I am currently taking a firearms instructor training class for my job.  

This class consists of a mixed group of criminal investigators and LE personnel from various state, local, and federal agencies.  All the attendees are basically good shooters who know how to run pistols AND who were picked by their boss to become firearms instructors.  

The ammo used over the two week course was about 800 rounds per shooter, all of it Speer frangible.  That's fairly dirty ammo, but whatever, we didn't shoot them that much.  

The pistols:

10 Glocks, mostly 22'x and 23's, one G17.
12 Sigs, 2-220's, 1 239, the rest 229's in 40 and 357 Sig.  
1 Beretta M92, 1 XD in 45 Auto
None of these pistols were particulary beat or abused.  

The failures:

The Glocks, Beretta, and XD: 0 failures.
The Sigs:

2 - 229's that broke extractors
1 - 229 where the weld on the take down latch (flat piece of metal) somehow sheered from the semi-circular locking bar that runs across the frame, allowing the latch to just spin freely and requiring a Sig armourer to do some magic ju-ju to dssy the gun and fix it.
1 - 229 that suddenly just failed to feed multiple rounds until an instructor more or less beat it into battery. Then it seemed to run fine.
These last two failures were described to me by fellow students, I did not see them myself.  

I own several Glocks, but I also like Sigs.  I am not posting here to diss on Sigs or start some "my gun better than your gun" Jihad.  But four failures out of twelve guns is ridiculous.  

What is the deal on Sig's current QC?  A lot of the folks in my class expressed concern after seeing these failures on the Sigs with no failures on the other guns.  

Some are of the opinion that SIG has traded QC for a dizzying array of bling pistols to meet some perceived market demand.  I think there may be some truth to that, but I also know SIG makes a metric shit ton of pistols each year too, so it's hard to say how their failure rate compares to others.  Used to be the P226 was king of reliability.  Maybe not so much anymore.  All my SIGs are pre-stainless slide (1 P226, 1 P228, and a pair of P6s.) and I intend to keep it that way.

And rifles.

Don't forget the quote from shot show (paraphrasing) "We are a rifle company that makes handguns."

To the OP, any idea of round count/maintenance?

http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=5&f=4&t=88000
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=5&f=4&t=88005

They started making  MIM takedown levers , probably not a great idea.

I am a huge fan of PM. To me, this means spending the $ to add a "combat" takedown lever. Should you have to at this price? No. But right/wrong, it's what I view as the best course of action. $50 and 15 seconds and the problem is nipped. It's the same thing as going the extra mile to drop in a HPT bolt on your AR. Do you have to? No, but it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside and there is a lot more benefit to the superior steel in the combat takedown lever than there is in an extra test on the same material bolt on your AR, yet noone quibbles over a few extra bucks for the same bolt with a little more QC in it.

How many MIM parts are there in a Sig 229 ?

The barrel

Huh? The barrel assy. is a forged unit of 2-piece construction. The barrel and hood are 1-piece, and then the lug is (I think the term) is stir/friction welded to the bottom of the hood.

Many people ignorant of the process opine that the chamber/hood region and the barrel are of separate origin, but it is the lug, and not the chamber, that is the second part of the barrel assy.

I was joking.

You never can tell on the larger forums, lol.

Most of these were federal weapons, most of the 229's were railed.  I don;t know how long they've been putting rails on there.   Most of the guns looked fairly new, round count I am not sure.  On maintenance I cannot be sure - other than to say the quality of shooting and weapons handling among the students was very good - these were folks selected by their agencies to become firearms instructors - so I'm assuming by association that the level of maintenance is at least acceptable across the group.

IIRC the extractors are scheduled to be replaced every 20,000 rounds. It would be interesting to know the maintenance history.

There is a known issue with the two piece takedown levers separating as you described. It was attributed to a poor design by a subcontractor. The design was changed a while back.

SIGs love to run wet. Not being lubricated and/ or cleaned properly, creates the greatest percentages of stoppages. If the guns were used in class as they are typically carried, with minimum lubrication, I can see them failing to function. I used to be guilty of this before I retired. When I went through armorer's school, the recommendation was a light layer of oil on each rail, the top and bottom of the barrel where it locks up at the muzzle, and on the top of the locking insert. Now everything has a good coating of grease.

Most of the ones I read about were  a long way from 20k rounds. Oil , grease, or whatever, a pistol should work without a problem, even when serious dirty. There is a problem here with extractors, and it may be the particular pistol or the part ––who knows. 600 rds. , 3 months , 2000rds, 6 months . at 3000 rd. it may break, or maybe the day you need it may be your un-lucky day. Its my opinion , but as a non-LE I would not trust one to carry just from what I have read over and over again.

I bought a Sig p226 yesterday that was of new manufacture.  So far I have put 215 rounds through it and it has been flawless.  No malfunctions, no broken parts, and the fit and finish is incredible.  I have to say that in my opinion this is the finest combat sidearm that I have ever shot.  Granted the round count is very low and it is only one sample but it shows that not every handgun put out by Sig is shitty.  If it gives me a reason not to trust it in the future, I wont.  But for now I wont jump on the Sig bashing bandwagon.

I own a Sig P228 9mm and it is the best handgun I have ever shot.  Never had any sort of problem with it.

Sig is one of my favorite target pistols. They have the accuracy. The German x-5 models are my favorite.

Sad but true.  I sold my 226R Navy, but I still have my German 228 and P6...  I've never had a failure in the 228, and carry it often.  Of course, I never had a failure in the 226 either...

German Sigs had their problems too. Truth be told, SIG is right in the middle of everyone else as far as failure/success stories from what I have seen. The polls on this site confirm this. Obviously that's a small sample-size, but a poll of several hundred people is much larger than just you and a few other posters in this thread.

What I would like to know is how many of the parts are MIM made as compared to a 2004-2007 Sig P-2226-229 ? Especially the extractor and take down lever. I am not saying the MIM parts are a problem, but I prefer not to have them.

I think we also need to differentiate the QC issues between those that come from the factory NIB with issues and those that have X0,000s of rounds through them.  Once you get into the tens of thousands of rounds, maintenance becomes key.

To me, the change is noticeable because guns are shipping from Sig with defects.

I would be curious to know the USN/USCG maintenance schedule for P226/P228.  That may shed some light on what real world expectations should be regarding high round count guns.

But for NIB guns I think we could all agree a Sig should be as close to perfect, consistent, and reliable as possible.

I have a new Sig P220.

Fit, finish are outstanding and I'm very pleased with the trigger in both DA and SA mode.

So far, I've only put about 800 rds of assorted fmj and jhp ammo thru it and it has had zero failures.

Both my wife (my shooting companion) and I are impressed with the accuracy of this pistol and what a pleasure it is to shoot.

BTW,  although made in the USA, my frame and barrel were made in Germany.

That's interesting, does anyone know the break down on which parts are currently made in what country for which guns?

i just traded my G19 for a P226, and was worried because i had heard issues of their QC in the recent years. just checked the production and it was made in 1995, marked made in Germany and serial # U *** ***