Why didn’t they get those Colt Rail Guns like the ones the Marines are buying? For what, maybe $100 more they could have a pistol made in CT. Don’t get me wrong, I like SIG. My PDW is a P226, but when a .45 is appropriate I’ll only roll with a 1911.
Think of the reliability of your P226 (mine has over 50,000rnds through it) with the power of the .45ACP cartridge. The M1911 just doesn’t come close in reliability and many, many 1911 enthusiests admit this.
The P220 is the best of both worlds if you’re a .45ACP guy.
I’ve carried both, I never was completely comfortable with cocked and locked.
The P220 was designed and built originally as 9mm pistol. That was Sig's primary platform in the 1970s, and they modified the pistol to shoot .38 Super and .45acp. Although the grip portion of the P220 .38 and .45 were changed to accomidate the larger calibers, the slide kept the original 9mm external dimensions in order to share a common holster and parts.
By keeping the same external dimensions, the slide lacked the space in order to increase its mass to better absorb recoil. Instead, Sig just added a stronger recoil spring which will absorb more recoil, but it also slams the slide forward with more force. So, takedown levers are a common thing to break on P220s, in addition to cracked slides and firing pin position pins on the stamped slide models. The other issues are the extractor which tends to wear out quickly, and less than optimal feeding characteristics. If you have ever cycled your P220 by hand, you will notice that its feeding characteristics are poor in comparison to 9mm, .40, or .357sig models. The feed ramp is steep, and the magazine is positioned too low in the grip. This results is cartridges stripping off the magazine and sliding up the ramp at too steep of an angle resulting in malfunction, or the cartridge will simply pop loose of the magazine feed lips resulting in the cartridge fliping out of alignment of the chamber or just free hanging while it waits for the slide to slam home on it. In the case of the free hang, if your P220 is not positioned straight up and down then the cartridge will literally role/fall out of alignment with the chamber. Since cartridges do not smoothly slide up the breech face and into the extractor claw on the P220, a cartridge must push the extractor aside in order to get the claw to grip. This will wear out the extractor faster, or break it under the right conditions.
Broken parts cannot be helped. You just replace them before they break on you. The other malfunctions can be helped by replacing springs and extractors on a regular basis. Usually, that schedule is at around the 3000rd mark or every 2yrs of regular use on the .45acp P220. The manufacturer says 5000rds or every 3yrs of regular use, but at least for my agency we would start experiencing the above problems before that recommended service schedule. Given all the available .45acp pistols on the market, I would not choose a P220 for service use. It is a nice collectors gun, but there are better options now days. We have run 9mm, .40S&W, and .45acp Sigs since the early 1990s. Without any doubt, the P220 .45acp models are our most problematic. A growing trend with LE agencies that decide to adopt .45acp is that they end up training less, and thus shooting less. With less ammo capacity in the pistol, and more expensive ammunition, they naturally slow down their training schedule. This is how you get some departments that will say they have no problems with their P220s, and others that say they are garbage(mostly SWAT and other high volume shooters).