The Gun Digest Book of Sig-Sauer. Massad Ayoob

Introduction

      It was an honor to be asked to write the Gun Digest Book of SIG-Sauer handguns with which I’ve had a long and most agreeable acquaintance. My work, as a firearms and deadly force instructor and as a writer/tester for gun magazines, has brought me into contact with more of them than I can count. It brings me into contact with lots of other fine guns, too, and that’s been useful in putting the SIG pistols in context.

      When it was announced at an executive meeting at SIGARMS that I’d be writing this book, one fellow blurted, “They can’t let him write it! He’s a Glock guy!”

      After I stopped laughing, I realized he was partly right. I am a Glock guy. I’m also a Colt and Smith and Ruger guy, and a Beretta, Browning, and HK guy … and yes, a SIG guy too. Damn it, I’m a gun guy.

      And that’s the angle from which this book comes. I was hired by Krause Publications, not SIGARMS. I’m not here to sell the guns. I’m here to tell you what we’ve learned about them. I’ve shot SIGs in matches, carried them on and off duty, taught classes with them, and kept them for home defense. But far more has been learned from the collective experience of law enforcement and military, and a vast nation of law-abiding armed citizens.

      Sure, I’ve carried the SIG-Sauer from Alaska to Miami, but it’s a lot more important to know that SEAL Teams and SAS troopers have used them from Arctic cold to desert sands, and found them not wanting. One of the most popular law enforcement sidearms of modern times – probably the second most popular in the U.S. right now, outsold only by the Glock – the SIG has proven itself accurate, ergonomic, and above all, reliable and safe.

       Safety

      Colt’s classic 1911 pistol did not become drop-safe until the Series 80 firing pin safety, nor Browning’s High Power until the introduction of the Mark III series in the late 1980s. Smith & Wesson’s double-action autos did not get passive firing pin safeties to prevent inertia discharge until their second generation, and the Glock did not become 100 percent safe against impact discharge until 1990. The SIG-Sauers were drop-safe from the beginning. Some pistols require the trigger to be pulled on an empty chamber to begin the disassembly process, which has led to the occasional negligent discharge with a missile in the launch tube, but SIG-Sauer disassembly requires that the slide be locked open before takedown can even begin.

      For many in law enforcement and the military, the long, heavy pull of a double-action trigger to fire the first shot is seen as a bulwark against accidental discharge. It is easy enough to shrug and say, “Just keep your finger out of the trigger guard until you’re going to shoot,” but that’s too pat an answer. Take a walk through a video store and look at how many of the video and DVD jackets portray someone holding a gun…and notice how many depict the actor with his finger on the trigger. This sort of subliminal conditioning, along with a childhood of playing with toy guns, has left many people with a finger-on-the-trigger habit that takes a lot of time to train away. A firm resistance to an unintended pull is some degree of a safety net, and the SIG-Sauers have that.

      I can think of three good-sized police departments who won’t buy or authorize SIG-Sauers because these pistols do not have thumb safeties. Those three agencies require all personnel to carry their pistols on-safe. The SIG design parameter from the beginning was for these to be point-and-shoot pistols, simple to learn and simple to operate. It was felt that with a drop-safe gun, a manual safety was redundant, and not in keeping with the principle later heard at SIGARMS Academy, “Simple Is Good.” Although a few P226s with magazine disconnector safeties were made up per government requests – one from a U.S. agency, one from a foreign buyer – the SIG-Sauer has always been “an automatic that you shoot like a revolver.”

       Reliability

      There will be comments from knowledgeable sources in this book about the final duel between SIG and Beretta for the U.S. military contract in the 1980s. It should not be taken as Beretta-bashing. After all, Beretta won. The final tests showed them neck and neck for reliability at virtually faultless levels. In 9mm service pistols, the comparison between the SIG P226 and the Beretta 92 is much like a comparison of the BMW and the Audi automobiles. In each case, both machines operate at the highest level of reliability and performance. Little things will dictate the choice. If you prefer to carry your pistol on-safe, you want a Beretta 92F. If you prefer to carry off-safe, you probably want a SIG P226, because it can’t be found unexpectedly on-safe at the worst possible time. While Beretta offers the decock-only G-series, I don’t find its operation nearly as ergonomic as the SIG’s.