Okay, I’m just putting this here to see if anyone else has had something similar happen…

I have 2 police trade-in P226s. One is a 357 Sig with a German frame made in 07. The other is a 9mm with a US frame made in 09. I have put new springs and SRT kits in both.

The 357 Sig has an acceptable if nothing special double action pull with a super crisp single action. The 9mm has a very smooth and light double action with a rough, creepy single action. If you pull the trigger in single action slow enough on the 9mm, you can even see the hammer cam backwards before releasing. (I don't have a trigger pull gauge to measure pull weight, this is just by feel.)

How can two 226s, each with brand new parts and the same springs have such different trigger pulls? And where is the difference coming from? Are the frames different or is it in the SRT kit or something else?

Sorry for the questions and the rant. I like both of these, I just wish they both had the double action of the 9mm and the single action of 357.

The guns have different trigger bars, hammers, sears, axle pins, etc. that can affect the feel of the trigger pull.

BTS, exactly what Gary said. No two manufactured items have exactly the same dimensions and surface finish. Tolerances may stack one way or the other. I have routinely encountered what you describe with same model guns. Colts, Browning Hi Powers, S&Ws,and yes SIGs, immediately come to mind.

Yep, just normal variations on mass-produced handguns.

When I buy a new gun, I always go to my LGS. Ask them to pull out the entire inventory of the gun I want to buy. Each is usually different.

Few years ago, I wanted a Glock Gen4 G34. Had one in case and three out back. I checked them all and bought the best of the litter. Three were similar, but different from each other. Fourth was in a class by itself. Did the same thing a couple of years later when I bought my G19.

I learned this back in the 1970's when I was buying and selling a lot of S&W DA revolvers. EVERY one had its own personality.

If anybody wonders why semi-custom 1911's are so expensive, part of it is because of the hand fitting. I have a 2006 Wilson Pro and have handled around ten others my friends were shooting. The triggers on all of them felt the same, because of the hand fitting.

It's interesting - but large organizations have armorers that may or may not have tinkered with the trigger or other internal parts as well. If you have bought both new, that would be worth examining that there was that much variance. However, as you got them both used, it's difficult to say what someone could have done to either or to both.

Any police armorers out there want to address this?

Thanks all. I hope I didn't come across as angry. I'm not.

They are both great pistols. And honestly, alone they would both be just fine. But shooting them back to back and their differences really stick out.

They each have their own personality. I like that. I just need to keep that in mind.

quote:

Originally posted by BTS:
Thanks all. I hope I didn't come across as angry. I'm not.

quote:

Originally posted by BTS:
Sorry for the questions and the rant

One doesn't usually rant unless they are angry.

As has been correctly pointed out, just because you have two of the same model of gun doesn't mean that they have identical characteristics. Variations in the contact surface area of the mating parts, variations in the finish of the parts, variations in geometries, variations in spring temper and weight, not to mention actual use and wear, will all affect the individual shooting characteristics of a particular gun.

I've owned at least 9 different P226s that I can recall, in all three calibers, both carbon stamped steel and stainless steel slide models. Each one had a generally decent to good trigger pull. Some had good trigger pulls out of the box, most improved with trigger time. However some had slight flaws, or at least undesirable characteristics to their generally decent trigger pulls. The best of the lot has a noticeably smoother DA trigger pull than even the ones that I've shot more often...BUT that is because it had SIG AEP work done to it.

Guns, like most any other mechanical object, really do have personalities and those that take the time to develop the skills to use these objects will discover them.

I've had several copies of the same or similar guns over the years and it's always interesting to see how differently they feel, trigger wise. I had a P220 DAK and a P226 DAK, made the same year, 2010, and they couldn't have been more different. The P220 was/is fantastic, super smooth and very light, but the P226 is much heavier and has a little grittiness to it just before the hammer drops. I took the gun totally apart and cleaned up everything and shined up the trigger bar, etc, and only improved it slightly. A friend bought another P226 from the same lot of police trade ins, and it's almost as smooth and light as my P220 is. I had 5 Dan Wesson 15-2's at one point, and they all were slightly different, the older ones seemed a little smoother in DA than the newer ones were. SA was very close, except for one gun that had a trigger pull that was much heavier. I swapped some parts around and polished a couple of things and got it as nice as the rest in SA.

Try swapping the hammers between the two guns and see if that averages out the differences.
Joe

Pull the hammer struts out to compare. I had a similar issue on P230's and sure enough, there was a difference in the hammer strut. That's where you'll get a lot of variance...the design of the yoke and spacing of where the hammer sits in it dictates the leverage and action of the hammer against the spring during trigger pull.

Thanks all.

So, based on the feedback, I decided to exchange the hammer, sear, and hammer strut between the two guns.

As you’d expect, the 9mm single action improved while the 357 SA gained a little bit of creep. But, the 357 wasn’t nearly as rough as the 9mm was before the swap. I’ll keep them like this for now and test for reliability.