By Joe Berk
No, I’m not talking about the SIG Alerts we get here in California when there’s a traffic jam on our freeways. This is about a sale at SARCO, a preferred military surplus outlet, on SIG police department trade-ins. When police departments upgrade to different weapons, they sometimes sell their older handguns. That’s what’s happening here. What makes this sale special, in my opinion, is that the trade-in guns are 9mm SIG P226 sidearms. You follow the blog, and you know that I consider the SIG P226 to be the world’s finest handgun. With a SARCO price on the P226 at just over $700, I think it’s a great deal.
I’ve never seen SIG P226 police trade-in guns for sale. It’s a hell of an opportunity to pick up a great handgun at a bargain price. I once owned a Smith and Wesson Model 659 police trade-in and it confirmed what I thought about police sidearms. They are carried a lot and shot very little. That means there might be some cosmetic shortfalls (holster wear, etc.), but the guns’ internals are probably in superb shape.
I’ve purchased military surplus equipment through SARCO before (in my case it was a replacement gas cylinder for my M1 Garand, which fixed my rifle’s cycling issue). SARCO is a reputable outfit.
SARCO is also selling SIG P320 police trade-ins. I don’t have any experience with that model, so I can’t tell you anything about it (other than that it’s SIG, so it’s probably good). The SARCO price on the SIG P320 police trade-in is only $425; that’s a superb deal.
What might be fun is to pick up either handgun from SARCO and send it to good buddy TJ (at TJ’s Custom Gunworks) for a full cosmetics and action job. That would be fun. If you have ever entertained any thoughts about picking up a SIG or a custom pistol, this might worth looking into.
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Thank you for the head’s up sir
PBS and the major news stations had a program on this very subject the other day. They were calling it a “loophole” in gun laws and said that these police trade-ins were getting into the criminal’s hands and committing crime. Nothing was said about the trade-ins had to go through an FFL dealer and background checks. More bad gun publicity.
PBS is a left-wing organization. It’s like the so-called “gun show loophole.” All leftist propaganda.
I asked TJ about the 320’s and he wasn’t too enthused about them. He’s not a big fan or plastic guns unless they are done right.
I agree with TJ about this, Bob, although there are exceptions. The Army’s M18 is based on the SIG P320. I fired one of those at the local indoor pistol range and I was impressed with it. Accuracy was about the same, maybe a little better than my S&W Shield (another Tupperware pistol). That blog is here.
If I didn’t have the P226, I’d consider one of these P320s, but there would be all kinds of obstacles. I’d have to get it without the magazine, as we are limited (as you know) to a 10-round mag here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia. And pretty soon all firearms purchases here in La La Land will be hit with Governor Newscum’s 11% excise tax.
Thanks for commenting, Bob. Always good to hear from you.
SARCO has “no pistol shipments to California at this time,” so no joy in Mudville…
Yeah, I figured that was going to be the case. There’s an outfit in the Carolinas I’ve used in the past for suppliers who won’t ship to California. You have the supplier ship to them, and then they ship to California (assuming the weapon complies with our nutty requirements). By the time you finished doing all of that, though, it would probably just be easier to buy a new M18 SIG from Turner’s. When I shot the M18, I really liked it.