My friend Howard P. emailed me this yesterday:
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SIG Pistol Owners… Have the SIG SAUER professional gunsmiths perform an Action Enhancement Package and SIG will include these additional services – Install Short Reset Trigger
At the limited time price of…$199.95 Plus shipping + handling* A savings of $140.00! |
Seriously?
The Short Reset Trigger is just a parts swap. I was working at SIG when it was developed by Ethan Lessard (now with AAC) and was lucky enough to get one of the first prototypes. Personally, I wouldn’t want a SIG P220-series pistol without it. But the “SRT” parts don’t cost any more to produce or take any more time to install than the non-SRT trigger mechanism. I’ve never understood the marketing approach of charging extra on a small percentage of “special” guns rather than just, you know, making all the guns as good as they could be at a given price point.
And polishing the feed ramp! Are you kidding me? Why are guns leaving the factory in a condition that requires the feed ramp to be polished after delivery? If a SIG won’t function properly because the feed ramp is too rough, that’s a defect. It’s not something a customer should have to pay to fix. If you don’t think the polish job is actually going to improve function, why are you selling it to people?
Same with recrowning the barrel. I doubt it makes any practical difference to performance but if SIG thinks it does, why doesn’t the gun come that way in the first place? It doesn’t cost any more for the CNC machine to cut the crown at that angle, after all.
Here’s an idea: instead of charging customers $199.95 + S&H for this stuff, how about including it in the $700 or so they paid already for a gun they expected to work? Just an idea…
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Hey this kinda crap has worked for years w 1911s!? Don’t make ’em quite right, charge extra for all kinds of packages, and some folks will line up to throw money at you… or not.
Wow Todd, guns that work? From the factory? That’s just crazy talk right there.
Pretty picky, aren’t we Todd? Next you’ll be demanding ammunition that works the first time you pull the trigger.
My Sigs all work 100% flawlessly and are accurate far beyond the needs for what they were designed for. Why would I spend extra money upgrading a perfect pistol? I would rather spend that money buying their ridiculously expensive magazines or stocking up on overpriced ammo.
That’s crazy talk Todd! Make factory guns as good as possible (OMG)? How else can you sell “improvements” to the masses without leaving some flaws on the gun?
You know somewhere in SIG corporate that discussion came up. “We have this new trigger that noticeably improves trigger pull and reduces rest. We could just install it at $0 extra cost or we could keep making old triggers and charge a huge fee to install the “dark magic special trigger”.
Lomshek — That conversation did in fact take place. I was there.
The CEO also floated the idea of backing off the precision of standard barrels and then offering a “premium match” barrel (essentially, the then-current stock barrel) for an up charge or custom shop installation.
And that right there is why I’ve just made up my mind that I’ll never own a Sig.
It helps that I find their guns ugly as sin.
Hilarious. No regrets on my decision to divest from SIG and focus my time/effort/resources to training on the 9mm Gen 3 Glock series of handguns.
As if the dated styling and ergonomics, lack of ambidextrous controls and piss poor QC of late weren’t reasons numerous enough to not buy a Sig, here comes another gem.
Todd – Was that CEO you mentioned Ron Cohen?
MikeO,
“Hey this kinda crap has worked for years w 1911s!? Don’t make ‘em quite right, charge extra for all kinds of packages, and some folks will line up to throw money at you… or not.”
The big difference is that the 1911 was designed in the Dark Ages when the only way to make a gun was to take a block of steel and whittle away everything that didn’t look like a pistol. These current cost-cutting compromises are an inevitable artifact of trying to keep the design even remotely cost-competitive. To build a pistol to the original TDP, you’d need to sell it for at least a kilobuck if you wanted to make any money at all. (Probably not coincidentally, that’s about the price point where any one worth buying starts.)
The SIG P-series, while it’s not as cheap to produce as a current “squirt it into a mold” gun, still takes advantage of 40 years of advancements in production techniques: stamping, brazing, and et cetera. There’s no reason that they couldn’t turn out a quality heater in the ~$7-800 range using those methods, other than a desire for an increased profit margin, enabled by the ignorance of the general pistol-buying public.
“There’s no reason that they couldn’t turn out a quality heater in the ~$7-800 range”
Isn’t that what Glock does, except cheaper? And look where it got them!
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sig who?
Todd, I’m embarrassed that you would post this. Yes, that list of enhancements would be overpriced if that is all it included. If you had actually bothered to read the whole offer you would have discovered that the ‘action enhancement package’ has a factory gun smith go through the entire trigger, smoothing out what is already an excellent trigger. AND they are going to take your OLD pistol and install these parts to bring it up to current factory standards. In addition, some people with catchers mitts for hands prefer the old thicker trigger because it doesn’t pinch their finger, offering the old thicker trigger is designed to make the pistol fit their hands better. The 11 degree target crown is offered because after a pistol has been riding on your hip, it sometimes gets nicks in the end of the barrel. This cleans them up.
Both of my Sigs are recent purchases, they both came with beautiful feed ramps, the ‘standard’ 11 degree target crown, and the short reset and short reach trigger. I’m very happy with how they shoot. Would it be nice to reduce the trigger weight? Yes especially as this a factory job and would mean the pistol was still fully warrantied by the factory.
In short, having a factory certified pistol smith go through your trigger is a bargain at $200 and with factory parts support, you get a gun with their best, newest parts no matter what the condition of the pistol you sent them.
Brice — I understand where you’re coming from. And for what it’s worth, I did read it and I am a bit familiar with the action package… SIG was offering that while I still worked there.
My point, and perhaps I didn’t make it adequately, is that these “bonus features” either shouldn’t be necessary or should be standard. They shouldn’t be things you normally pay extra for and they shouldn’t be things you get excited to get for free on special occasion.
