Picked this CPO years ago in terrific shape and took to range maybe 10x due to the my fondness for my stainless 229. I guess they call these non-rails now. Who can give me any background on these beyond what I already know. Frame says made in Germany and slide Exeter.

I have one exactly like it. The 226 is the perfect marriage of platform and cartridge save for the limited capacity when compared to, say, the smaller 229 with the same number of rounds. The big difference is how softly it shoots by comparison. The 229 is a bit snappier; the 226 is nearly indistinguishable from its 9mm brethren in terms of felt recoil.

I’m guessing Frames came in from Germany and assembled in NH to meet some contract obligations. Wonder what agencies carried these before 97. Me guy said it’s a German Sig when he saw it but I’m not sure this qualifies.

There were no contract obligations as far as I’m aware. The story behind these guns overall is that SIG NH made the first milled slides for P-Series SIGs (Germany started doing milled slides later). That, along with particularities in both U.S. import laws and German export laws, made it more logical to start assembling SIGs in the U.S. if they were intended for the U.S. commercial market anyway. Up until the late 2000s, the vast majority of frames, regardless of assembly location, were made in Germany. This is the reason for the mixed parts origin. As for your particular gun, 1997 is quite early for a milled slide P226. But other than that, there shouldn’t be much else that’s unique or special about it.

It's a CPO. Anything is possible. So, speculating on its background is fruitless, unless you were the one at SIG doing this one back then.

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As for your particular gun, 1997 is quite early for a milled slide P226.

The earliest milled slide P226 I found is a KG (1996) Sport with alloy frame, standard milled slide, adjustable rear sight and bull barrel. But frankly, I'm surprised it took SIG 4 years, after the birth of the P229, to start making the milled slide P226.

These are auction pics I saved from a few years back.

That's probably the lowest serial number I've ever seen for any milled slide P226.

mine is U586XXX I'll post some photos asap.

https://postimg.cc/gallery/3d5YCM7
Here it is I have the original grips somewhere. Any info/comments are appreciated

^^^ Based on that Part Number, the gun was CPOed after the AWB sunset. Again, since it's a CPO, it could be original, or, it could have been assembled from different original parts, i.e., it's a FrankenSIG. You have no way of knowing.