Have had several of these pistols in the past and do not remember having this problem. I now find my self with just a 220 Carry. Have shot it a few times but now I find that it is very stiff to manual lock back the slide. I have it very clean and lubricated. It has a red recoil spring. Just for fun I replaced it with the recoil spring from my M11-A1 and it was a bit easier but still very stiff. Is this caused by the reduced slide or has my hand strength gone the way of my age.

If I had to guess, it’s that the red recoil spring is more powerful than the green spring that’s standard in the full size P220. I don’t have one to check, but SIG has long used different slide weights and recoil spring powers to adjust for the power of different cartridges. Unless the weights of the carry and standard P220 slides are the same (and that’s possible), I would not be surprised if they made the red spring harder to compress than the green spring to compensate for the carry’s lighter slide. If it has one.

Or it could be your hand strength. As happened to me.

I can’t imagine how the slide itself could make a difference in how hard it is to cycle by hand. A tight lockup, perhaps—?

Thank you.

You may have a stiff spring. Try leaving it locked back for a day and try it again.

My experience: My circa 1998 went back to Sig for the SSP. Prior to that it was easy to rack and ran fine. When it came back, much harder to rack but still runs fine. I chalked it up to my OEM recoil spring was unchanged since the gun was new and was nearing the end of its life. The new spring was stronger, thus its harder to rack.