I clearly need to be mentally committed, I went and purchased this....

Yeah, in the year 2022, I purposefully purchased a S&W Model SW9F Sigma in 9mm.



Yes, let that sink in, I went and spent hard earned money, to purchase a Sigma and not just any Sigma. But the worse of the worst.

So, why did I want to purchase such a hideous thing? Because I have a strange fascination with oddball flops from the 80s and 90s. I have a pretty big collection of firearms, going after the oddities and commercial flops fun (and cheap).

The Sigma is a bad pistol, but the story behind it is exciting. S&W, once the king of the LE market lost market share to an Austrian upstart, Gaston Glock and his plastic fantastic. Big Blue tried to beat GLOCK with everything and anything. We all remember S&W and the gun a month. They tried everything under the sun with their 3rd Generation Automatics and Revolvers. It all failed and the end result was that S&W copied GLOCK and tried to beat them at their own game and horribly crashed and burned doing it.

















That's why I wanted this clunker, because it honestly is fun to have for that reason. It is like stepping into a time machine and going back to 1994, hearing to grunge on the radio, reading gun reviews on gun rags, and listening to small talk from gun ship commandos telling war stories about being Green Beret CIA SEALs that operated in Vietnam when they were 17 years old.

 

I suppose folks still buy AMC Pacers for the same reasons…if there are any of them left too…

 

We like what we like. Had one. Loved the look….mine had the OD frame… primary reason I bought it. Terrible trigger. Couldn’t hit squat with it. Reliable to a fault. One of my best friends owns it now. Buried deep in a drawer. Haven’t seen him shoot it in years. He has SIGs now.

I like the Ruger P series. There! I said it. Miami, if you feel the need to form a support group I’m your huckleberry.

 

I like my Ruger P90DC and P345.

 

I have a sigma And a couple Ruger P guns. My favorite was always the P97-DC.
The Sigma trigger was bad. But 20 years later the M&P 1 trigger was just as bad. Lol. I still buy any sub-200 dollar sigma and any sub 300 dollar Ruger I see. Thats my limits though. And these days they just go for more than id give.

 

I had a gen 1 M&P .45 and it was garbage. I tried to like it, but it couldn't do what my GLOCKs could do. The Sigma is just such a cultural oddity, that it is worth having on the cheap like binge watching bad low-budget b movies.

 

The next p95 with a stainless slide and proper safety is mine. I don't judge.

I kinda get this. It's nostalgia. I almost bought the swv9e or whatever it's called. I think it was the "evolution " of this ...remarkable...design.

Because it was like 190 otd, and reminded me of the fake nonexistant gun Leon starts with in resident evil 4. I spent some time with that game in like 2004. Can't imagine playing it on the new virtual reality dealios...too old and fat...I'd probably have a heart attack.

 

I thought he started with the HK look alike. Ive beat that game 100 times but on subsequent plays you have your better weapons. On GameCube, then ps3, then ps4. Lol. I have it for the oculus as well but haven't played it yet . Ive hated them all since, up until village. It was decent.

The last P ruger I saw was 349 and I almost considered it. Was a 94. If I didn't have one I might have done it. I may raise my Ruger limit to 350. I do need a 345 to go with the 90 and 97. Ive not had any interest in a Ruger center fire semi auto since the 345.

 

Nothing wrong with the P90 as a house gun. Stone reliable, rock steady.

 

I wouldn’t mind have one just for the heck of it. How much you paid for it, OP ?

 

Interesting.

I've thought about picking up one of the VE models just for the heck of it. Maybe as a glove box stash?

Just haven't acted on it..................... Yet.

 

I remember reading in a gun rag, that you could swap the barrel with a Glock 17, and it fit

LOL

. . . but look at what came after the M&P pistols are outstanding.

 

$230

 

What followed was the Sigma VE line and the SW99. The M&P wasn't our for at least a decade. Plus, the M&P had its own issues.

