New toy Sig 229 Elite

Colin

Colin

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Well I got my new toy, a Sig 229 Elite in .40cal and with a 9mm Barsto barrel from Questar. It joins it stablemate a 226ST in 9mm. needless to say I love Sigs. My wife suggested that I use a similar gun to my 226 as my backup for IPSC. Realizing her wisdom I went out and ordered the 229. I choose the .40cal version as I always wanted a 357Sig firearm, and this would give me a 3 calibre gun. The 9mm barrel still needs a bit more fitting, but it seems to work in dryfire mode. Will take it out tomorrow to shoot.

What I have discovered from playing with it and using snapcaps.
The .40cal/357 mags will hold 12 rds of 9mm and will feed them.
226 9mm mags fit the gun and work fine with the 9mm barrel.
A 9mm 226 mag will also hold 7 rds of .40cal and seems to work.
A 229 mag will not fit a 226

My gun has the SRT (short reset trigger) compare it to my standard 226 I am not sure what the difference is, hopefully it will showup during shooting. The SRT does require an extra step while taking the slide off. The barrel extension is to ensure compliance with Canadian laws which require the barrel be over 4” (Don’t apply logic, your brain will hurt) The barrel came standard with the gun, believe it’s from Fire dragon?? The 9mm is from Barsto. I will get the 357Sig barrel in the new year.

Although the frame is the same width as the 9mm 226 and the slides will sort of interchange, the 229 .40cal slide is wider than the 226 9mm. It will fit my Serpa and my leather Goodrich and Gould IWB holster, but is very tight. Once the leather holster fits the 229, I suspect the 226 will be to loose. Think I will avoid the Serpa for now to minimize holster wear. The leather holster looks great with the wood grips of the 229, so it will be destined for that one I think.

I choose the Elite because I felt it would offer an advantage with shooting the .40cal and 357 Sig, I will see if I am correct tomorrow. (If not, likely I will lie to myself for awhile!)

Some Sig ####





 
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It looks kind of like mine. I noticed that the lettering on yours is in white and also the checkering on your grips is different. WTF?

p1030233gs8.jpg


If your looking for an additional .40 barrel, I know just where you can find one...wink, wink.

http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=200112

I think you'll find the trigger not much different than a regular SIG. At least I didn't. It is a pretty bad ass gun though.
 
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Colin...let us no what the SRT is like! Ive got a 226 ELITE 9MM on order and have heard alot of good things about it over on the other forum. Im really curious to no as mines not do in for a few more weeks.
 
Well I got out on Sunday, it was -3C but clear. I ran 50xUMC and 50xBlazer 180gr through it. Not one hiccup!! The gun snaps up, but drops back down quickly, the ports and the beavertail really work well to control this gun. Wished I had brought more ammo as I was getting into the groove with this gun, have fired other .40cals, the Sig 229 feels way better, I think this gun was meant to shoot .40cal! I suspect further range reports will be typical Sig boring, gun ran well blah, blah, blah. Before I fired it, I did lube it and put a light coat of moly grease on the frame rails.

I can’t say that I noticed a great deal of difference between my 226 with a regular trigger and the SRT on the 229, which I shot side by side, mind you my fingers were cold so that might have lessen the feel.

I did notice that after firing often I would find insulation from the roof floating down, its 4-5’ from the gun, so a lot of energy is coming out of the ports, although I didn’t see any flame.

The only con on this gun is that the edges of the beavertail are not bevelled, not such a problem for me, but meaty hands might notice it. I did feel one sharp edge on the wood grip against the web of my hand, so I will have to clean that up. I have noticed on some other Sig SAS guns that the grips don’t line up well, mine are pretty good, but this is one area Sig needs to pay attention to. Wood grips are going to need fitting to each gun, otherwise you will have annoyed customers.

I really wanted to try out the 9mm barrel as I am sure it will fit. In fact I measured the barrel sections on both barrels where they pass through the frame and they are both the same size, although I suppose the chamber/barrel hood fit effects the lineup of the barrel?

