A .45 ACP And .40 S&W Pair

Having attained the age when new experiences appear fast and furiously almost on a daily basis, it’s nice once in a great while to actually encounter one that is pleasant. When His Esteemed Editorship contacted me about testing and evaluating a pair of SIG SAUER semi-automatics my immediate thought was, at last a new experience, which should actually be a pleasant experience. I was not disappointed.

I fired my first handgun, a .22 H&R double-action revolver, 64 years ago; that puts it at 1948 if you don’t want to do the math. Over the ensuing years, I have been totally blessed to be able to experience almost every type of handgun, as well as versions from just about every manufacturer. One has always escaped me, and that has been the SIG. It seems like I’ve been close but never quite got there; it is one of those somedays that never arrived.

My first “encounter” with a SIG goes back to 1958. By then I had a driver’s license and one of the duties which went along with that privilege was it was now my responsibility to drive my mother on all her errands. This particular Saturday morning found me waiting in the car as she shopped for groceries. I finally tired of waiting — actually, it was cold out there — and went inside the store hoping to find something about guns on the newsstand.

In 1958 gun magazines were few and far between, however there were several companies putting out 75-cent 6×9″ paperbacks quite regularly. As my eyes roamed over the magazine rack I was stunned to find a book with a yellow cover entitled Fighting Handguns, written by a fellow I had never heard of named Jeff Cooper. I had struck gold! It may have cost 75-cents then, then again original copies in pristine shape will cost a hundred times as much now. I know this because I have bought them for my grandsons.

This was a marvelous little book and though nowhere near as large as Elmer Keith’s Sixguns of 1955, it was packed with great information. I was definitely still in my early learning stages, so any information I could find was cherished. In the chapter on the “Autoloading Pistol” there was a picture of a gun I had never seen before. It was a Neuhausen SIG from Switzerland, and even though I was mostly captivated by single-action sixguns at the time, I knew someday I would have a SIG. Someday never came.

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