The Gun Digest Book of Sig-Sauer. Massad Ayoob

but despite its greater power it kicks less and is more pleasant to shoot than most snubbies. It is about the same weight as the six-shot Smith & Wesson Model 10 or Model 64 Military & Police revolver with a 2-inch barrel. And, of course, it is much faster to reload, and its flat magazines are much more discreet and comfortable to carry than speedloaders for a revolver when concealment is the order of the day.

      With an inside-the-waistband holster and proper clothing, the P220 virtually disappears into concealment. With a well-designed scabbard riding on the outside of the belt, it is almost as easy to hide. The fact that a single pistol with which the officer is intensively trained could be used on or off duty, in uniform or in plainclothes, is another big factor in the P220’s favor when police departments look at purchasing new sidearms.

      The P220-E is a particular favorite of mine. Back in the 1980s I discovered that, just as the flat housing of the original 1911 pistol fits my hand better than the arched housing of the later A1, the slimmer, flatter-backed shape of the original SIG P220 grip frame seemed more comfortable in my hand than that of the later P220.

      However, there is another reason I was partial to the P220-E. In the Northern New England area where I have spent my now almost 30 years as a police officer, it is not uncommon for the wind chill factor to bring the temperature to 30 degrees below zero or worse in deep winter. This requires heavy gloves. I had found over the years that bulky gloves could sometimes cause a shooter to unintentionally activate a side-mounted magazine release button. This did not occur with a gun that had a butt-heel magazine release, like the P220-E or the BDA that preceded it. I special-ordered a P220-E .45 from SIG, and was told that it would probably be the last one brought into the country. (I’m told that the firm later changed its mind and brought in a few more in dribs and drabs, as the limited stateside demand warranted.)

      This became my favorite winter gun for many years. On patrol when department regulations allowed it, and on my own time always, the P220-E was part of my cold-weather gear. Since the P220 American’s magazine was the same as the European’s but with four engagement holes cut in the sides (two on each side, to mate with the side button mag release, which could be easily converted for left hand use), the new magazines fit my old gun. The reverse was not true. This was because the European style mags did not have a cutout in which the side-button mechanism of the P220 American could engage. Much later, when SIG’s current eight-round mags came out with bumper pads running front to back, it turned out that they would not be compatible with the European or BDA magazines. This was because the rear of the extended bottom of the magazine could not engage the butt heel release device.

      That particular P220-E is now in the hands of a good friend who needs it more than I do, but I cherished that pistol and look forward to having it back one day. It was modified over the years by pistolsmith John Quintrall, a master of the SIG-Sauer who was guided by a very knowledgeable old hand, the late Jim Anderson. The action was butter smooth in double-action and super sweet in single. John fitted Trijicon night sights (there tends to be more dark time in the winter, and remember, this was my “winter gun”), and after I shot it so much the accuracy started to fade slightly, he fitted a Bar-Sto barrel. It turned out to be the one case in which I had a Bar-Sto installed in a pistol, and accuracy did not improve. There was nothing wrong with the Bar-Sto; it simply couldn’t improve on the already superb SIG-Sauer barrel. A new SIG barrel, I expect, would have given me pretty much the same results.

      The butt-heel release is a second or so slower for speed reloading than the American style. Certainly, there are situations in which a second can make all the difference; Americans are acutely conscious of that, and this is why SIG makes the American style P220. However, I found that with heavy snowmobile gloves on, the cruder gross motor movements of pushing back the latch with the free hand thumb and ripping the spent magazine out were actually more easily accomplished than finding the magazine release button with a thumb encased in a heavy glove that blunted the sense of touch and limited the thumb’s range of movement. In short, in heavy winter garb, I was able to reload the P220-E as fast, or very slightly faster, than the P220 American.

       The P220’s “Other” Calibers

      While we Americans have directed most of our attention to the .45 caliber P220 – after all, the .45 ACP has been called “the classic American cartridge” – the P220 has racked up an enviable reputation in its other calibers as well. On more than one occasion I’ve taught in Switzerland. There are some police departments there that issue the P220 in 9X19mm, though the higher capacity P226 seems to be far more common in Swiss law enforcement. More to the point, though, the P220 9mm has been the national standard Swiss military sidearm for many years.

      Switzerland is a nation of shooters. It is well known that the Swiss militia constitutes the entire able-bodied male population of the nation (Swiss women may join voluntarily, though it is not required) and that all are issued what may be the finest assault rifle in the world, SIG’s Stg.90.

      The Sturmgewehr 90 is a superb, state-of-the-art assault weapon. However, the Swiss public takes marksmanship as one of their national sports, and most of that marksmanship is done with military weapons of various ages. Virtually every Swiss village I passed through had a 300-meter rifle range, and the ranges stay in constant, heavy use. In rifle matches, the ancient Schmidt-Rubin 7.5 mm straight-pull bolt-action rifle is still used to compete against the ultra-modern SIG Stg. 90.

      I say all this to lead up to a point. The Swiss have a lot of pistol matches, too. As you might expect they fare well in ISU (International Shooting Union) Olympic-style target sports, and also have a well-established contingent of practical shooters who belong to IPSC (the International Practical Shooting Confederation). However, a good deal of their handgun competition also involves national standard military weapons. Over the course of the 20th Century, Swiss military-issue handguns have included such fabulously accurate weapons as the Luger pistol, the exquisite SIG-Neuhausen P210, and only since the latter quarter of that century the SIG P220 9mm.

       The P220 tends to give consistently good accuracy with most .45 ACP ammunition. These groups were fired from 25 yards.

      And there was one thing I couldn’t help but notice. The 9mm P220 keeps up with the famously accurate P210! This, clearly, is testimony to the P220 9mm’s match-grade accuracy, which is achieved without compromising total reliability, even with some very old pistols that have fired countless thousands of rounds over the decades.

      The .38 Super P220 did not prove popular at all. In the United States, at least, it had always been a specialist’s cartridge. Handgun enthusiasts appreciated its flat trajectory. Handgun hunters appreciated its inherent power. Cops in the Depression years liked its deep penetration against criminals’ “bullet-proof vests” and automobiles of the period. But no one liked its mediocre accuracy.

      The reason was that the .38 Super was not a true “rimless” auto pistol cartridge, but instead featured a semi-rimmed case. From its introduction in the late 1920s until the coming of the SIG-Sauer engineers, Colt and every other manufacturer cut the chambers of their .38 Supers to headspace on the rim. The chamber in SIG-Sauer P220 in .38 Super was cut to headspace at the case mouth, which allowed more consistent and solid chambering. Thus did the Browning BDA/SIG P220 become the first truly accurate factory-produced .38 Super pistol. The same headspacing was developed by gun barrel genius Irv Stone, the founder of Bar-Sto, and when put in 1911 target pistols resulted in the .38 Super cartridge’s renaissance in the shooting world, specifically in practical pistol competition.

      It has been reported that the P220 has been produced in very small quantities in caliber .30 Luger. I cannot speak to its accuracy as I have never seen one, let alone tested one. I am not aware of any nation or agency that has adopted the P220 in that caliber. Thus, its accuracy remains an unknown quantity, at least to this author.

       Idiosyncrasies

      In earlier models, there were some specimens in .45 caliber which did not feed one particular cartridge in one particular situation. The round was the old “flying ashtray,” a short and very wide 200-grain hollow-point