Sig p230??

[racinghoss]

I have been offered one for about $200. Stainless. .380.

I know little about the pistol. I have never fired one. I know Sig make a pretty good pistol, but I am looking for other observations.

Value?

Quality?

Anything else?

 

[MauiWowie]

I've never shot the P230 but for $200 that's a great deal! I've seen them run $400-$450 for excellent condition ones. Do you know the round count on the gun? any holster wear?

Even if you didn't like it you could probably flip it for a $100 profit

 

[august1410]

Buy it.

 

[fivepointstar]

Its a SIG, I'd buy it. Ammo is scare right now but I'd buy one

 

[racinghoss]

Exc condition, no box. Current owner has <100 rounds through it. He bought it used.

 

[MauiWowie]

Exc condition, no box. Current owner has <100 rounds through it. He bought it used.

BUY IT!

 

[racinghoss]

Upon closer inspection there are some small scratches on the slide, but they might buff out with a dremel tool. Everything looks pretty good on it otherwise.

I traded a Remington 597 w/scope for it. I paid $135 for the rifle. Off to the MSP barracks this week to do the paperwork.

 

[fivepointstar]

Upon closer inspection there are some small scratches on the slide, but they might buff out with a dremel tool. Everything looks pretty good on it otherwise.

I traded a Remington 597 w/scope for it. I paid $135 for the rifle. Off to the MSP barracks this week to do the paperwork.

What a great trade!!! Some guys have all the luck

 

[alucard0822]

That is an awesome trade, and for a damn fine pistol

They are one of the best shooting pocket guns you can buy, and really shine when carried being they are small, light, and flat. They are blowback, and can be a little snappy with hotter rounds, but are very controllable and very accurate with decent sights. The trigger is very good, it has a nice smooth pull and crisp light SA operation with a relatively light DA operation. The thing I ike most are the controls, nothing is on the slide to hang up or snag as it is with most other DA/SA 380s, there is only a small decocker tab on the left side of the frame behind the trigger, and the heel mounted mag release at the bottom of the grip. IMO a heel release is better for a pocket gun because you are less apt to eject a mag accidentally, and being pocket guns are usually backup to a larger gun, or just enough gun to escape a bad situation, you normally do not need to worry about a reload anyway, even though you can learn to reload it pretty fast with your off hand yanking the mag after you push the release with your thumb.

The couple things you have to be aware of, and it is pretty much the rule for all of the blowback pocket guns are your grip, spring wear, and ammo sensitivity.

These are small pistols, and getting a comfortable grip can be tough, but to shoot tem well, you need a firm grip high on the frame, they tend to be sensitive to limp wristing, and too light of a grip can easily induce malfunctions, more so than larger locking breech pistols, and a poor grip will also give you a lot more snap in the recoil, making it tougher to shoot, and wearing you out after a short trip to the range.

They work by firing a round, and the expanded case itself, spring tension and slide inertia holds the slide in battery until the pressure drops as the bullet is leaving the barrel, the slide retracts, and the slide starts to cycle to do it again, the weight of the slide and the weight of the recoil spring basically set the timing of how much the pressure has to drop to start cycling, and the speed of the slide once it does. Because of this, you may need to play with replacement springs of different rates to tailor them to a specific load, and replace springs once they start to wear. Too light a spring, and the slide will pound the frame and your hand, too heavy, and it won't cycle fully or reliably, you have it just right when recoil feels soft without a sharp snap, and the cases cycle reliably and eject a couple feet away into the same spot, not barely falling out of the gun, and not flying 1/2 way across the range. Invest in a recoil spring pack from Wolff gunsprings, it includes a few springs in different weights and helps to tune the pistol to different loads. The slide also moves fast on these, and if the mag spring is weak it will jam, especially with HP ammo, so order a couple spare mag springs too.

older 380 designs like the sig p230/p232, Walther PP/PPK, Makarovs and others were designed to feed FMJ ammo, being most were designed as sidearms for police and military, and older HP ammo was unreliable and performed poorly out of short barrels at low velocities, so the feed ramp and barrel throat tend to be kinda rough and sharp, and some feeding issues are likely with HP or truncated cone ammo, simply polishing the ramp and gently smoothing the edge between the throat and chamber usually gets them to eat HP ammo reliably, although the Sigs usually start with smoother ramps and chambers than other pistols of similar design. The power of varous brands of 380 ammo vaies wuite a bit, and the Sigs can safely fire hot +p loads, usually with little change in accuracy because of the fixed barrel, although they can change the point of impact quite a bit, and while the groups may be about the same size, one group may be a few inches away from another with different loads. The spring tuning I covered before can address function problems with hotter or weaker ammo, and can sometimes change the shot placement with a given load, generally you use heavier springs for heavier loads, and if they move the group at all, it is usually down. They tend to have function problems with different ammo instead of changes in accuracy, so if you intend on carrying it, you really want to fire a good bit of your intended carry ammo before relying on it.

