Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Sig P938 Impressions

[bleep] any self defense pistol that has to be carried with a safety. Safeties and having to cock a hammer can get you killed.
Assaults are quick and very violent, often they have one hand on you or multiple perps have their hands on you. Multiple perps may be closing in on you fast, and don't expect them to announce their intentions. You may have been battered or about to be shot or stabbed, or your loved one.

I was so scared in one robbery that I forgot that I had a Model 60 S&W 38 special in my waist band.

A friend that owned a Jewelry store called the police after he had been shot and left for dead after the perp smashed the glass on the jewelry case and cleaned it out. Police found him with a 45 auto in his hand but my friend said that the pistol would not fire...he was so scared that he forgot to take the safety off. Having to remember to take the safety off when you have been hit in the head, shot, stabbed, trying to retrieve your pistol during an assult by multiple perps, or just having seen a loved one get hurt is a tall order for most people.

For those that can hear, let them hear....no [bleep] safeties

I hear what you are saying, keith, but I do not share your point as an absolute truth. Police use retention holsters everyday, and frequently have to perform 2 distinct actions before removing the gun from the holster. If that was an insurmountable problem, there would be a lot more dead cops Most people have multiple vehicles with different handling characteristics and have to be able to pull a quick maneuver when a kid darts into the street. The key is training plus experience with the safety equipment.

I feel the way about Kahrs that you do about external safeties. To each his own. There are no absolutes.

That little Sig reminds me very much of the old Star PD pistols.

I have a Star 45, the little sig sure looks like a clone. The Star is a house gun that is in the arm of my recliner. House circumstances will allow me time to disengage a safety.

Cheyenne, I hear what you are saying. Most civilians rarely if ever practice, and surely do not get any kind of training in self defense at all.

Like you said, there are no absolutes...be forever vigilant!

Cheyenne thanks for an excellent write up. Actually it's far better than the gun rags.

I've been interested in one of these since they were announced.

Thanks. Another 75 124 gr. Gold Dots and 15 Federal JHPs including a 50 round qualification course with Gold Dots that is 70% rapid pairs, triples and 1 quad at close distance while moving or from the retention position. I was using 3 spare magazines that I received on Wednesday and never shot until this morning. No problems. It appears to be broken in. I am done with this review unless something unusual pops up.

Great review.

I went out and bought several different defensive load brands the other day. 124 gr gdhp, win bonded 147 gr jhp,then a 50 count box of something made by asym precision, these are 115 jhp match style.
Going to try these out and see what they'll do.

My mags, 3 7 rounds are on back order with Sig. May have to get one more 6 rounder from Top Gun, they say they are in stock as of yesterday. We will see.

So don't leave your great thread yet. I have/am sick with whatever, so that has slowed me down a few days.

Cheyenne,

Being out of the loop, so to write, due to rehabbing too damned many injuries, I wasn't aware of the introduction of this weapon. I'll disclose up front that I believe it's difficult to beat Sig factory weapons for self-defense. I carry a .40 S&W P-229 for self-defense when I do carry. So I checked Sig's Website for info on this piece. I came away thoroughly impressed. It appears to be perfect size for everyday carry. I prefer single action weapons. While I am not much a 9MM fan, I would buy this weapon in 9MM.

Cheyenne, I think you have a winner.


Take care,

R

Made it to the range today.

Win 9mm NATO 124 gr FMJ: 25 shot, no problems
American Eagle 115 gr : shot 50 no problems
Rem 115 gr mc cheap stuff. 5 shot one FTE
MFS 9's 115 gr FMJ cheap stuff: shot 20 no problems
ASYM precision 115 gr JHP match: no problems 20 shot. I really like this stuff.
Gold Dot 124 gr GDHP: shot just 8. Loaded up the mag, inserted the mag, used slide release, FT Load. Round for some reason caught on the ramp, this causes the mag not to want to release. Reloaded mag use a slam release on pistol, round loaded, fired the mag.
Win 147 gr JHP bonded PDX1: shot just 4. no problems. I used the slam release on first round to make sure I got a ready to fire. Recoil was not bad at all on the 147's, pistol sure can handle them.

The last two are a $1.00 a shot to me, so I'm kind of cheap with those.

Trigger is very solid, releases same place each time, pistol is very controllable, even with this poor shooting civilian as the operator. At this time only certain cheap brands are to my P938's liking. Will stick to the American eagle 115's but really liked for some reason whatever these ASYM's are. Just found them at Cabala's and bought them.

I picked up a P938 Extreme last weekend.
Haven't shot for accuracy, just stuffing various rounds for break-in.

It has fed everything from 115 gr.fmj to 147 gr. hp Feds without a hitch.

Only issues; hard to cock, trigger is stiff(it is getting better with use and the mags are the stiffest I've ever tried to load.

It's all about what your shooting at the time.
Years ago I carried only my BHP or a .45 or a revolver.
So every automatic had a safety and the first thing one did was sweep it down.
Different story now, Only the wife's Walther .380 has one.
And I often "click " it a few times before I remember the safety.

One reason why I don't carry it.
But she does and as it was her first carry gun, I wanted her to feel comfortable with it at hand.

