FREEDOM!!!

007's choice full-size once Walther decided to discontinue the P99.

A busy season with a foreboding election nevertheless brings good times with good news. As of Friday, following the Jensen v. ATF ruling in August that left in limbo whether registration of silencers, SBRs and AOWs would still be required despite the One Big Beautiful Bill striking down the tax, ATF has released guidance confirming (at least so long as this administration stays the course) it is NOT. A nearly century-long scourge of onerous hoops to jump through (along with a greater cost in prudent safety measures) is now abolished!

I have been holding out for this for a long time, keeping investment in this venture on standby until the law changed to render it cost-effective. While SBRs are not my thing (because of the ballistic sacrifice inherent to shorter barrels), I consider silencers essential for safety within the home. Note that the ruling makes no changes regarding machine guns, but I have already been investing in binary triggers (which I deem both safer and more efficient with proper training) to get around that.

It is a good thing I have been contemplating this for so long because such a seismic shift in the equation would make sorting through it tricky. I also hope the dropping of regulations leads to reduced prices for silencers because those in military calibers tend to run as expensive as a whole gun. Texas tried going it independent earlier in the decade, but that never got a real chance to have its legal veracity tested prior to this turn of events rendering the matter moot...but it may yet be pertinent again, should a future less-friendly ATF attempt to reassert this regulation regardless of what Congress passes (such arbitrary power to determine what to enforce is the key reason an agency like ATF should not exist at all).

Back when this blog was new I posted how attuned I was to the SIG Sauer brand, at least so far as their metal-framed classics went. I continue to stand by that, helped by the fact that among their purchase options are threaded barrels for any of their major models in military calibers - this means 9x19mm & .45 ACP for pistols, which was the fact even before discontinuation of support for .40 S&W and .357 SIG, but .40 S&W is usually a fully-loaded round which makes it not a great caliber to suppress anyway while .357 SIG loses its best strengths when brought down to subsonic velocity (you might as well just use 9x19mm in that case and take the extra magazine capacity).

The launch of the 40th anniversary model of the P226, combined with a HUGE local sale, meant I got my first 9x19mm SIG for LESS than I would have had to pay for a MK25 upper half...besides: an unfortunate mistake with my P226R E2 frame meant I suddenly had a need for a replacement without such cosmetic damage, and all the better that this one has NO rail at all which makes it exhibit those classic lines all the better. I now have the full-size double-stack model supporting all 3 calibers (unfortunately SIG stopped making .357 SIG rounds, but at least there are still plenty of those to source elsewhere) with capability of switching between a classic frame for home & garrison or the rail frame for field & assault, and now I can add a threaded barrel to the tactical mix. Or, perhaps not: perhaps now the time is ripe to invest the SIG ecosystem to its logical conclusion.

Thanks to years of judicious money management, I am not only looking at retiring significantly early but living better than I ever did working for a paycheck (I will still work, just more meaningfully than having to accept whatever job that pays for the sake of covering the bills). This means I have options in life, which includes accounting for my particular tastes in how I prepare and defend. Yet before I can justify taking it much deeper, I really need to make the time to get out there and practice with what I already have.

My factory-new Walther PPK/S (my second, in fact) continued to exhibit <100% reliability after hundreds of rounds. While I was able to narrow down at least part of the issue to magazine quirks since detecting that some worked better than others, I deemed this unacceptable and made the hard choice to give up on having a PPK [for now: the .22 LR model seems more promising, especially with the uniquely cool way it is designed to mount a silencer]. Its replacement, an all-steel SIG Sauer P232 - discontinued since last decade, magazines VERY expensive but fortunately mine came with just as many as I needed - has never failed and faithfully been serving as my daily deep concealment for years.

After reading up about it on Hipster Tactical (albeit I first saw it during the time my wife liked binging on NCIS: Los Angeles) I became attracted to another discontinued model (why is that such a consistent trait of mine?): the P239, SIG's modern Type I (remember my Star Trek-inspired categorization system?) in full-caliber form prior to the polymer transition craze leading to its replacement by the P365. Inspired by the classic P225 - SIG even released a P225A1 in the 2010s which shared so many components with the P239 that the magazines are interchangeable - it actually was used as a subcompact alternative by US military investigation branches and a concealable backup by Navy SEALs. You know how to follow the idea "if it is good enough for them..."