Next shoot I will try out .40cal in my sig 226 9mm mags to see how it works. I know it works with snap caps.

The gun did seem to shoot low, but not sure if it was me or the gun, will have to shoot more. I suspect that the nite sights are a bit taller than the standard sights and they seem to want to be put over the POA not under it.
 
So I got my 229 out to the ranges a few times. I love shooting this gun. The .40cal barrel from fire dragon is very accurate, but it seems the 9mm Barsto barrel seems to shoot low. I will have to borrow a pistol rest to figure out exactly where it is shooting at.

So far I have fed it 180gr FMJ .40cal from Blazer, UMC, Lawman and 180gr TMJ reloads with 4.1grs of titegroup. Also started shooting some 170gr SWC reloads out of it as well. Absolutely no problem with the above ammo. I haven’t had a chance to get any JHP so that will have to wait for a bit.

The 9mm has been a bit of a mixed story. All commercial ammo, (winclean, fiochi, Remington. 124gr I have used has fed flawlessly through it, using both the 229 .40cal mags and 9mm 226 mags. However I have had some FTE/stovepipes using reloads. My reloads use 3.9-4.1 grs titegroup behind 124gr TMJ, FMJ and RN lead. I suspect this load is to light for the .40cal springs. I will beef up the load a bit to see if this resolves the problem. I also found the chamber of the Barsto barrel to be unforgiving. I had some 9mm reloads that were very cranky, they gave me problems in most guns except for my 226, the 229 was no exception, it didn’t like them either.

I also shot a variety of 9mm JHP, Golden Sabres, Hydro-shocks and Remington green box JHP through it. It gobbled them all up and wanted more.

The nite sights are quite nice to use and was shooting in the dark with them the other night. Shooting the 9mm fiochi out of the 229 barrel is quite fun, the fireball is sort of like that out of a 7.62 Tork.

Issues

I have been having a problem with the slide not locking back, as I suspected it was my thumb working it’s way up, the wood grip don’t protect the slide lock as well as the Hogues grips does. I will have to correct my hold for this.

Frame finish
This pisses me off, the finish on the frame is easily scratched, one would think that on a high end gun they would try to find something that would stand up to normal use.

Accessory rail
##$%#% SIG!! This rail is friggin tight on my MX3 light, it will barely slide on, plus the bottom of the rail is convex and interferes with the cross bar on the MX3. This light works fine on my 226ST, SW M&P and other guns. How could Sig screwup something so simple? It is an absolute bugger trying to get it on and off.

SRT
Maybe my fingers are dumb but I don’t seem to be able to tell the difference between this gun and my stock 226

Holsters
I looked at the Safariland holster for this gun and liked the protective material inside, but could not get into the thumb release. So I went with the Blackhawk Serpa that I am used to. I have them for both my 226 and M&P and like them quite a bit. However this particular design leaves something to be desired. Unlike the M&P version, there is no trough for your finger to follow after releasing the lock. Instead there is a pronounced outward lip to protect the leading edge of the grip. This foces your finger to grate against the raised edge of the holster. It needed sanding to prevent rasping the finger. I realize it’s hard to design a holster to meet every gun, but I think they went the cheap route on this design. It is revision #9 of this one, hopefully #10 will be better. My leather Gould & Goodrich IWB holster for my 226 barely fits this and would overstretch it if I tried to use it as the slide on the 229 is thicker than the 226.

Summary
I not ready to use this as my go to gun yet, the POI needs to sorted out, need to try it with .40cal JHP and the inability to easily fit a light to it, makes it mainly a range gun for now. Hopefully I can resolve all of the above.

The finish issues really peeves me and I wished now that I had gotten a stainless Elite instead. When I do buy a 220, it will be Stainless. I do like the Beavertail for the .40cal as it aids the gun in dropping back into it’s slot after recoiling. Likely will get the Elite Stainless 220 in .45acp if possible.
 
Good review, thanks.