A few other points:
* The “thickness” of the trigger is not affected by installation of the short reset trigger. You may be confusing the “short trigger” — which reduces trigger reach — and the “short reset trigger” that reduces trigger reset distance.
* I’ve never “worn” the crown of a pistol barrel enough to affect accuracy. Nor have I ever had such a complaint from clients, including those who carry in belt or thigh holsters with the pistols getting exposed to the elements, etc.
* I’ve fired 50,000+ rounds through three guns over the past three years and never needed to polish any feed ramps. My Glock 17 this year is at almost 34,000 rounds and doesn’t need a polished feed ramp, either.
The only reason to polish a feedramp is to make it easier to clean (crud doesn’t stick as well) and the only reason to recrown a barrel is cause you really screwed it up somehow which is really hard to do seeing as the muzzles crown is sunk into the barrel and hard to get to (it’s convex at the end). I’ve seen and felt Sig’s version of a trigger job. There’s a reason that gunsmiths earn a living on Sig’s, it’s cause the factory’s work sucks. It really does. It’s all feel good foo foo crap to make people feel better than don’t know any better.
Tam:
“These current cost-cutting compromises are an inevitable artifact of trying to keep the design (1911) even remotely cost-competitive. To build a pistol to the original TDP, you’d need to sell it for at least a kilobuck if you wanted to make any money at all. (Probably not coincidentally, that’s about the price point where any one worth buying starts.)”
Kinda/sorta. For example, the SA Mil-Spec ($700) I have now is as good/better than anything issued to my grandfather, father, uncles and myself up to 1985 and worth buying to me (YMMV). Some of the stuff that was forged then is not as good as some of the stuff cast and MIM now.
SA and gunwriters infer the Range Officer model ($900) is a cheaper TRP ($1500). IMO, it’s a more expensive Mil-Spec that has stuff I don’t want. The Range Officers I have tried and read about are NOT more accurate, relable, or well fitted, etc than the Mil-Spec I already have just the way I want it. Hinting it’s almost as good as a TRP sells better than saying it’s a better Mil-Spec.
I was issued real military M1911A1s (stock and match). I’ve owned commercial Colts from the 50s-80s w no to lottsa work done by guys like Clark. I know what 1911s were and were not, what they are and are not, what they can and never will be.
I get the 1911 thing, and I shake my head at it too. I am the master of cognitive dissonance!
“The CEO also floated the idea of backing off the precision of standard barrels and then offering a “premium match” barrel (essentially, the then-current stock barrel) for an up charge or custom shop installation.”
What the fuck?
What was the response? Did it happen?
mongooseman,
“Isn’t that what Glock does, except cheaper? And look where it got them!”
Sure. And SIG could do it also. There’s nothing magic Glock does that any other gun company couldn’t do, too.
I was referring to the machined-alloy frame classic SIG “P-series” guns.
MikeO,
“I was issued real military M1911A1s (stock and match).”
That’s nice.
“I’ve owned commercial Colts from the 50s-80s w no to lottsa work done by guys like Clark. I know what 1911s were and were not, what they are and are not, what they can and never will be.”
Me, too. I don’t want to get into a peeing-on-the-bushes 1911 contest here.
The polishing the feed ramp, and the target crown on P series Sigs is simply a fool and his money. Now unless Sig’s QC went down in the last 18 months since I purchased my last Sig, I’ve never had a Sig that has needed it’s feed ramps polished.
And the barrel crown that comes from the factory is good enough to produce accuracy better than I can produce as a shooter.
The rest of the package, if Sig can get $199 out of a person that doesn’t want to do the labor for something that costs $55-75 in parts, more power to them.
Now I agree that all Sigs should come with SRT, but I am sure that the internet crowd would moan about that if they did, like they do with every positive change that Sig makes (rail, E2, plastic main spring base, stainless slides, and Elite frames).
Anyways I don’t have a horse in this race anymore, I switched to the M&P. Not that I had any issues with Sigs, simply that I wanted a lighter gun.
Mitchell — I cannot speak for the commercial side of the house, but the entire law enforcement division (and the federal/military “division,” which was me) revolted. I don’t think it ever happened, but a lot of QC changes were made without informing our group after that.
PPGMD — My thoughts exactly. When I worked at SIG, I always criticized gunsmiths who justified their ridiculous prices by adding “reliability packages” for an already-functioning pistol. By the way, I may have to spend today at the nearest fallout shelter… you switching away from SIG has to be the final sign of the apocalypse!
+1 Todd.
Only $700 for a Sig? That’s what I pay for a used one in California (and OK my bad, it is California) if I can get a deal on it!
I got that “enticement” and laughed too. Send it cross-country to a place in NH where they don’t even respond to *nice* email?? Repeatedly? It gives me no confidence that I will ever see it again. Send it to a place that doesn’t even know if their Factory Slim-Grips fit an old Sig or not? (They don’t, the actual info though is at another website, it’s nowhere on the Sig one.)
One of mine (newer-used ’04 P220) is a black nitron-stainless ST with a SRT and the other is an ’89 Herndon VA with the long trigger – and I kinda like the long trigger-reset for my looong fingers, but I already knew it was just a parts swap, and so I laughed at the ad.
Only $700 for a Sig? That’s what I pay for a used one in California (and OK my bad, it is California) if I can get a deal on it!
Don’t feel like The Lone Ranger there, dude. It seems that every gun shop in South Texas that gets a used Sig P-series – Certified Used or no – thinks they’re sitting on a gold mine and prices them north of $700.
Jeez… and here I am still thinking about trying to pick up a P239. I might as well just go with HK at this point.
Wait till you get a load of their latest crazy-ass promotion – it’s a goddam wonder what Marketing comes-up with.