Curious if the better-educated here can tell me when the light rail first appeared on the P220. I saw a few P220 DAK pistols for sale online today, they appeared to be West German and had 'Sigarms' blue boxes, but came with rails. I always thought the rails came after they transitioned to the legacy slide with the short, blocky extractor.
Just curious.

I thought that the first “rail” was on the 220ST and really designed for the sport comp but had an adaptor for lights. I may be completely mistaken so don’t take as Gospel.

There was the proprietary P220ST rail that appeared around 2001-2002.

The P220ST with the normal SIG-style Picatinny rail appeared around 2003-2004.

The same rail appearing on aluminum framed P220R models in 2004 (these had stamped steel two-piece slide with a roll pin).

DAK guns showed up about 2004 or so as well with the P229R having it as an option first.

The swap over stainless one piece slides on all P220's started right around 2006 or so which is when I'd venture to guess the gun you have pictured was made.

The external extractor on P220's didn't show up until much later.

I wonder if we could get Matrix Precision to do a run of non-railed P220 frames?

My P220 Compact has a rail. I don’t care for it.

I ordered a P220X6 many years ago and it showed up with a rail even though the picture didn't have one. I sold that damn thing right here on the forum. I cannot understand Sig's infatuation with rails. I only need a rail gun for my bedside cabinet. Sorry if this is not what you wanted to hear in the thread.

quote:

Originally posted by ACP1:
I ordered a P220X6 many years ago and it showed up with a rail even though the picture didn't have one. I sold that damn thing right here on the forum. I cannot understand Sig's infatuation with rails. I only need a rail gun for my bedside cabinet. Sorry if this is not what you wanted to hear in the thread.

LOL, no sweat. I actually agree.

A few of my favorite carry guns have been the M11/A1 9mm and a pair of pistols my agency retired years ago...a 1998 P226 and a 2012 P239, both in DAK and .357 Sig. None of them have a rail. I get why Sig can't make multiple frames for each metal pistol anymore, the market has gone into full lust mode over polymer and machining aluminum is expensive and time consuming. That's a pity, because I personally really dislike the idea of unnecessary trinkets on a daily carry piece. Rails, lights, lasers, reflex sights, flat triggers and 30-round magazines are completely contrary to the point of making a pistol easily managed by hand and concealable in terms of daily carry.

It's like the P365...it blew the world up by redefining what 'concealable' meant, then folks promptly doubled its size by adding reflex sights, rails, lights and huge extended mags...in some cases even suppressors, LOL! For all the weight and size, they could probably just have gone with a near full size P320.

I agree there is a limited window of necessity for them, though. Before retiring I'd worked for 14 years with the criminal investigations division of my agency and was involved in many search warrant, arrest warrant and fugitive arrest operations. I used a HSG battle belt with a Safariland ALS/SLS to carry a P226 DAK in .357 Sig with a 15 round mag and a TLR-1 mounted on the rail. In those particular scenarios, carrying a weapon with a rail that can sport a light makes a lot of sense, but again that's a pretty narrow scope of use.

But for daily carry, rails on a daily carry weapon is something totally lost on me. I recently bought a base P227, then a big later a P227 Elite...love 'em both, great pistols. However, still don't like the rails, they just feel clumsy and can interfere with holstering quickly. In fact, I'll probably go pick up a P227 SAS later this year, as it can hold the same eleven rounds, has a slightly shorter slide and feels like a bar of soap... no rail! It's not just metal P-Series either, the P320 has been out since 2014 and although I'm not in love with polystrikers, I do have an agency retired P320 Carry in 9mm and I *still* can't find anyone that makes a grip module for it that doesn't have a frame.
Can no one think outside of the 'tacticool' box anymore?

Anyway, my "Old Man Yells at Clouds" rant is over now....

I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet but the P220R you pictured in this thread appears to have a stainless slide with the internal extractor. I have seen reliability issues with this variation of the P220. At some point SIG made the change to external extractors for the stainless slides which resulted in much better reliability. If I were in the market for a P220 I would either get an early German P220 with the folded slide or a stainless slide with the external extractor. And regarding rails I hear you and agree they are nice to have on a duty gun but does not make much sense to have one on a CCW… However the instagram tactical experts might disagree posting pictures of guns that look like they have never seen the inside of a holster before…