GAO says no to Sigs
Based on the results of the shooting tests, the [source selection board] recommended to the contracting officer that Sig Sauer’s handgun be excluded from further consideration as unacceptable with respect to reliability
I find this very odd. I’ve owned at least five Sigs and have never had an issue with any of them.
August 19th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
I believe (I haven’t yet read the document) that the Sig in question is the 250 series. They’ve built a pretty pervasive reputation for having issues with that series.
August 19th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Indeed, if it’s the Sig 250 this would not surprise me in the least bit.
August 19th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Plus, Sig isn’t Glock!
August 19th, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Reading the document, it appears that they used either 20 or 40 people of diverse skill levels, both left and right handed, and had them shoot a total of 200 rounds. I say 20 or 40 because the document says 20, but then lists a total of 40 ratings. My assumption is that it’s actually 40 people for 8000 rounds total, as a whole lot more data would be ‘wrong’ if it were just 20 people. In that, the Sig had 58 of what they called ‘stoppages’, which they defined as something that could be fixed in under 30 seconds without tools. They broke that down into 45 caused by shooter error and 13 caused by the gun itself, but gave no details on what these actually were.
I assume that the problems were stovepiping, or soemthing like that, but don’t know for sure.
So the 45 stoppages could be fixed by training, but seeing some of the idiots we have in the ATF excluding guns with a relatively high rate of user error is probably a good thing. And if you know what you’re doing, the 0.16% rate of having to do something relatively quick to be able to continue firing is probably not that big a deal.
August 19th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Sigs are my favorite pistols but I stick to buying their older models. The claims of poor QC I’ve heard might be overblown, but for the prices they charge they should be freaking flawless.
August 19th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
The 250s are wretched, indeed, but the second most problematic handgun I have ever owned was a P226. After four trips back to the factory, I insisted the dealer give me the maximum trade-in for it used as “there was nothing wrong with it.” It never reliably made our issue ammo go bang. I acknowledge that it was a bizarre one-off problem, but that didn’t help me any.
August 19th, 2010 at 2:09 pm
Funny…in my admittedly limited contact with SOF types in Afghanistan, they all carried SiGs
August 19th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
13 gun-induced stoppages
45 shooter‑induced stoppages
Sig had more gun related stoppages either S&W or Glock had shooter induced stoppages, and they had more than twice the number of shooter-induced stoppages than both Glock and S&W combined, and almost triple as many total stoppages than S&W and Glock combined, but it’s supposed to be a shooter TRAINING issue?
Now, I could see a bad batch of handguns as the problem, manufacturing is like that.
But saying it’s a training issue? Pull the other one!
One of the shooters was well trained enough to change grip sizes on the Smith & Wesson (I’d guess M&P).
August 19th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
The US ones made after the marketing people took over Sig are junk. Many agencies have been reporting reliability problems with their Sigs.
August 19th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Reading the document, it seems this contract is for “matched sets” of a polymer full size and compact gun, which is what the Sig 250 is.
Normal quality of the Sig P series does not seem to apply to the P250.
August 19th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
The 250s I’ve seen in classes have been a real disappointment. The Glock is like a Honda Civic or a Volvo. Boxy, boring but it works. The 250 should have been the high speed/low drag sports car of the Glock-knockoff market – instead it’s sort of a designed-by-committee, jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none dud. Every single student I’ve had that showed with a 250 that tried a Glock, an XD or an M&P went out and sold/traded their 250 for one of those other models because they shot them so much better.
August 19th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
It appears they were 250s, which are wretched pulsating balls of fail with crappy triggers. I can’t believe that SIG put their names on these things; they make the old SIGpro look good by comparison.
August 19th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
The ATF put out their requirements and the companies offered the product they had that meet the requirements. The ATF conducted shooter tests. The Sigs provided had problems far in excess of Glock or S&W. Maybe correctable by training but why spend the money for that when you can purchase a Glock or S&W that fit with training already provided and meet requirements. Especially, since that training was for their current standard issue Sigs. In any case, to accept the Sig for further consideration with the acknowledgement additional training would be required for it to meet reliability criteria would violate the RFP selection criteria established when they put of the request. Can’t change the rules mid-selection without either approval of all bidders or starting all over.
August 19th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
The ATF needs the worst pistol possible.
August 19th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Wonder if the Sigs had a harder time than usual shooting dogs?
August 19th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Fav pistol of all time was my Sig228. My guess here – nearly all brands are now so reliable that a reviewing agency is challenged with narrowing the field. I bet a Sig had one mf in the testing, which was enough to drop it from further testing. A negative for Sig and Sig Lovers, but probably a blessing for the poor schmuk who has to defend his final decision. Assuming I’m close to the mark here, this means the bar has been raised to ridiculous levels and that these tests and decisions ultimately benefit us all.
August 19th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
They make a Sig that’s not a 220? 😉
August 19th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Yeah, I stand by what I wrote – a ‘shooter-induced’ stoppage is a training issue. The shooter screwed something up. What? We don’t know. The document doesn’t give us enough info to tell.
I’d be really curious to see what the pattern was – evenly distributed across the test subjects or (much more likely) distributed mostly across a small subset.
August 19th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
The best Sig is a used Sig.
August 19th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
2 pistols times 20 shooters equals 40 evaluations. As much as I love my P series all metal Sigs, the polymer frame pistols are just what Tam says. Having recently purchased an M&P, IMHO it is superior to the plastic Sig or Glock
August 19th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
I’m going to echo comment #9 (and 14, heh), and say that a post 2005 SIG is unfortunately a much different beast than the German made guns that built their reputation. Although last I knew, Coast Guard, OSI, CID, and NCIS had all just recommitted to SIG with plans to “upgrade” from the 228 to the newer 229.
August 19th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
The ATF needs more shooter induced failures to fire, so their only ones won’t shoot themselves in the foot with their Glock Fohtay.
It isn’t like you need a quality pistol to stomp small animals to death.
August 20th, 2010 at 2:34 am
Eric R? My next-door neighbor let me shoot a Sig of his back in 1994, I believe it was. It worked great, had nice trigger and all, and then I asked him how much he paid for it. Yikes! He also let me me shoot his Ruger P85, I think it was, which shot almost as well and was about 70% cheaper to buy.
August 20th, 2010 at 3:10 am
The best Sig is a used Sig?
a used man?
August 20th, 2010 at 3:11 am
The ATF needs more shooter induced failures to fire, so their only ones won’t shoot themselves in the foot with their Glock Fohtay.
August 21st, 2010 at 3:57 am
Since Sig has that whole “you VILL shoot the pistol with your RIGHT hand” mindset, I mostly ignore them.