On April 23 of this year, Ted Rowe, president of SIGARMS, officially announced that the United States Army has adopted the SIG SAUER P 228 9mm auto pistol as the new "M11 Compact Pistol," the substitute-standard sidearm for U. S. Army personnel.

The Army's "Compact 9mm Pistol" program came about as a result of a need for a downsized handgun to be issued in addition to the current full-size M9 service pistol. The XM11 Compact Pistol program began with a study initiated by the U.S. Army Military Police School at Fort McClellan, Alabama, in January, 1990, which led to a "Draft Request for Proposals" to handgun manufacturers, issued by Rock Island Arsenal in October, 1991. Technical evaluations were performed on the SIG SAUER P 228 pistols by the Aberdeen Proving Ground in January, 1992, and the contract was let to SIG three months later.

Army requirements in part called for the M11 to be a 9mm semiautomatic, double-action pistol holding a minimum of eight rounds, with an overall length of 7.80 inches. The pistol had to feature an ambidextrous magazine catch (the SIG SAUER P 228 magazine release is easily switched from left to right) and must have a reliability rate of 17 allowable stoppages out of 15,000 test rounds of M882 9mm ball ammo fired.

The new M11 is intended for use by military police, flightcrews, armorcrews, intelligence and CID agents, general officers, and any additionally approved personnel who either have hands too small to effectively manage the larger M9 or simply prefer it to the M9, subject to availability.

Features of the P 228

Many readers are already familiar with the SIG SAUER P 228 M11, having been given an exclusive "first look" at this pistol in the October, 1989 issue of Guns&Ammo. In its short three-year existence, the P 228 has become SIGARMS' bestselling 9mm and has been adopted by a number of prestigious front-line federal law-enforcement agencies, among them the FBI, DEA, BATF, IRS-CID, and the FAA. In addition, the P 228 has found a home with a multitude of state and local police departments, along with being popular among the civilian shooting fraternity.

Takedown sequence for M11 is simple and fast. After removing magazine, drawing slide back, and engaging slide stop, rotate takedown lever 90� downward (photo 1). Pull slide back slightly (photo 2) to disengage slide stop, then draw it gently forward (photo 3) to remove it (photo 4). Lift recoil spring and guide (photo 5) and barrel (photo 6) out of slide. Pistol is now field stripped for maintenance.

Basically, the P 228/M11 is a variant of SIG's single-column, eight-round P 225 9mm, modified to accept a double-column 13-round magazine. The P 228 could also be referred to as a compact variant of SIG's popular full-size 15-shot P 226 9mm. Technically, the P 228 is a recoil-operated, locked-breech DA auto pistol with an overall length of 7.8 inches, a height of 5.35 inches, a barrel length of 3.86 inches, and an unloaded weight of 29.1 ounces. The pistol features molded black polymer wraparound grips with a finely stippled surface that provides excellent purchase.

Here is Mll field stripped, with magazine.

Rear sight unit is stamped with letter "T", identifying it for Army armorers as Tritium sight.

The SIG SAUER P 228/Mll utilizes the basic Browning tilting-barrel locking system, although it's been simplified by the removal of locking lugs atop the barrel's breech and corresponding cutouts within the interior of the slide.

Instead, the rear of the SIG's barrel features a fairly massive squared breech with an integral extension that mates into a reinforced mortise within the slide's ejection port to effect lockup.

Yet another SIG SAUER innovation incorporated into the P 228/Mll design is the decocking lever in lieu of a traditional safety, which is teamed to a passive firing-pin safety. What this means is that once a round has been chambered, the cocked hammer can be safely lowered by activating the decocking lever, while the passive firing-pin safety locks the firing pin, preventing it from moving forward to fire the cartridge.

Mll (left) has SIGLITE Night Sights rather than white bar under rear notch which is standard on P 228.