 

My buddy was issued a Sigma in .40 S&W when he was a deputy up in Idaho. He liked the gun, but it wasn’t very long-lived in service.

Nice nostalgic pick up .

Stay safe.

 

One of mine is a 40 that is marked "state police" Tennessee i think. But could be Virginia.

 

I had one of those. It was flat out awful. A coworker had always kept a 9mm in his nightstand drawer until he got it stolen while he was at work. He fussed and cussed about losing his precious smiff and western 9mm that I finally offered to sell it to him. It’s still his as far as I know. BTW, he claimed that he had owned A gun (singular) since he was 14 but had never shot one. No need, but if anybody ever came through his winders at night he would use them target rounds to kneecap them. Figger a target round would be accrit nuff for that, not like them damned hollow points where they just don’t even fill up the bullet mold.

I wish I was making that up. And that’s not the worst story about this guy. He once put alcohol pads on his hemmoroids because somebody told him the hemmoroids would go away. He ran through the plant naked trying to catch and kill the guy that told him that… until the sheriff showed up.

 

Working as a Patent Attorney and also being a firearms enthusiast, I took a special interest in the patent infringement lawsuit Glock prosecuted against Smith. There was evidence that the president of Smith and Wesson directed his engineers to directly copy the Glock design. They did. Smith lost and paid a hefty sum. Glock used the money to fund the "Smith and Wesson" addition to their facility in Austria.

 

I like my P95 (carried its aluminum-framed predecessor on the job way back.)

I found the Sigma curiously placed into a role on the television series "Longmire", as the sidearm of rugged cowboy/playboy/deputy Branch Connally. Of any of Walt's deputies, Branch should have been the last one to carry a Sigma.

 

Well, it may not be ‘94 but grunge is still blasting on my radio! Need to hunt down an old 4 cylinder Chevy S10 with stick shift to fully relive it, ha ha.

Nice pickup, OP. Always liked the Ruger P series from that era also.

 

Many moons ago I purchased a Sigma. Horrendous trigger and forming a sight picture, it looked like I was looking over the deck of a aircraft carrier. Needless to say it is long gone.

 

Dang good price on a good gun. My first gun was a SW40F. Sold it to a friend and he loves it and still shoots it. I want it back. The original pre-lawsuit sigma was basically a more ergonomic Glock with drop free mags.

 

Uggg.... Grunge Music is bad. Give me Metallica and a '91 F-150.

 

No need for the 2.2. Plenty of good 4.3 trucks still out there.

Pretty much. But owning many f series 1966-2021. Ill take my heated seats, steering wheel, 10 inch infotainment screen, 25 MPG highway 5.0 anyday, remote start, 10 speed, dual climate control etc etc etc. Newer is better.

Except the Metallica....in which case anything st. Anger or later was in fact, not better. Lol.

It's funny too that the Sigma was a huge failure. Just like smiths 916 shotgun. They wanted part of a market and just jumped in. Looked foolish. Meanwhile the Ruger was at least somewhat successful. Very much original.

It was a transition period for sure. Two renowned revolver making companies trying to dig out of a hole they found themselves in. Can't fault them for trying to get in on that share of the police market. Thats on the heels of the bad press from the FBI pulling the 1076 from service for locking up too. The third generation smiths have a following now, but I never heard a single officer complain when dumping the heavy third gen for a Glock.

I just can't see how a company like smith would allow that patent infringement to happen though. I guess maybe that was in the Bangor years. But having worked in manufacturing my whole life, we have teams of people who know exactly how much has to be changed to avoid litigation. Lol.

 

I bough a first generation M&P 40. It might have been the only one made with a decent trigger. It wasn't 1911 quality but pretty good for a plastic fantastic. When my wrist decided it didn't want me to shoot it I gave it to my #1 grandson. I have tried to get it back and convert it to 9mm but he will not part with it. He will let me shoot it anytime I want but my wrist still doesn't like it.