I never said the 229 immediately replaced the sheet metal models. I know they were made simultaneously for a long time. What I know for sure about the 229 is that the first ones I and my coworkers saw at OUR BIG GUN SHOW here in Indiana were 9mms. Which came first? The chicken or the egg? As to what caliber the first 229s were that first came off the production line , 40 or 9, I don’t know. If you want to pick at what I said at least get it right before you do so. Ok?
Man why the huge chip on your shoulder? It is simply unnecessary and discredits any truth value in your statements. In the end you have some of the facts right but are using them in the completely wrong context. Then on other facts you are completely wrong.
To get back on topic lets look at the OP:
I have the chance to pick up a Sig P228. It is West German made with proper markings. Are these durable firearms? I read something about stamped steel slides. Please advise.
A West German P228 with its folded carbon steel slide and alum frame when properly maintained is going to outlive most of us. I order to shoot this gun to failure you are talking about a round count in excess of 20,000+ rounds. If you replaced the locking block which is a $50 part it will last even longer. At today's prices we are talking about $6,000+ worth of 9mm ammo to reach a point of possible failure.
The OP is asking about the stamped side and is it the weak point of the gun. It is not. A older Sig Stamped slide can crack but it is not common. What is more common is that the frame rails fail. You sort of get this part right.
The slide is stamped and welded thin sheet metal. The breechblock is a separate piece that is held in place with a roll pin that is supposed to be replaced after so many rounds. The frame rails are thin aluminum alloy that can crack if hot ammo is used that causes the thin slide to flex when fired. Cerekoted? I’d pass unless it was cheap. But the Sig fans will now chime in and tell you that I know nothing. There are better and more durable guns out there for reasonable prices.
It is not that the rails crack from "hot ammo" P Series Sigs like the P228 have been used by many NATO countries shooting NATO ball. When properly maintained the locking lock prevents flexing and rail damage. The most common source of rail damage and failure is galling of the rails from improper lubrication. People who are Sig experts like Flork of Apex and Bruce Gray of Gray guns all recommend grease on the rails to protect the anodizing. Every Sig I have ever since with a cracked rails showed excessive wear into the anodizing from improper lubrication, out of spec slide/rail or not replacing a worn out locking block.
Again yes you can shoot a P228 and other P series guns to a point of failure but 99.999% of shooter are never going to send enough rounds down range to reach that failure point even without a locking block change. So in this instance the fact that P series rails can and do fail is true but the reasons you are giving are incorrect. Poor maintaince and extremely high round counts are the cause not the design.
I remember when the 229 first came out. I was never impressed with the boxy 226 and 228 as were some of my coworkers. One laughed at me and told me I was crazy when I told him his high $ 226 had a sheet metal slide. Another of my more knowledgeable coworkers wasn’t impressed with the sheet metal models either and bought the first 229 he saw at a gun show. I looked the 229 over and was greatly impressed with the overall quality but didn’t buy. The first 229s were indeed 9mms and were nice if a bit heavy. The durability problems with the sheet metal guns are a mater of history and easily researched if you care to read the details of the US Government’s 9mm gun tests.
This is not the case. I alluded to it before and I will state again the original Sig P229 was chambered in 40 S&W. It debuted at the 1991 SHOT show. The .357 followed 6 months later. The 9mm came sometime after that. The gun was developed by Sig for the US LEO market. At that time the move away from 9mm to 40 S&W was dominating LEO department purchasing. They could not risk not having a pistol to meet that need. The P229 was all about the 40 S&W round and later the 357 Sig which is essentially a 40 S&W necked down with a 9mm projectile.
The Sig P-229 in .40 S&W caliber was a long time coming. The first prototype was shown to a few writers at the 1991 Shot Show, but Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft, or SIG, unlike some other manufacturers, did not rush its .40 S&W caliber pistol into production. They waited until they were sure they had everything right. And let me tell you the P-229 is a pistol that was worth the wait. The past few years have witnessed a revolution in police firearms as American law enforcement agencies have finally embraced the semi-auto pistol. A number of different firms, both foreign and domestic, and an even larger number of competing designs have been struggling to capture control of this market. For a long time, in the beginning, it was anyone's race, but now it can be argued the leaders of the pack have thinned to three major competitors. -By Frank James
https://www.remtek.com/arms/sig/model/229/229.htm
Oh and the P229s also suffer from rail failures. The problem there is not the stamped slide or the locking block it is that the machined SS slide is harder than the alum rails and if slightly our of spec can galls the rails. If the anodizing is compromised frame rail failure will happen. So the same lubrication techniques apply.
