Frustrating Experience with Sig P229-1 and Sig Customer Service - Advice Requested

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Randy_

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I just posted this on Reddit, but I would love to get your opinion as well.

A few weeks ago I traded with a guy on Armslist for a Sig P229-1 9mm. He said the round count was around 500, and he was trading it because the trigger reach was too long for his hands. This pistol has Hogue grips and the original, non-SRT trigger.
I took it to the range on a Saturday, and started getting failures to extract every 5-10 rounds with Winchester White Box 115gr. That was almost all I had with me, but I shot about 10 rounds of Blazer Brass 115gr without issue, and shot a few rounds of RWS 124gr, which I also had a failure to extract with.

I called Sig Sauer the following Monday and explained the issue. The representative, Mike, informed me that because I was not the original purchaser of the pistol, they would charge me $55 for shipping to look at the pistol. He said they would still repair any issues under warranty as long as they weren't the result of something the previous owner did. He asked me to ship the pistol only, without magazines or any other accessories.
I shipped the pistol out that Monday with the label they sent me, and they received it Wednesday. That Friday they charged my card, and I had a shipping notice the following Monday. I received the pistol back last Wednesday. I was pretty pleased that it only took them 2 days to do their work, for a total of a week and half turn around time with shipping.
The pistol arrived in a plastic bag in the case, dripping in oil, with a note stating that the gunsmith cleaned the pistol, inspected it, and then replaced the extractor and extractor springs. He then test fired it with 100 rounds of WWB 115gr and 25 rounds of Aguila 124gr, supported and unsupported, dominate and non-dominate hand, and with the mag topped off with one in the chamber, with no malfunctions. It seemed like a pretty thorough job, and I was optimistic that the issue was solved.

Yesterday, Friday, I took the gun back to the range. I started with 30 rounds of Blazer Brass 115gr, with no issues. I then fired 50 rounds of WWB 115gr, which gave me 3 failures to extract. I followed that with 50 rounds of RWS 124gr, with no issues.
At that point, I was ready to just write it off that the pistol doesn't like Winchester White Box. What is really important is that it is reliable with self-defense ammo. I loaded up 5 rounds of Speer Gold Dot 124gr +P, and had a failure to extract on the second or third round. I followed that with another 5 rounds of Gold Dot, with another failure to extract. Finally, I tried 5 rounds of Winchester Ranger 147gr, and again had a failure to extract.
So it appears that the pistol runs even worse with premium ammo than it does with cheap ammo. I have two factory magazines, one marked Made in Italy, one not, and had the issues with both of them, so I do not suspect a magazine issue.

I called Sig back that afternoon, and got a different guy named Mike, and explained the problems to him. His first response was to recap every line item of the work the gunsmith did, with a tone to suggest "The gunsmith tested the pistol and didn't have any issues. The problem must be you."
He then told me that Winchester White Box is not reliable ammo. Had I not tested with the Gold Dot and Ranger it appears he would have just refused to help me at that point.
Finally, he asked if I had let anyone else fire the pistol, again suggesting I was the problem. I informed him my wife, who was with me the first time, did not wish to shoot the pistol, but that I made sure to test every brand of ammo I had issues with in my M&P full size and M&P compact I also had with me, and didn't have any issues with those. I didn't get into my opinion that if the slide is coming back far enough to pick up the next round, there shouldn't be any technique issues preventing it from extracting the case.
He finally relented and sent me another shipping label, with no promise as to what action they will take when they receive the pistol. He agreed that I should ship the magazines with the pistol his time. I wrote a brief note of my experience, along with a printout of some of the pictures I took, and included it in the box before rushing the package to the FedEx shipping center. The pistol is now due to be delivered Tuesday.

Does anyone had any advice on what I should do next? Should I just wait and see what they do? Email them this thread? Demand a new pistol if they can't reproduce and then fix the issue? I would appreciate input from anyone who has dealt with Sig CS before.

To summarize my experience so far:

  • Good:
    P229-1 is a great shooter when not failing to extract.
    Sig CS answers the phone quickly, and sends the email with the shipping label quickly.
    Sig's turn around time on repairs is very quick.
    Their test firing seems to be about as thorough as could be expected.
  • Bad:
    According to rep, Winchester White Box is not operator enough to run in a Sig.
    Implied by rep, I am not operator enough to operate a Sig without causing extraction issues.
  • Ugly:
    They charge you $55 to look at one of their pistols, even if they find the issue to be a part that never should have left the factory. I would recommend not buying a used Sig firearm without mentally adding $55 to the price. If I don't get the pistol back fixed, I will change my recommendation to just not buying a Sig firearm at all, and possibly sell my P238 as well.

WWB FTExtract 1.jpgWWB FTExtract 2.jpgWRanger FTExtract 1.jpgSpeerGD FTExtract 1.jpg
 

Fyrtwuck

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WWB ammo has had issues for several years. I've gotten boxes of it and checked it out before shooting it and found rounds that were not seated properly or not crimped.

I have several Sigs myself. I've only had one that was picky about ammo. It was a P6 and a trip to Accutate Iron got it fixed. I did a little research and found that there was a change in barrel design to correct this particular problem and I had one of the guns that was produced before the design change.

I visit several Sig forums and there are lots of complaints about Sig's customer service.
 

aestus

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Buy another few boxes of WWB ammo that you know is recently made from a different lot and test. It could just be your ammo, as cheap ammo can vary greatly from lot to lot. I had a buddy that swore up and down his firearm was full of issues and raised hell with the manufacturer after having sent it back to them 3 times. After all the hot air, I suggested he try new ammo and when it he did, it worked flawlessly. We tried a bunch of other ammo and it ate it up, including the same ammo he had, but newer from a different lot. Turns out, it was his ammo that was the issue.
 

Randy_

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aestus, I know it is a long post, so maybe you just missed the part, but I can reproduce the issue with Winchester White Box, Winchester Ranger, and Speer Gold Dot +P. In addition, 2 different M&Ps ate the same ammo, including the WWB, just fine.
Also, keep in mind this is a failure to extract, not eject. Ejection issues can be caused by slide velocity, if there is weak ammo. In this instance the extractor is not trying to pull the case from the chamber. The extractor is slipping off the rim; that should not be dependent on the quality of the ammo, unless the rim is out of spec.
 

Randy_

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What does the case that fails to extract look like where the extractor contacted it? In other words weak/normal pulling no mark vs hard pulling with mark?

The cases seem to look the same regardless of if they extracted successfully or not. There is a small nick on the rim and on the extractor groove of all the cases. It is very hard to get my phone to focus on something that small, but here is an attempt at a picture of a case that didn't extract.

rimnick1.jpg
 

Sanford

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The pistol arrived in a plastic bag in the case, dripping in oil

How much did you dry it off? If it was actually dripping that's a bit to the excess but SiG's do like to run a bit wetter than most. For the operating surfaces if you touch it with the tip of your finger and it doesn't leave a print, it's not wet enough, in general at least.
 

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