We have cracked both frames and slides on real SIG P226s, however it always occurs well after 50,000rds. I ran 2 NP34s on the range and they lasted only weeks, and at best saw 5,000rds. They are cheaper, and for light use they are fine, but don't fool yourself into thinking you are getting the same quality at a lower price.
I'd offer the view that "perspective is everything." 50,000 rounds is approximately $20,000 worth of shooting, not including gas, memberships, etc. Just HOW much usage is that?
Consider the basic math surrounding that premise; even at 2000 rounds a month, it would take you more than 2 years of a punishing shooting regimen consisting of $1000.00/month ammunition budgets. This is the amount of shooting that would need to occur before you needed to consider material replacement on a quality Sig pistol.
If you shot religiously EVERY Saturday Sunday and Wednesday of a 4 week month, that is 160 rounds EVERY SINGLE session without fail. That's more than 16 full magazines per session.
If you didn't simply try to empty every single mag into targets, but instead focused on drawing, firing two rounds on target, checking your surroundings, re-holstering and then repeating the full cycle, you would be completing 25,000 firing cycles. If each event is a 4 second event, you would have consumed 100,000 seconds of active training. That is more than 1666 minutes of time spent ACTIVELY engaging targets. #### me. That's professional level engagement. If you are keeping up with your carbine on top of that, you should be able to land some lucrative work where you get paid commensurately for your efforts.
If you're planning on that level of shooting you either really need to watch your costs or more likely could not give a rats ass about managing them because you are privately or government funded.
For 99/100 shooters the Sig will be more gun than you ever need. And despite that one high-speed low-drag mo-fo at the far end of the spectrum, the common plinker's probable usage forecast might budget 5,000 rounds for the next 10 years (500 rnds /year, or one big shipment from Wolverine, etc.) making it the smart choice. If that's all you intend to shoot, then your logic is rock solid. After all, you can always upgrade if you decide shooting is really going to be your bag.
But no credible (or even sober) source is going to tell you those products are equivalent in quality.
If you buy it, remember to factor in material replacement costs and multiply them by your usage interval. Based on the volumes above, the Norinco copy is not cost effective if you must replace it every 2.5 months (5000 rounds - Redleg's reported figure). That's $1396.00 in replacement guns a year to sustain the same shooting volume of the "expensive" $1100.00 Sig. And it doesn't sound remotely economical anymore; not even for my grade 6 math skills.
And FWIW, Shooting Edge in Calgary would have seen those volumes empirically over a number of guns to be able to make a credible comment.
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