 

[MauiWowie]

but they might buff out with a dremel tool.

Oh No unless he's a Gunsmith please don't do that to a SIG...

 

[13mogul]

Alucard, cannot thank you enough for this post! I've had these problems above with my p232.

 

[smores]

Yeah keep the dremel away from it! Never use a round tool to polish a flat surface!!!

You got a steal on it. Nice trade!

 

[racinghoss]

Alucard, thanks for the info. That was a great post. Actually, the grip is good for me. It has aftermarket Hogue grips on it. I plan to get some factory grips and a box for it.

As far as the polishing, I am talking about using a felt tool like the one in the link below. If the cone is held flat on the slide, it should be enough to take the scuffs out without damaging the metal. I find it hard to believe that a felt surface, held flat to the slide, would damage the slide.

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/AttachmentsAndAccessories/Pages/AttachmentsDetail.aspx?pid=422

 

[smores]

Alucard, thanks for the info. That was a great post. Actually, the grip is good for me. It has aftermarket Hogue grips on it. I plan to get some factory grips and a box for it.

As far as the polishing, I am talking about using a felt tool like the one in the link below. If the cone is held flat on the slide, it should be enough to take the scuffs out without damaging the metal. I find it hard to believe that a felt surface, held flat to the slide, would damage the slide.

http://www.dremel.com/en-us/AttachmentsAndAccessories/Pages/AttachmentsDetail.aspx?pid=422

If it's abrasive, it's moving metal. These things are often surface ground at the factory to give a uniform, flat polished surface.

You'd be better off using steel wool or high-grit sandpaper if these are just superficial handling scratches. Anything deeper, and it'll need a lot more work.

 

[alucard0822]

If it's abrasive, it's moving metal. These things are often surface ground at the factory to give a uniform, flat polished surface.

You'd be better off using steel wool or high-grit sandpaper if these are just superficial handling scratches. Anything deeper, and it'll need a lot more work.

Also "polishing" is not a universal term, in machining work you have various specs of microfinishing, if the slide is polished to a very fine microfinish, it will be bright and shiny, not always desireable in a gun you intend on using. Usually it is final polished with an abrasive paste somewhere between 450-800 grit to leave a subtle sheen instead of a mirror finish, and it is usually a unidirectional finish, basically the small scratches left during final polishing are in a single direction. Going at it with an unknown generic polishing paste will change that, and with a small polising head on a dremel will put these small scratches in random directions, and random depths, leaving a wavy,blotchy surface. The best way is to use a couple stiff strips of leather, rubbed with progressively finer paste abrasives or lapping compounds, streached and clamped on a hard flat surface, rub the flat of the slide forward and backward on it till the corse grit takes out the scratch, then clean it, and go to the next, and basically stop when you get the finish you want, this can pretty well duplicate or create most any finish on a flat surface, is very uniform, and leaves the rounded surfaces untouched. Pro's might have a better and quicker way of doing it, but for me working with modest tools and basically one project at a time, it is the best way I have found, usually to take out idiot marks on 1911s, or polishing flats that were originally bead blasted.

 

[AliasNeo07]

Oh No unless he's a Gunsmith please don't do that to a SIG...

Besides, I like some wear and tear on certain guns. I don't mind my glocks getting bumped around a little bit. I think SOME scratches and/or marks can make it attractive even. Means the pistol is being used. I don't own a sig yet but I would probably lump it in that same category.

 

[racinghoss]

There would be no compound used. These "scuffs" could likely be removed with nothing more than a rag and some elbow grease. Maybe I did a poor job of describing the condition.

I have done this before with other ss pistols and it did not hurt anything. You guys have me worried enough to rethink this though.

 

[alucard0822]

There would be no compound used. These "scuffs" could likely be removed with nothing more than a rag and some elbow grease. Maybe I did a poor job of describing the condition.

I have done this before with other ss pistols and it did not hurt anything. You guys have me worried enough to rethink this though.

If it is some type of paint or finish from something the gun scratched, and therefore can basicaly be cleaned off, the ok, no big deal, however, I would probably just stick to a patch with solvent, or a lead cleaning cloth. If they are scratches, then you need to "scratch" the gun in a controlled way with an abrasive to get them out.