Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns NJ state police sues SIG over 229 problems

I cannot help but continue to think that SIG has never fully regained its early 90's MoJo. Too many quality problems.

All things being equal, I tend to be skeptical of liberal shiethole government agencies. YMMV


From Sig:


STATEMENT REGARDING NEW JERSEY STATE POLICE

May 21, 2017 – Sig Sauer, Inc. is aware of the lawsuit recently filed by the State of New Jersey regarding its purchase of the Sig Sauer P229 model handgun by the New Jersey State Police (NJSP).

The NJSP selected the Sig Sauer P229 handgun as its new duty weapon after conducting an in-depth review and exhaustive testing of available handguns. Sig Sauer developed a version of the P229 specific to the requirements of the NJSP, and delivered to the NJSP as scheduled in the summer of 2014.

Following delivery, the NJSP informed Sig Sauer that it was experiencing failures during qualification training with their training ammunition. Sig Sauer immediately began working with the NJSP to determine the cause of this failure and resolve the issue.

Sig Sauer’s investigation of the failure mode indicates a contributing factor may be a compatibility issue between this unique NJSP P229 and the specific training ammunition used by the NJSP. Importantly, these failures were limited to the training ammunition used by the NJSP, and the P229s functioned when using their duty ammunition.

Sig Sauer had been diligently working with New Jersey officials to resolve the issues associated with the P229 handguns it purchased. In light of these discussions, Sig Sauer was surprised that New Jersey filed a lawsuit. Sig Sauer is committed to customer satisfaction, and stands ready to continue these discussions and work with NJSP to reach an equitable solution.



http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/05/24/sig-sauer-responds-new-jersey-state-police-lawsuit/

Pa went the other way and dropped the Glock and went to the Sig 227?

There are at least three sides to every story, but, it sounds like New Jersey was so smart that it needed its own special kind of P229, and then it didn't work with the training ammo. (I suspect it is frangible, because that has been known to cause problems with other guns.) If that is an indictment of Sig, it is because Sig made something special without vetting it. I think that Glock is going through or went through the same thing with the 17M model that was adopted by the Indianapolis Police Department.

Outside of teething problems with their 1911, that's statement is just plain nuts. Even the 1911 issues were from Sig trying too hard.

Well I think moving production to the US caused a few bugs but I'm really close to seeing if a new MK25 is as good as my old 228 made over yonder.

So. The pistols in question have not failed once with NJSP issued duty ammo

The failures in question have been limited to the training ammo used by NJSP.


But somehow that's Sigs fault?

And yes Pa state police got rid of their Flock for the 227 and damn near every trooper I've talked to loves them, they did say it tool some time getting used to the d/a trigger but aside from that they are more than happy


Before I left our dept a few of us had started carrying p226 pistols and from what I talk to its just about a 70/30 split of guys favoring Sigs now

I did not mean to offend the SIG contingency, however per TWR's post they did go through some problems for a while. I have a SIG and its a good gun, a more recent issue in 9mm. However based on watching the wild man that throws guns in the mud at the Military Arms Channel, the striker fired 320 easily bests the external hammer guns as far as ability to work when its real dirty, the glock and vp9 also does well. Yes no one throws their toys in the mud on purpose, so don't go there, however Shiites do happen.

as far as New Jersey politicians, it is entirly possible based on prior rumors regarding their integrity that they would screw a snake, and if the snake could not be found they would screw a wood pile on the rumor a snake was in it.

My thought as well. Maybe NJSP would do well to get away from Tulammo and buy white box winchester for their training needs...... (I threw Tulammo under the bus there, without knowing what kind of ammo they are presently using for training.)

If that ammo was spec'd out in the bid, then yes, it is Sig's fault. If it came about after the bid, then it's NJ's fault.

Didn't offend me, I've never owned a fu*cking Sig in my life, but I can read sign.

There were a lot of of Sig P 220s in officer's holsters when I was with the SO in the late 80s and through the 90s. I didn't pay attention to the particular years because the Sig P 220s performed almost flawlessly. One of the reserve deputies brought his gun to me at the range and told me it couldn't shoot a group...he was all over the paper. I was about 10 yards from a target, so I took his gun, his mag filled with his ammo and cut a 21/2" hole just to the right of the 10 ring. He just stood there with a blank look and said,"...oh...". I worked with him for a short while and he was able to find the 10 ring enough at 10 yards to qualify. If I would have had the money at the time I would have bought a Sig P 220.

You see many bid sheets that read "weapons must be reliable with non quality, off brand or remanufactured ammunition?

So, njsp did not submit a bid for their own "type" of 229. They selected the Sig 229 enhanced elite, a gun that had already been in Sigs inventory.

With the only differences in a standard 229 and the enhanced elite being a beavertsil grip

I'mstill putting money on it being shirty training ammo. And I wouldn't be surprised to learn it's something like wolf steel cased ammo

Does anyone here know what the malfunctions are? I've read failure to extract and failure to eject. The only time I have had problems with my P220 the cause was the ammo. One time qualifying with the M-9 Beretta I had at least 3 failures to go completely into battery out of 55 rounds and the pistol wasn't that dirty. I slapped the rear of the slide and kept shooting. I never liked those POS.

I'm sure they worded it exactly like that.

I have on several occasions seen Wolf steel cases ammunition out-perform far more expensive US or European ammunition.

Tell us why Wolf steel case ammo would cause problems: or why it's such "bad" ammunition.

So the first article is about Sig's response to the suit, and make it sound like it's a case of bad practice ammo; and doesn't mention really much of anything else.

This article, with a link to the court complaint tells a very different story: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/...selling-defective-handguns-state-police/

The big difference is that the issue was happening with both practice and service ammunition.

Sig did a lot of mechanical work on these pistols to cure the problem. If it was simply a case of bad ammunition, one would think they would address that issue rather than spend a lot of time mucking with the guns. If I were Sig, I would have HP White evaluate the ammunition for SAAMI compliance.

Some interesting quotes from the legal complaint (which is pretty well documented) that put a completely different spin on things.http://14544-presscdn-0-64.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/New-Jersey-State-Police-Sig-Sauer-Complaint.pdf

First, the 229 Legacy is the pistol that won and was selected, yet the Enhanced Elite is the pistol that was delivered (doesn't say why that happened). In the court complaint it does state that the extractor system of the Legacy and Enhanced Elite are different.

In the filed court documents, Sig claimed a factory mold may have been the problem (doesn't state which mold...extractor perhaps), and then states the "coating" on the barrels was mis-applied, and they shipped NJ new barrels; problem persisted. A SIG armorer diagnosed the problem as extractor springs, changed out the springs and the problem persisted.

Eventually Legacy pistols were provided, but those pistols exhibited the same issues. To further frustrate the customer, only half of the total order of pistols was delivered.

25 random pistols were selected for QC inspection, of which 5 failed; that's a 20% failure rate...by any measure, that's horrible quality control.

After all QC was done on every pistol, five pistols were selected for live fire testing, of which 3 failed.

When it comes to really thick mud, the striker system has an advantage over an external hammer. When it comes to water, the hammer system tends to be more reliable than the striker fired pistols. They each have their strengths and weaknesses...there are no super-guns.