At last!

[Jonnin]

Well, I did not get the first one but after waiting what felt like forever, I now have a sig 938!

The breakdown:

Breaking in: It jammed a bunch on the first 25 rounds. I took it home and did a massive clean & lube before trying again. After that, it did it twice more in 100 or so rounds. It just failed to close the slide and chamber, for no apparent reason, and whack the slide did not help i had to clear it and try the nexxt round. Could be the ammo (all cheap!) or tight chamber or something. Jury is out on this.

size is perfect, its really only a tiny bit off the 238. It fits in the 238 holster I use.

trigger is ok. Its heavier than the 238, and has a little more pretravel, but its still better than a DA/SA SA pull by a lot. Its like a cheap 1911 now, while the 238 was like a mid grade 1911.

accuracy: as good as the 238, which is very good for the size gun it is. I cut the x ring out of a typical man target @ 10 yard marker easily with my hand-loaded ammo. Not that my ammo is special, but I shot up the factory stuff rapidly and the hand loaded stuff was slow fire.

recoil: as expected, more than the 238. Its not bad, but I could only just control the gun one-handed shooting rapidly. I would rate it as moderate -- its less than a small .40 and more than than my cz rami 9mm.

Other: the mags flat out suck. Period. The feed lips are sharpish and the spring is so strong I can just barely load them with a great deal of force pushing down against a table. Also, when empty the mag springs (on both mags, its not a glitch!) can slip out just a hair preventing any compression of the follower (the spring is outside the mag body just a tiny bit and it jams up). The flat (no grip extension, one less round) mag is very sharp on the bottom, and if the mag did not go in easily it could cut you if you slammed it home (it goes in easy, however). I took a whetstone to that. The mags work fine in the gun, at least. Storing them loaded might help the spring power, but wow.

The ambi safety is a big deal. I can sorta left hand carry it now, but it really needs a mag drop reversal (not possible?) too.

All in all:

pretty happy. Its not as much fun to shoot as the 380 due to worse trigger and recoil, but the extra power makes me feel a better about the package. The mags are probably always going to be a minor aggravation. If the jam issue clears up with more break in & quality ammo, I will be more than satisfied with it. If the trigger breaks in too, that would be a sweet bonus.

[Guest nysos]

It is a sig, I anticipate the trigger to mesh together after a few hundred rounds and be better. I for a long time have been looking for the right pocket sized 9, and being a sig fan the 290 was a let down for me after handling it in person. Just too large and trigger didn't seem very good. Hopefully this will work into being a good gun, the frontrunners in my race right now are the kimber solo and now the 938. Your future range reports along with casters' will probably help me with my decision. I have had hands on a solo and it feels great in my hands, I just need to find a 938 to see if I like the feel.

Keep the reports coming!

[Jonnin]

If you want to drive down here, you can try mine.

I expect the jam issue is a break-in or ammo woe and am not concerned. The trigger is not bad, its just worse than the 238, its all relative. And thats a well loved 238 with easily 1000+ rounds in it, I do not remember what it was like new.

[Patton]

I have a friend that loves his Sig 238 so much he has bought 2 more. He rushed out to buy a 938 only to trade it later for a 4th 238, many of his complaints were the same as yours. I have shot his 238 and found the trigger to be horrible but everything else on the 238 was ok.

Edited July 26, 2012 by Patton

[Jonnin]

I have a friend that loves his Sig 238 so much he has bought 2 more. He rushed out to buy a 938 only to trade it later for a 4th 238, many of his complaints were the same as yours. I have shot his 238 and found the trigger to be horrible but everything else on the 238 was ok.

Its still the best small 9 I have found to date, even with a few negatives, and I have shot many, if not most, of the pocket sized 9s. So the negatives against the 238 are still positives against most of the other micros. The mags are the only "really bad" feature, sig needs to look at those.

[strickj]

Thanks for the review. I've wanted one of these since Sig's announcement.

Not sure if I'm ready to sell off the Hawg9 for one yet though.

Keep us updated on the trigger and reliability

[NRA]

wow is it normal for a sig to jam that much? how could you bet your life on that?

[Guest nysos]

wow is it normal for a sig to jam that much? how could you bet your life on that?

Sig or not, anytime you go that small with a decently powerful cartridge the gun is going to be built to pretty tight specifications. I would wait til 200 or so rounds are downrange before I start the reliability count.

[Jonnin]

wow is it normal for a sig to jam that much? how could you bet your life on that?

I do not bet my life on it. Its new, and before I carry it, it will work 100% of the time, you can bet on that.

Any new gun can have a few hiccups in the first 200 rounds, some take over 500 to really break in. And small guns are often a little picky.

It is nothing against sig, yet. This is fairly normal ... so far... if it continues, that is another story.