Sig Sauer Magazine Crack
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Most everyone would agree that Sig Sauer manufactures firearms of extremely high quality. They are a standard among the military and law enforcement with a reputation for excellent reliability. I have owned my Sig P220 for approximately 4 years and I am approaching 10,000 rounds fired through the weapon. As nice as this is, it should be remembered that no company is better than its service and it has been my experience that Sig's customer service is as bad as its products are good.
Finally, in November, eight months later, I received new magazines from Sig. There was only one problem, they were not eight round magazines. I called Sig and they advised to send the magazines back and they would be replaced. As of this writing, it is March of 2001, I am still waiting for my magazines. I have now waited ALMOST A YEAR to receive replacements for defective products.
(I recently called to check on my magazine order and had to fight with the representative to receive eight round magazines - they insisted I was only entitled to seven round magazines even though my RMA stated I was to receive eight rounders.)
I have also had very bad luck with Sig when ordering replacement parts. It is recommended that the springs in the weapon be replaced every 5,000 rounds. Since my weapon was past that point, I ordered five springs for my Sig P220. It took over SIX WEEKS to receive these parts. I don't know how a company can take that long to ship five springs but they managed.
Based on my experience, I would not buy a Sig Sauer pistol simply because you cannot receive parts for them in a timely fashion. Also, their customer service representatives are either very pleasant or very abrasive. Its been said that a product is only as good as its service and if this is true, a Sig Sauer pistol is worthless.
UPDATE (4/01) I finally received my new 8 round magazines in April of 2001 - that's right a one year wait for the right magazines. To further reinforce my view of Sig's customer serivce, I recently ordered replacement springs for my P220. The salesperson wasn't the most knowledgable and when I received the parts, they had shipped the wrong ones. I received several springs for a P232, a weapon which was never mentioned during my conversation with the salesperson.
UPDATE (01/03) With my P220 well over 20,000 rounds and parts breaking here and there, I decided it was time for a new pistol. My employer mandates a Sig and I mandate a 45ACP so the new pistol was going to be a P220. I personally like stainless steel guns and thought that the all steel construction of P220ST would increase durability. With this in mind, I contacted Sig and ordered a P220ST through their obscure federal law enforcement sales program. I was told that it would take some time as these orders are filled last due to the great pricing.
As the time for my Thunder Ranch trip approached, I decided to call Sig and see if I would have my new pistol for the class as their estimated delivery date was very close to my class date. When I spoke with a salesperson, they quoted me a delivery date well after my class and way off of the time they originally estimated. When I asked about this, I was told that my order had been entered roughly six to eight weeks after it was received. Once this mistake was realized, my order became a priority and my pistol was built for me that week and in my hot little hands the next. In this instance, Sig did a great job of realizing a mistake had been made and correcting that mistake immediately – that’s good service.
In my conversations, I also found out why parts orders from Sig take so long. If you order several parts and one of them is not in stock, by default Sig waits until all parts are in stock before they ship. If you ask them, they will ship a partial order allowing you to receive most of your parts promptly. When you order parts, I would recommend checking inventory and if something is backordered, requesting a partial shipment.