Great report Cheyenne, looks like a great package to carry concealed. jorge

[quote=Wtxj]Great review.

I went out and bought several different defensive load brands the other day. 124 gr gdhp, win bonded 147 gr jhp,then a 50 count box of something made by asym precision, these are 115 jhp match style.
Going to try these out and see what they'll do.

My mags, 3 7 rounds are on back order with Sig. May have to get one more 6 rounder from Top Gun, they say they are in stock as of yesterday. We will see.




WEll today the 7 round mags came in. They are nice. Pistol fits my little finger now.

Take Doc's advice and run it really wet. The last 250 50/50 mixture of 124 Blazers and Gold Dots all ran well except that it prefers that it be fed Gold Dots from slide lock by pulling back on the slide and releasing.

I liked that grease so much, I ordered a big bottle of it from Midway. Use it on all of my slide type pistols and the old M1.

I'll probably buy one, when the price comes down some. The only one I've seen locally was ~$850, but the deeper discounting dealers sell for ~$700.

I did an analysis on the recoil spring of a P238, when mine was having feeding issues, and found that they really push the limit on the spring stress in the space available.

I paid $700 for mine in early June from Top Gun. May be top Gun.com. Great Co. Recommended by Cheyenne. They do ship fast on products.

My P238 and the P938 both are headed on vacation later this afternoon to Colorado. Like em both, but carry the P939. In the old front pocket of the relaxed fit jeans.

Heads up.

I obtained two Sig P938's for myself and my best friend. I'm an FFL so I was able to pass it along to him. His preceeds mine by 95 digits. His extractor is about 1/10th" in width, if that much. Mine about .25". I've got over 300 rds through mine with both 115 and 124 FMJ, 124 Speer Gold Dots and 115 gr Barnes TAC-XP. Not a single hiccup. Yet his has about 200 rds of just FMJ's with about 14 Fail to Extract. His skinny little extractor just simply pulls over the extractor groove. He called Sig and with no questions asked nor any cost, sent him a new, wide, extractor. My buddies gunsmith just installed it and he will test it tomorrow with about 100 rds of 115 FMJs.

Alan

What is the serial number range? Sig made some changes after the first 3 or so months of production.

I wasn�t going to resurrect this thread, but it got resurrected, so here goes. After about 160 rounds, my P938 was rocking along until around 600 rounds. It would feed anything from a 6 round magazine after the first round was chambered, but it had some feeding problems from slide lock using either method. 7 round magazines would unlatch during strings of firing, resulting in an empty chamber on the next round. The grip screws walked out after every range session, even after applying blue Loctite. I sent it back. Sig paid for the round trip. They did a great job polishing the ramp and replaced the extractor and some other internal parts I don�t remember. The entire turnaround time was about 2 weeks.

I received the gun back with the most problematic grip screw missing, but with a bag of 4 replacement grip screws. I put a screw in with Loctite. On the first range trip, I fired 50 124 grain Blazers and 25 124 Gold Dots rapid fire. Everything fired well but the 7 round magazine problem had not been fixed, and the problematic grip screw disappeared again. I tried to put another screw in but the frame stripped out.

I decided to send it back again just because I thought the gun should work with 7 round magazines because it is marketed that way. I figured they would blame me for stripping out the frame. Sig paid for the shipping to Sig. A few days later I was told that Sig was replacing the gun at no cost. I e-mailed FFL information. My FFL got it a few days later. He didn�t charge me a transfer fee, even though Sig never covered that. The whole deal was done in 2 weeks.

I had sent a 7 round magazine with the gun, but the new gun had the standard 6 round magazine that ships with a new gun. I was ok with that because I prefer the 6 rounders anyway.

The new gun came with the most lube on a new gun I ever have encountered. That certainly reinforces my own experiences with the gun. I took it apart. When I put the barrel back in the slide, it got slightly canted and locked into the slide and I couldn�t get it undone again. The slide also would not go back on the frame with the barrel in that position. I finally got the barrel unstuck, but it stuck again when I was putting the recoil spring in. I finally got it back together. This sometimes happens with other guns, but minor fiddling usually unsticks it. I debated whether to send it back before firing or to sell it, but I decided to go shoot it. Anyway, once the assembled slide goes back on the frame, it cycles smoothly.

I fired 100 rounds using the new 6 round magazine and two 7 round magazines. I fired 30-124 gr. Blazers, 50-115 gr. JHP handloads, and 20 factory 115 JHPs, and all functioned fine. There were no problems with the 7 round magazines. I took it apart to clean it and had the barrel/slide lockup problem again, but I finally got the slide back on the frame.

If I can go another 100 rounds before it pukes, I will clean and lube the gun and run through my remaining stash of personal Gold Dots and call it good. The barrel/slide thing is a pain, but I can live with it if the gun functions 100%.

The new gun serial number is in the 51,000 range, and the prior one had a 3 digit serial number. So, a lot of people are buying these things. By the way, I put a large rubber band around the grip frame and it is a lot more comfortable to shoot that way.

Call me crazy, but I like the little gun. If it pukes one time, though, I am going to get rid of it and try to make the slightly larger Beretta Nano work as my pocket and ankle gun.

Thanks for the continued writeup, it is very helpful.