It so happens my everyday carry shares a similar honor: the SIG P230, which the P232 is a direct upgrade to (magazines for either will work in either so long as caliber matches), replaced the Walther PP family as the choice deep carry of the British SAS (the ORIGINAL commandos) with designation L109A1. Yes, it is true British security services loved the Walther PP & PPK because its ready double-action was superior to that of their available revolvers (since those and the single-action 1911 or Browning Hi-Power were their only real alternatives at the time); though it was issue for undercovers in Northern Ireland (L66A1) there is no confirmation it was ever so for MI6 spies. I encourage readers to look up the incident that led to the British suddenly losing faith in and dropping the Walthers; all I will say for now is that I can attest to the superior reliability of the SIG Sauers even though the Walthers retain a superior classic aesthetic (but not by THAT much).

My exploration was willing to account for going back to the beginning...mind you, not all the way to the SIG P210 (too expensive) or Sauer 38H (discontinued since 1945), but the P220 & P225 that first brought both firms together. The first SIG Sauer was commercially sold in America under the Browning brand as part of its double-action upgrade line: while released under its original P220 moniker in Europe available in either 9x19mm (military) or 7.65x21mm (civilian), for we Americans the full-size Browning BDA with the patented "SIG Sauer system" could be had in 7-round .45 ACP or 9-round .38 Super - in return for the sacrifice of some ballistics due to the shorter 4.4-inch barrel, double-action capability could be attained with the same magazine capacity as any Government 1911. Most, understandably, prefer the upgraded P220 models that continue being produced today which dropped the European-type magazine release (and the less-popular .38 Super, eventually adding 10mm as the alternative caliber option) while bringing magazine capacity up to 8.

The P225 found its fame serving West German police as the P6, alongside the Walther P5 (final variant of the long-running P38 family) and Heckler & Koch P7 (still high-end expensive but available once again). This selection followed the infamous Munich Massacre of 1972, which SIG also happened to develop the P230 at this time as another possible selection only for it to be rejected because the Germans opted for the greater power of the 9x19mm round instead of a direct replacement for their then-standard Walther PPs & PPKs. While the P225A1 is internally a P239 variant rather than a parts-compatible upgrade to the original P225, externally it fits the classic SIG aesthetic better than the made-for-America P239.

Concurrent with development of the P239 in the late 90s was another interesting take: SIG matched the full-power subcompact move of the Glock 30 with the P245, last of their newly-developed models built with an old-fashioned carbon steel slide (still standard on P220 variants until the 21st century despite the P229 and its heavier caliber options having made stainless slides standard for the P226 family). Between this structual difference and that the P245 has been discontinued so long available spare parts for it are drying up, a better choice today for concealable .45 ACP would be a compact P220 variant (which, same as the P245, can extend capacity via use of a standard P220 magazine plus spacer), but there is room for understanding those who prefer the P245 because they love the P239, sister pistols that share a common profile not carried over into any P220 variant (due to being in Parabellum caliber the P239 is considered part of the P226 family despite being single-stack like a P220 variant).

Another variable entered the equation in the late 2000s: drawing from their experimentation in the 1911 realm, SIG went the subcompact route begun in the late 80s by the Colt Government 380 with the P238, the most reliable and successful of subcompact 1911s albeit not boasting as many versatility features as the competing Kimber Micro or Springfield 911 (the Colt Mustang also reentered the market in response though Colt at the time was no longer the prestigious company it used to be). It was growing the idea to service-caliber size, resulting in the P938, which cemented SIG's option as the simpler but better since SIG knew 9x19mm inside and out while Kimber, Colt & Springfield were primarily 1911 developers thus opened the door to problems because the 1911 platform was made for straight-walled calibers like the ACP family thus it takes a special touch to adapt it to a semi-tapered round like 9x19mm Parabellum.

Today, save for contracted specials such as that from Bar-Sto (who will deliver a quality product but place their invasive branding all over it), it is difficult today to obtain a threaded barrel for the P239 (unlike with the P226 or P229, a barrel change is all that is necessary to convert a .40 S&W or .357 SIG P239 to 9mm). A P938, which has never been that expensive [so long as one knows to shop around instead of accepting high sticker prices], is an alternative that sacrifices some capacity and double-action operation but offers even better concealability (and, like for all 9mm SIGs, there is an official threaded barrel available for the P938). It may also be a consideration that the P938 remains produced and fully supported by SIG Sauer today, though all modern models produced in America and post-Cold War Germany should be honored under their lifetime warranty.

If I REALLY wanted to go all-out with this new freedom, though, an American-made MP5...