Trash or Treasure? Sig P230

I prefer the P230 to the Walther PP. Have had two Walthers fail in heavy use. I have P230s in both .32 ACP and .380. Solid guns which have stood up to over 30 years of heavy training use and annual quals. Best with real Euro-CIP ammo and not wimpy US stuff. They are balanced for 95 grain FMJ at 985 fps. The .32 ACP for 77-grain heavy ball also at 985 fps.

British SAS, FBI HRT and DC MPD SWAT carried these as backups worn under body armor back in the late 1980s. The big drawback is that SIG service is not reliable anymore on older guns which are out of production, which is an issue if you are firing over a thousand rounds per year without department armorer inspection. After market non-SIG magazines can also be problematic and real SIG mags are VERY expensive. Mec-Gar mags I got in Italy were OK in .380, but for the rare .32 ACP Austrian police model only original SIG 7.65 mags work and they are not available in the US. I ordered my spares from Waffen Franconia in Wurzburg, $100 each with shipping and customs duty.
 
Last edited:
What is an Arkansas Sig? :scrutiny:
He is confused with an Arkansas Walther.

SIG USA is assembled from German parts in Exeter, NH. I considered going to work for them when I left Ruger in 1987, but decided not to be enslaved to "foreign devils" and instead took a government engineering position in the DC area until I retired in 2010.
 
I wanted one for years, got it and it ate the web of my hand so bad I quickly sold it. Great looking pistol and I still like them, but they are not for me. So, if one has large, chunky hands it may be a pass.

Rare for me to sell things but I couldn't shoot it with it shredding my hand. Never had anything else eat me up like that did.
 
SIG USA is assembled from German parts in Exeter, NH. I considered going to work for them when I left Ruger in 1987, but decided not to be enslaved to "foreign devils" and instead took a government engineering position in the DC area until I retired in 2010.
Everything is made in the U.S now. Sig closed their German factory four years ago, and most products have been made in Newington for nearly a decade.
 
Last edited:
Carried one for many years. Supposedly there are some bullet profiles the 230 won't digest (resulting in the 232), but mine ate everything I fed it just fine.
Liked it way better than any of the PP series guns. Nasty little buggers they are.

Reliable, light, and accurate, however-
Mine tended to eject straight into my face/forehead. Very annoying.
Eventually sold it for a nice profit.
 
When my son got out of the Dallas PD academy the P232 was on the very short list of approved back-up weapons and I gave him one for graduation. He carried it as a back-up gun and off-duty firearm for many years. In the annual qualifications he did very well with it but he had a few malfunctions due to the Pachmayr grips, which interfere with the trigger bar when the grips screws were tightened too much.

I think I had paid a little over $400 with two magazines about 7 years ago and liked the quality and accuracy of the pistol.

 
Back
Top