Why .357 sig When there's 38 super

[Peter M. Eick]

Those are standard 229 Sport mags. They look nice work well but only give you 10 rounds which was all you could get at the time. A 12 round 229 mag will work fine with the gun.

I got a great deal on the mags at a cdnn close out. I think I paid $9/mag or something like that so I bought a bunch. I bought the spare top end a few years ago.

The 229 sport has a "beaffier" barrel that is thicker and heavier than a standard 229 also the stainless slide and aluminum comp are hard to come "buy" so I picked up a spare. This is actually one of my highest round count guns. I have about 12,000 rounds down it now and will get back out shooting it soon.

Today we had no work due to the ice storm so I cranked 974 rounds of 38 Super in my standard 135 grn MBC LRN that cranks out 1350 FPS with 4756. Great round to shoot out of my Supers.

 

[tipoc]

That sounds like a fun load!

tipoc

 

[BCRider]

Did Sig ever aspire to make it big in the law enforcement market? If they did I could see the lure of being offered a semi auto with the same performance of the .357Mag revolvers that would be used by many agencies of the day.

 

[torqem]

the 9mm has a tapered case.

that helps with both feeding and extraction. It should be obvious that when you start a 9mm bullet into a .40 rear end chamber, there's more room for error.

 

[9mmepiphany]

Did Sig ever aspire to make it big in the law enforcement market? If they did I could see the lure of being offered a semi auto with the same performance of the .357Mag revolvers that would be used by many agencies of the day.

SIG was a major player in LE sidearms when S&W faded. The choices were pretty much between SIG and Beretta...until Glock started giving away their guns to departments who were willing to switch

 

[Jenrick]

Sig is still involved in LE. Several state police agencies still run sigs in a variety of forms, and a lot of federal agencies carried them (and still do).

The .357 Sig round got some penetration into LE, again mostly with state police agencies and federal agencies.

-Jenrick

 

[Bezoar]

.357 sig is a proprietary round, and it makes them money. It also fits in within existing tooling. 38 super doesnt.

 

[goon]

Did Sig ever aspire to make it big in the law enforcement market? If they did I could see the lure of being offered a semi auto with the same performance of the .357Mag revolvers that would be used by many agencies of the day.

IIRC, when the .357 SIG was first introduced, the idea was to try to get an equivalent load to a 125 grain .357 Magnum load, only have it in a semi-auto with double the magazine capacity.
Not sure why it didn't really take off in LEO circles. It probably didn't grab hold of the civilian market because 9mm +P isn't too far off and .40 S&W, which the .357 SIG is based on, also seems to work pretty well at stopping attackers. Combine that with the fact that it's more work to reload and the ammo is more expensive and less available...

Just my guess anyhow.

 

[zaphar]

.357 sig is a proprietary round, and it makes them money. It also fits in within existing tooling. 38 super doesnt.

If they make a 45 ACP version, it does. The only difference would be the extractor, breech face cut on the slide, recoil spring and barrel. It would be fairly easy for manufactures to streamline their offerings to suit different calibers if they made three different slides (9x19/38 Super, 40S&W/10mm, 45ACP) and two different frames (large/small) If you look at Tanfoglio pistols you can take the slide from one pistol and put it on another because most parts are standardized between all the calibers. The 357 Sig is nice if you want to use a small frame, like the 45 GAP, but the 38 Super is better for large frame pistols.

 

[goon]

I think the short, stubby .357 SIG round also would have better ergonomics in a double stack pistol. The .38 Super is chambered in a few double stack guns, but not many. The only ones I've seen were purpose built 1911 style race guns.
Normal double stacks like the Glock 19/23, SIG P-226, or the Beretta 92 fit my hand pretty well, but those race guns were too big for me (I have hands on the large side, but not huge).