Quote:
Originally Posted by James&theGiant1911
I hear what you are saying but the following agencies use the Sig .357.
United States Secret Service
Federal Air Marshals
Bureau of Industry and Security
Delaware State Police
Montana Highway Patrol
Texas Ranger Division
Virginia State Police
The 357 Sig round rarely will ever fail, it is the best of both worlds. Its ballistics is as strong as the 40 caliber with the nimbleness of the 9mm. They have a neck so they rarely every fail to fire. The rounds are not mass produced as say the 9mm but when compared to the 40 caliber round it is an easy choice.
If you have shot the .357 Sig round then you will know that it does not recoil as bad as the 40 cal. and packs the power of round with the firing characteristics of the 9mm. It is about the most perfect handgun round every made. Oh, and I own a p228 in 9mm and a SAS P229 in .357 sig along with multiple 40 calibers, but yeah firing the 9mm and 40s is a lot more economical.
What I was basically saying is that certain gun makers should be experienced in those true rounds for which they were designed.
IMO
The best 9mm ever made and the most accurate is the Browning Hi Power
The best 40 cals are of course the 3rd gen Smiths
The best 45ACP are of course the 1911s
The best .357 Sig round is of course found in the P Series Sigs
If you do not own any other guns then make sure you own these makers in those calibers. You will be much more happier....
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I have shot .357 Sig and have owned a P239 and a P229 with a 357 Sig and 40 S&W barrels. It is a fine round. Most people who use it like its ability to penetrate windshields and similar barriers. It makes sense for them and they will most likely continue to use them but look at the size of those agencies. If, however, you add them all up and you are talking about less than 12,000 handguns and none of them are replacing those guns annually. I would estimate every 3 to 5 years would be about right so listing those agencies actually proves my point. How many guns in 357 Sig are those contracts demanding year in year out? 2,000 -3,000 at most which for a volume model company like Sig is a drop in the bucket compared to larger contracts and the commerical market for 9mm, 45 ACP and 40 S&W.
Compare them to say NYC who has 40,000+ officers who are authorized to carry the P226 in 9mm. Then Nassau county who carry 9mm Sigs, 3000, and Houston PD, 4000+, who can carry 40 S&W Sigs respectively.
Then add to it the French contract for the SP2022. They ordered 270,000 SP2022 pistols. The following year, the U.S. Army's Tank & Armaments Command placed an order for 5,000 pistols.
Show me a contract for even 100,000 Sig Pistols in .357 Sig. I can tell you now you don't have to waste your time looking because there isn't one.
It is however IMHO a problem looking for a solution today. This might not have been the case in 1994 but the 9mm JHP bullet has come a long way. You seem to really like it great but your reply does not address the inaccuracies of your original post. The only two guns that support your tenuous claim are the P239 and the P229 both which were developed around the same time as the 357 Sig.
IMHO today's 9mm JHP ammo performs better than it did in 1994. They are getting closer to what 40 S&W was in the early 90s. The FBI and a lot of other agencies are going back to the 9mm. The 40 S&W market is weak. If you look around 40 S&W guns are not moving like they used to. Its weakness will only drag down the .357 Sig as well. There are only a few things that the .357 Sig can do that +P 9mm Sig can't and .357 Sig comes at a cost of reduced capacity. If one of your needs falls into that narrow range, like the need to penetrate auto safety glass, then the .357 Sig makes sense.
It however does not make the .357 Sig the foundation or the base of the Sig P series line. It was an attempt to bridge the gap between 9mm JHP and 40 S&W JHP but with the improvement of 9mm 147gr penetration and expansion that gap is much smaller today and the .357 is getting squeezed out. You clearly like the Sig P series guns in 357 Sig. I personally have not found it to be a better shooting round in Sigs then say Glocks. I prefer Sig ergos but that is a subjective criteria which I would never claim to be a universal truth. IMHO YMMV