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The SIG P220
The SIG P220
A writer owes his readers a disclosure as to his biases toward this and his prejudices against that. Let me open this chapter by confessing that the P220 is my very favorite SIG A pistol, and indeed, one of my all-time favorite handguns. Extraordinarily accurate, very reliable, and easy to handle and shoot, one of the P220’s cardinal attributes is the cartridge for which it is chambered: the .45 ACP.
The gun was introduced in 1976, the first of the SIG-Sauer line. Essentially designed by Schwetzerische Industriale Gesselcraft and manufactured by Sauer, it was chambered initially for the 9mm Parabellum cartridge and then almost immediately for .45 ACP and .38 Super for the American market. The 9mm P220 was immediately adopted by the armed forces of Japan, and of Switzerland, where it remains the standard military sidearm of Europe’s safest and most neutral country.
In 1977, Browning contracted with SIG-Sauer to produce the gun under their name as the BDA (Browning Double Action). It was introduced as such to the American market, where it received a mixed welcome. The gun experts loved it, instantly appreciating its smooth action, good trigger, reliability, and ingenious design. The purchasing public was less enthusiastic. They associated the Browning name with traditional, Old World guns crafted of fine blue steel and hand-rubbed walnut. Here was a modern pistol with flat gray finish and checkered plastic stocks, with an aluminum frame and a slide made of metal folded over a mandrel. It was as if Jeep had produced a fine four-wheel-drive vehicle under the aegis of Rolls-Royce: though the quality and function were there, the “look,” the cachet, were not what the buyers associated with that particular brand image.
The dust cover of P220 ST is grooved to accept accessories such as this InSights M3 flashlight.
Before long, SIG had decided to import the guns into the United States on their own and under their own name, establishing SIGARMS in Virginia. (Much later, SIGARMS would move to Exeter, New Hampshire.) It was at this point that SIG sales apparently took off. If the public would buy a machine that was rugged and precision-made, but not fancy, from Jeep but not from Rolls-Royce, then the same public would buy a rugged, precision-made but not fancy P220 that was marked SIG-Sauer instead of Browning.
Below is the author’s Langdon Custom P220 ST. Stocks are by Nill.
The Huntington Beach, California Police Department adopted the BDA in .45 ACP and had great luck with it. Their experience was widely publicized in both gun magazines and law enforcement professional journals. In the late 1970s, only a minority of American police carried semiautomatic pistols. Many gun-wise cops wanted auto pistols and didn’t trust the 9mm ammo of the day; they wanted .45s. Until the P220, the only gun that fit the bill was the Colt 1911 type pistol. Some forward-thinking departments adopted the Colt – LAPD SWAT, several small departments in California, a couple of county sheriff’s departments in Arizona – and many more made the Colt .45 optional. However, the mainstream of American police decision makers were leery about authorizing their personnel to carry a pistol that was perpetually cocked, and some worried that having to manipulate a safety catch would get in the way of a quick response when the officer needed it. The Browning BDA was obviously the answer, and changing its name to SIG P220 didn’t change that answer. When the BDA as such was discontinued, Huntington Beach recognized that the P220 was exactly the same gun, right down to complete parts interchangeability; they bought P220s and used them interchangeably with the BDA pistols already in hand.
Virtually straight-line feed is a key to the P220’s famous reliability, especially with hollow-point ammunition.
Police interest in autos was soaring. One sore point was that Americans habituated to American-style guns wanted a magazine release that worked quickly with a push-button behind the trigger guard. The BDA and the first SIG-Sauers had the European style magazine release, a spring-loaded securing clip at the heel of the butt. Police firearms instructors tended to be the department gun buffs, familiar with the 1911 and similar pistols from their time in other provinces of the world of the gun, and they clamored to SIG-Sauer for a pistol that ejected its magazines in the fashion to which they were accustomed. After all, speed of reloading was seen as one of the cardinal advantages of a semiautomatic pistol over a revolver; it was natural for the cops to want the fastest magazine release and therefore the fastest emergency reload possible.
SIG-Sauer listened and responded. In the early 1980s, they redesigned the P220 with an oval, grooved button behind the trigger guard to dump the magazine. While they were at it, they changed the shape of the grips, bringing the lower rear of the grip frame backward into an arch that widened toward the bottom. It filled the hand more substantially than the thinner and flatter-backed grip shape of the original P220. The change was analogous to Colt’s switch in the 1920s, at the request of the U.S. Army Ordnance Board, from the flat-backed mainspring housing of the original 1911 pistol to the arched housing of the 1911A1.
It was what the cops wanted, and SIG P220 sales skyrocketed. The .38 Super had never been popular in America except for a brief period between its introduction in the late 1920s and when it was eclipsed by Smith & Wesson and Winchester’s joint introduction of the .357 Magnum revolver and cartridge. Only a few hundred .38 Super BDAs had been sold, and the caliber remained similarly moribund in the P220 configuration. While all P220 sales to the world’s military had been in the 9X19 NATO chambering, I’m not aware of a single American police department that adopted either the BDA or the P220 in 9mm or .38 Super (though Secret Service would look very closely at the latter). No, it was the .45 that American cops wanted.
With the changed grip shape and side-button release, the new gun was designated the P220 American. Accordingly, the original would become known as the P220 European or P220-E. Its sales in the U.S. would wither and die, with the American style roaring forward in sales to police and civilians alike; the 1911’s influence was even stronger in the latter sector of the U.S. handgun market.
Countless police departments, including the state troopers of Texas (who used it exclusively) and of Arizona, adopted the P220. The latter gave their highway patrolmen the choice of the eight-shot .45 P220 or the 16-shot 9mm P226. The overwhelming majority chose the P220 .45.
The accessory rail of the P220 ST is a great addition.
This standard P220 has earned the author’s smug smile. The one-hole group in the neck of target was made by 12 200-grain bullets fired in less than 20 seconds from 7 yards, including a reload. The tight cluster in target’s chest was from one-shot draws averaging around a second at 4 yards. This is proof of the P220’s shootability.
In 1988, the FBI for the first time authorized rank and file agents to carry semiautomatic pistols. At first, only two guns were authorized, both in 9mm: the SIG and the Smith & Wesson. Shortly thereafter, the forward-thinking head of the Firearms Training Unit at FBI’s