The frames on the P229 are beefier but the rails are not thicker. You can take a P228 slide and swap the locking block and run it on a P229-1 frame. If the rails were thicker it would not run. The dimensions on the grip part of the frame are thicker not the rails. Many people have do this conversion with a P228 complete slide.
The article by Frank James addresses the development of the P229 and its SS machined slide which was used in order to withstand the 40 S&W round. One of the main details I would point out is that Sig could have developed a folded steel slide that would have held up but it was cheaper to do a milled stainless steel slide. This reminds me of when FN when to a cast frame for the BHP to accommodate the 40 S&W round. It was not that the could not make a forged frame strong enough it was just cheaper to use a cast frame. Gun manufacturers are always looking to solve the problem with the cheapest manufacturing technique in todays volume model world.
The beauty of the .40 S&W cartridge is that it offers the best of both worlds: a big bore cartridge possessing the potential for large caliber effectiveness, while also fitting into smaller framed magazines sufficiently well to provide high magazine capacity. The downsides to the .40 S&W are the increased slide velocity and the greater recoil forces experienced when chambered in pistols that were nominally designed for the 9mm cartridge.
SIG pistols, while never revolutionary, are unique in terms of their construction. The 220, 225, 226, and 228 all use slides manufactured from thick-gauge sheet metal formed over a mandrel. The muzzle bushing is welded into the formed slide, while the rear piece of the slide is fitted via a keyway and then held in position through use of a rollpin.
Because these pistols are recoil operated, there is a need for some means of locking the barrel to the slide. That is accomplished by having the chamber block of the barrel fit closely into the ejection port when the gun goes into battery. It is a simple system, and it works. It also eliminates the need for machining locking lug recesses within the slide, and allows the use of thick gauge sheet metal in forming the contour of the slide. However, it soon became apparent this would not work for any pistol chambering the .40 S&W round. The increased power yielded forces that would be hard for the mandrel-formed slide to withstand.
SIG solved this problem by going to a machined stainless steel slide. It is significant, if for no other reason than to understand the importance of the American market, to note that this stainless steel slide for the P-229 is manufactured completely in the United States. The aluminum alloy frame is still manufactured in Germany and it says so on the right side, but the slide is a "Made In USA" component.
By having the frame made from aluminum, the P-229 follows the precedent established by the previous SIG pistols. A steel locking block is installed in the alloy frame to serve a combination of functions; the first is to act as the locking block for the barrel earn and to lock/unlock the barrel within the slide. The second is to serve as a feed guide for the cartridge entering the chamber, and the third function is to absorb the recoil forces without damaging the alloy frame.
The .40 caliber P-229 mimics the size and feel of the 9mm P-228, but they are not exactly identical. Outside of the obvious differences seen at the muzzle and the different methods used in manufacturing the slide, there are smaller differences. -James Frank
So in the end yes the P229 is beefier but can still be prone to rail failure in both 9mm, 40 S&W and .357 Sig. They are good guns and many people bought them as a multi-caliber platform. Sig expanded that to the P226. The modern P228MA1 and P225MA1 are different animals vs their German counterparts.
Many people refer the older P series guns. I prefer the P228 not because it is a superior gun but because it was the first serious handgun I ever owned. It was the first higher round count platform for me. It fits my hand and I learned to shoot DA/SA on a P228. To me the P229 is overly heavier. It feels blocky and chunky in the hand. There is something real or imagined for me about the P228 that feels more elegant in the hand. That is of course 100% subjective. From an objective stand point it is a proven battle tested platform which is a worthy addition to any collection. IMHO Pic of one of mine.
) I have a copy.