I bought mine based on the these 2 features

1. "SRT" trigger. Like you said, I also feel no difference between the SRT and a regular 226 trigger. This IMO I thought was going to be the greatest thing ever, after shooting it, I am sorely dissapointed.

2. .357 Sig conversion barrel. I got mine here a couple of weeks ago and have yet to fire it due to work.

Overall, considering the money it cost me, I don't think it was a bad deal, and I'd probably do it again.

I haven't noticed any scratches on the finish, but I don't shoot from a holster, so that's probably why.

I sold off the .40SW barrel to fund the .357 Sig one. I'm not a huge fan of .40SW to begin with, I find it way to snappy with any gun I've tried it with. The only gun I've ever really liked .40SW in is the XD. With that being said, it'll be interesting to see how the .357 Sig round works out.
 
$180 inclusive of everything.

Order it direct from EFK Firedragon. Google them and their website comes up. When you call, ask for Frank. Tell him you live in Canada and want an "extended" .357 sig barrel for the 229.

He's a great guy to deal with. Never any problems of the 3 times I've dealt with him. One time the barrel was held up in customs for 2 months and they charged me $30 duty I think, but no big deal.

Best of all, he doesn't have an attitude problem when you tell him you live in Canada.
 
Too bad about the SRT. The Sig 226 I tried didn't agree with me at all; I found the trigger reset felt like a mile.

Mind you, I prefer the 1911, so the Sig was already at a disadvantage in convincing me LOL
 
I ran about 50 rnds though my elite 226 the other day. It was pretty cold so I just shot some plates. I was really interested in trying the SRT trigger. I found it to be an incredibly short reset, I actually missed the reset several times and I really had to feel for it! I think its going to take some practice to get used too. Overall very impressed!
 
RT said:
I ran about 50 rnds though my elite 226 the other day. It was pretty cold so I just shot some plates. I was really interested in trying the SRT trigger. I found it to be an incredibly short reset, I actually missed the reset several times and I really had to feel for it! I think its going to take some practice to get used too. Overall very impressed!
Click to expand...

If you can further elaborate what you had meant that would be great, so that we have some insight into the SRT.

ie were you trying to release just to reset and squeeze the trigger again? Or (the unlikely bad alternative) that you had no idea when it was resetted?

I had started a thread a long while back before many of the SIGs with the SRT came to Canada and I'm sure many want to know whether it is worth retrofitting to their SIGs.

EDIT: http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=134182
 
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targettarget said:
$180 inclusive of everything.

Order it direct from EFK Firedragon. Google them and their website comes up. When you call, ask for Frank. Tell him you live in Canada and want an "extended" .357 sig barrel for the 229.

He's a great guy to deal with. Never any problems of the 3 times I've dealt with him. One time the barrel was held up in customs for 2 months and they charged me $30 duty I think, but no big deal.

Best of all, he doesn't have an attitude problem when you tell him you live in Canada.
Click to expand...

They don't have problem shipping to Canada?
Awesome, they have nice stuff
Any stocking dealers here??? :D
 
Winz said:
If you can further elaborate what you had meant that would be great, so that we have some insight into the SRT.

ie were you trying to release just to reset and squeeze the trigger again? Or (the unlikely bad alternative) that you had no idea when it was resetted?

I had started a thread a long while back before many of the SIGs with the SRT came to Canada and I'm sure many want to know whether it is worth retrofitting to their SIGs.

EDIT: http://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php?t=134182
Click to expand...


Well, the trigger seems very smooth,and the reset is also smooth! So by instinct I was just tending to do a standard release ( let the trigger almost all the way out) thinking I would be able to feel the reset and at first I couldnt feel it. To figure out were it was I fired a shot then very slowly let the trigger out...when I was consentrating on feeling it then it was noticable, you could feel that suttle crisp click. From the fully depressed trigger postion after the shot is fired to the rest is less than ( im guessing here cuz I didnt measure it) an 1/8th" maybe less. Ill take better note next time I get it out as to a more acurate reset distance. But all in all Im very impressed with it and I think its just going to take sum practice to use it properly.
 
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