Sig P226 .22LR Review

 

While at a gun show in Roanoke recently, my good friend Ray pointed out a Sig P226 in .22. Neither of us had seen one.  Having a “thing” for P226s, that went on my list.  About a week later they showed up in stock at one of the distributors and I couldn’t hit the buy button fast enough.


Taking it out of the box, it looked and felt like any other P226, just a tad lighter.  Unlike other .22s sort of clone other guns, the Sig is an exact duplicate.



After a quick inspection off to the range I went with a few different brands of cartridges hoping all the way that this wasn’t going to be a Mosquito reincarnated.  Once at the range, I tested the trigger and it is typical P226 pull weights for DA and SA.  I started out with the worst ammo first.  Winchester.  The only reason I haven’t thrown the crap out is that is still works in bolt action guns sometimes.


Anyway, loaded the magazine and the Sig happily fired all 10 rounds.  Second mag, it failed to strip the first round.  Banged the mag and re-racked the slide and fired 2 rounds, then failure to fire.  Great.  Banged the mag again and same thing.  I then took the mag out and noticed the nose of the first round was sort of dipped down.  Did the old bang the back of the mag on the bench and no more issues.  Afterwards in loading the magazine, if the first round goes in and sits nose down, all the rest follow that pattern.  So you either have to play close attention to that first round seating or just bang the back of the mag on something and problem solved.


I continued my tests with Remington which I also have little love for, then Federal and CCI.  I fired 50 rounds of each with just the above mentioned issue.  The accuracy was what I would expect from a Sig.  It did group better with heavier bullets though.


Back out the house, time to look inside.  With the slide off, everything about the frame said it was a real frame.  I took the grips off and everything looked normal.  It comes with the E2 grips which are a pain in the ass to remove and they don’t send the gun with the special tool to remove them.  I’ll be replacing them with some screw on grips in the near future.



Here is my 9mm Extreme frame on top and the 22 on the bottom.  They are identical.  The weigh nearly the same.  The Extreme being and ounce or so heavier, but I can contribute that to the grips.



Here is a view inside.  Again identical.  I'm wondering if I can put the short reset trigger in this .22 version.  Pretty sure it will work.  I've tried calling Sig a couple of time, but haven't been able the wait out the hold time.  I'm wondering when I do talk to them if they will fess up and tell me it is the same frame as the rest of the P226 line.  If it is, I think you could buy this gun and a 9mm conversion kit and have the best of both worlds for less than you would pay for a 9mm by itself.


Unfortunately, things are not all rainbows and unicorns.  There is one big problem with the gun or magazines really.  The slide will not lock back on the last round or an empty mag.  However, if you put on a 9mm slide and use a 9mm mag, it works fine.  Another reason I believe the frame is the real deal.  I have found a site selling aftermarket mags that they claim will lock back for $40 a piece.  I'm waiting to see how disturbed I get with the slide not locking back before ordering some of them.


Another big complaint is the magazine capacity.  10 rounds?  Really?  What is the deal with 22 pistols only having 10 round mags?  Can't anyone make a double stack 22 mag?  With it's cavernous magwell, this gun should how at least 20 round, maybe even 30.  A place called Taylor Tactical sells a replacement insert for the factory magazines for $4.95 that is supposed to increase the capacity to 15.  I did order a couple of those to try.


While waiting on the inserts to test, maybe I can get ahold of Sig and see about installing a short reset trigger.  I'll post an update if that happens.