Most simply got by with another brand of ammo. My own solution was to load my personal P220 with the eight of the flying ashtrays, one in the pipe and seven in the mag, and then load the spare magazines with some other type of JHP round. My P220 never failed to feed this infamous gun-jammer once it was loaded into the P220 and the first round was chambered.
Over the years, the problem has resolved itself with new designs. The current 200-grain CCI Speer .45 offering, the Gold Dot bullet, does not seem to have any problem feeding in late model SIGs. I think it’s a combination of the improved fourth-generation P220 .45 magazine, and better feeding characteristics of the Gold Dot 200-grain bullet compared to the conventional jacketed hollow-point which preceded it.
Chuck Taylor is a contemporary and observed the same thing. He wrote in his edition of The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery, “My P220 shoots very well indeed, with three-shot Ransom Rest 25-meter groups averaging slightly over 2 inches. I’ve also had no functioning problems whatsoever with the gun, although in some of the earlier versions, some problems were reported with several styles of JHP bullet. SIG Sauer, to their credit, immediately relieved the front of the magazine body to allow better bullet clearance, which solved the problem nicely.” (4)
P220 .45 Magazines
About those four generations of P220 .45 magazines. They go like this:
First generation: Seven-round BDA/European style. Will only work in P220s with butt-heel magazine release.
Second generation: Seven-round P220 American style. Will work in American, European, and BDA model .45s.
Third generation: The so-called “DPS Magazine.” A P220 American mag with the same flat-bottom floorplate as the first two generations, but modified in spring and follower to take an eighth round. These were created for the Texas Department of Public Safety when they adopted the P220 American .45, and reportedly, Texas DPS had great success with them. Personally, I have never trusted a magazine designed for seven rounds, which then had an eighth forced into it; we fool Mother Nature at our peril.
The eighth cartridge in a magazine originally designed for seven put the rounds so tightly in the stack inside the magazine that there was no flex in the spring. This meant that if the P220 was reloaded with the slide forward, either in administrative loading getting ready for duty or in a tactical reload with a live round already in the chamber, the shooter really had to slam the magazine in to make certain that it locked in place. After experimenting with the DPS magazine, I went back to the earlier ones. Police had already cautiously waited for decades to switch from revolvers to autos because of fears of reliability. Their mantra had been, “Six for sure beats 14 maybe.” My reasoning as to P220 magazines was similar: “Seven for sure beats eight maybe.”
Fourth generation: Eight-round current production. These are unquestionably the finest .45 caliber magazines ever made for the P220 pistol. They are crafted of stainless steel, always a bonus when a gun and its spare magazines are carried in hostile environments, which can be rain and snow attacking guns holstered outside the clothing, or heat and humidity and salty, corrosive human sweat when the pistol is carried concealed. Moreover, the Gen Four SIG P220 .45 magazines are extended very slightly at the bottom, into a hollow floorplate. This does two good things. First, the buffer pad on the floorplate makes magazine insertion easier and more positive, especially under stress. Second, the added space inside the floorplate allows the eighth round to be stored there without too rigid a spring stack or undue pressure on the magazine springs. These are what I now carry in my P220 .45.
A word on aftermarket magazines. I normally trust only the magazines the gunmaker sells with its firearms. For the P220 .45, I trust Sauer-made SIG magazines and I trust Mec-Gar magazines. This may be seen as a redundancy, since Mec-Gar produces SIG’s magazines for them. The currently imported Novak’s P220 magazine seems to work well. ACT in Italy produces it. While marketed as an eight-round mag and having an extended floorplate, I’ve nonetheless found that some will comfortably hold all eight and some are better carried with seven rounds, at least when new.
Many shooters have found full P220 .45 mags hard to unload, at least for the topmost cartridge or two. Here’s the secret. Hold the loaded magazine in one hand and pinch the thumb and forefinger of the other hand beneath the nose of the cartridge on top, applying upward pressure. Now use the thumb of the magazine-holding hand to push the cartridge forward. It will come out much easier. Repeat if necessary for the next cartridge or two; after that, spring pressure will be relieved and the thumb alone will be able to slide the rest of the rounds out easily.
Variations
Though many considered the P220 a compact handgun, many who owned them wanted one even smaller for deeper concealment. This wish was granted by SIG in the form of the excellent little P245, a pistol that differs sufficiently from the P220 that it is treated separately in this book.
Stainless steel P220s have also been produced. Basically the same gun as the original, but heavier, they differ only in handling qualities and, of course, in adding one more option of corrosion resistance to the many finishes which are discussed in the segments of this book devoted to accessories and customizing.
The first of these guns was the P220 Sport, introduced to the public in 1999. I was at a conference of the firearms press conducted by SIGARMS in conjunction with the NRA Show and Annual Meeting in Philadelphia in 1998, where we were given a chance to play with advance versions of this gun.
Fitted with a long muzzle weight-cum-compensator, and with an all-steel frame of stainless alloy, this handsome pistol sports a 5.5-inch barrel and weighs some 44 ounces. With the added weight and the comp, recoil and muzzle jump are greatly reduced. The exquisite accuracy of the earlier P220s was clearly present in this .45. It was introduced with grooves on the dust cover (front of frame) to accept additional weights and other accessories proprietary to SIGARMS.
I liked the gun, but found it a bit big for my tastes and needs. Like many, I just said, “Make us a regular P220 with this frame, and groove the dust cover to accept more common accessories, like the M-3 flashlight.”
SIG listened. The 21st Century saw the P220 ST, exactly the gun described above. Though the first models had reliability problems (and, I thought, below-P220-standard accuracy), this was traced to the use of a stainless steel barrel. SIG solved the problem by installing their conventional chrome molybdenum steel barrel within the stainless slide.
Now, we had a truly meaningful option within the P220 line. There were those of us accustomed by years of wearing Colt Government .45s that weighed 39 or so ounces, and didn’t mind the fact that this was the weight of the all-steel P220 ST. In return, we got the recoil reduction and added durability that came with all-steel construction. Before, SIG engineers had been leery about recommending +P .45 ACP ammo for these guns. I saw very few aluminum P220 frames crack after continuous shooting with +P, which brings the ACP up to a power level comparable to a full-power 10mm Auto cartridge, which is infamously brutal to even full-size .45 caliber guns. With the ST variation, my sources at SIG tell me that they just don’t see a problem.
References
1. Mullin, Timothy J., The 100 Greatest Combat Pistols, Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 1994, P.315.
2. Ibid., P. 316.
3. Taylor, Chuck, The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery, Fourth Edition, Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1997, P. 224-225.
4. Ibid., P.225.
Chapter 2