In this way, the P 228/Mll can be carried in confidence by its user in Condition Two (hammer down, loaded chamber) and yet be instantly ready to fire simply by pulling the DA trigger as in a revolver, with subsequent shots being fired in the single-action mode. At any fume, the cocked hammer can be dropped via the decocking lever. The double-action trigger-pull weight on the Mll is 12.12 pounds, while the single-action pull is 4.4 pounds.

Controls on the P 228/Mll are only four: the decocking lever mounted to the left side of the frame, the slide-stop/ release lever situated just above it, the magazine release button to the rear of the trigger guard, and the takedown lever mounted to the frame forward of the decocking lever. These controls particularly on the P 228/Mll, are easily accessed and manipulated by shooters, including those with small hands.

Army-issue M11 (top) is virtually identical to P 228 except for 3dot SIGLITE Night Sights and Government identification stampings.

The takedown sequence for the M11 mirrors that of the P 228 and is simplicity itself. One begins by removing the magazine and drawing back the slide and engaging the slide stop. Then the takedown lever is rotated 90 degrees downward and the slide is first pulled back slightly to disengage the slide stop, then pushed gently forward and off the frame. At this point the recoil spring and guide are removed from the slide, along with the barrel. The pistol is now ready for maintenance.

M11 Features

Judging from our sample pistol, the Army's new Mll differs little from commercial P 228c The slide and frame of commercial P 228s bear serial numbers, while the M11 has a serial number on the frame only.

Standard sights on commercial P 228s feature a white square below the rear sight notch, with a white bead on the front blade. The M11, however, is fitted with Siglite (Trijicon) tritium night sights with three self-luminous elements, two flanking the rear sight notch and a third embedded within the front blade. The left side of the night sight's rear unit is clearly stamped with the letter "T," which presumably stands for "tritium." The rear sight is drift-adjustable for windage.

The right side of the M11's frame is marked with the initials "U.S." and the designation "M11." In all other respects, the new Mll service pistol is identical to commercial P 228s.

Government issue pistol is instantly identifiable by stampings -- "U.S." and "M11" -- on right side of frame above trigger guard.

Ergonomics and Accuracy

One of the standout features of the SIG SAUER P 228 is its truly ergonomic grip frame design that comfortably positions the shooter's hand in such a way that the pistol becomes a natural extension. For quite some fume, many experienced shooters have opined that the Czech CZ75 pistol has the "perfect" grip design; in my opinion, the P 228 goes the CZ a step better. The P 228/Mll is a very comfortable pistol to shoot and the grip design aids natural manipulation of the pistol's controls.

In the accuracy department, the SIG SAUER P 228 is no slouch either. Extensive earlier testing of these pistols by the Guns & Ammo staff has revealed that the P 228 is inherently accurate and capable of exceptional combat accuracy. Ransom Rest testing at 25 yards with seven different 9mm loads using bullets ranging from 115 to 124 grains produced an average 10-shot group size of 2.39 inches. "Best" groups measured in the 1.5inch range, while the largest group was just 2.76 inches. The SIG test pistols therefore easily met the Army accuracy requirement for an eight-shot, 7.9-inch group fired at 25 meters.

Reliability

During Army reliability testing, the three SIG SAUER P 228 pistols provided for evaluation truly excelled. After firing 15,000 rounds (5,000 rounds per pistol), the trio of P 228s recorded only one malfunction. This resulted in a "mean rounds between stoppages" (MRBS) figure of 15,000. This astronomically beat the Army's minimum MRBS figure of 882. In total, the P 228s were found to meet or substantially exceed all the mandatory technical and testing requirements devised by the Army. Consequently, the M11 contract was awarded to SIGARMS.

Despite the fact that the new Mll is the first SIG SAUER pistol approved for general issue to a branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, SIG SAUER pistols are no strangers to active duty, as limited issue of P 226 pistols has been made in the past to Navy SEALs and Army Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta (Delta Force) operators who used these handguns during the Gulf War and were pleased with their performance.

Likewise, many experienced military observers believe that the new SIG SAUER M11 will also serve our country with distinction will into the next millennium.