Good afternoon.

Doing a bit of cleaning and could only get the right grip panel off as the screws on the left side panel are pretty rough and I'll be getting a better set of screwdrivers shortly.

But the circular date code has double zeros in the center and the arrow running through the center and between the two zeros points to "1" out of 1 thru 12.

I'm assuming the grip date is January of 2000. And correlates perfectly with German frame serial of "U 627 XXX"

Just took the pistol out to the back yard (my property is very rural here in Maine so my neighbors are a couple hundred yards away and the entire south direction is uninhabited woods for miles)

for a few rounds of reloads and accuracy was very good and functioned 100%

The pistol's internals were absolutely filthy! I was amazed at the caked-on, caked-in debris from twenty years of holster wear.

My limited law-enforcement service was as a corrections officer many years ago and issued a Smith & Wesson 686 .357, now my old armorer would've had a complete melt-down over the condition

of the P226 I just received.

Wondering what Department could possibly allow an issued duty side-arm to get so filthy as to make me wonder how it even functioned.

Clearly limited law enforcement experience Most cops aren't gun people and not agencies don't have routine maintenance intervals on department issued weapons and alot of people won't maintain their tools(especially if it's agency owned)


What's amazing is the amount of dead skin cells that will work their way inside lol.


Be careful with those grip screws, easy to strip.


I bet if you measured the trigger weight before and after cleaning it probably lost pound and a half

Most departments do not allow the officers to do anything other than a basic break down and clean. Anything needing a tool beyond a brush and cleaning rod is a no go.

If it's a Leo trade in, they should be able to tell you what department it came from. If they can't, then who knows how many hands it's been through before it wound up in the case as a "trade in".

Some departments are better about doing TDIs than others, but I have a tough time imagining departments that are big enough to issue and do trade-ins on department guns won't have an armorer to work on and conduct maintenance on them.

Now if it's officer Jim-Bob who bought the gun to use at the 4 man Podunk PD that he works or reserves at and then traded it in for something else who knows what maintenance has been done.

The bigger the department, the less time an armorer has to touch each gun as the number of guns is higher. Most large department issued guns have a life like this....they get issued. they get shot once or twice a year, anywhere from 50 to maybe 200 rounds a year. An armorer may or may not function check the gun once or maybe twice a year. they might get their recoil spring replaced after a couple of years. Once they hit their service year limit, they get traded in. Unless the gun is having an issue or breaks, the armorer never touches it beyond a quick function quick. The armorer doesnt clean the guns unless there is some kind of issue. My neighbor has 25 years in with a large department, he is on his 4th issued gun. None of his guns ever had an issue.