But gotta sell what I got before I can buy something smaller, so I must learn to be patient.