This may help someone else - decocker

[hso]

I got a new2me Sig P226, West German in nice condition. I took it out back to my pistol range and ran a few magazines through it and was satisfied that it functioned well until...I used the decocker and nothing happened. The hammer did not drop.

I racked the slide and tried again. Nope. Grrrrr.

Read some information on busted decockers and looked at some pictures of the most obvious problems and peeked under the grip panel. Everything looked fine.

THEN I remembered one of the statements that if you're not used to decockers, especially on Sigs, you might not be pushing far/hard enough. Shooting 1911s, BHPs and CZs I'm used to the short crisp safety pushing safe/fire so I put some thumb behind it.

Click!



Yep, I had not been applying enough pressure to it.

Lesson learned, when they say that the travel may seem long and the final effort may seem difficult, don't be afraid to really put some pressure on it.

 

[9mmepiphany]

Yup, fairly common occurance when we first introduced the 226/229 on out department.

You need to push the lever to the Stop, then pass it to the Click that releases the sear.

It is designed that way to prevent unintentional decocking of the hammer for folks who can't keep their right thumbs off the gun

 

[Corpral_Agarn]

What is weird to me is that the hammer drops at different (seemingly) pressures and travel distances on each one.

The 220's I have handled seem to drop after only a little travel, whereas both my 226's need to travel all the way down.
P239 is somewhere in between but closer in feel to the 220.

 

[9mmepiphany]

I was speaking specifically to the 226/229 models.

My 220 (I have 3, have had 5) do release much earlier in the travel arc of the lever. The design and geometry of their mechanism is different

 

[Good Ol' Boy]

Interesting. The only DA/SA I own is a P95 which is obviously nothing like a Sig, but when I got to shoot and handle a couple of 226's of my buddies I didn't have any trouble decocking them.

Then again I don't know if either one was a "west German" one.

 

[FL-NC]

But its still better than a M9.