I finally took my Sig Sauer Scorpion 1911 "Type" pistol out and gave it a good beating. Here's what I found:
I took the gun, still in the original grease out to the range and ran 500 rounds of 230gr ball from Tactical Ammunition through it. I wanted to get a base line and see what it could do fresh from the box. I had continuous FTF malfs for the first 16 rounds. I then took the factory Sig mags and used them as targets and haven't had a problem since. I have to say I wasn't holding much hope for the Sig mags and they met my expectations perfectly. Lesson here. Use WC or CMC mags and avoid the aggravation. After the first 500 rounds I decided it was properly disciplined and I was ready to take it home and make it my own.
The original thumb safety was your typical pin style ambi item which felt a bit rough and lacked the positive snap I like to hear and feel. I tossed that in favor of the Gunsite Low Thumb Model and replaced the plunger spring while I was there. The plunger spring came from the factory with a highly exaggerated dog-leg bend. I pretty certain that is what made the factory safety feel like it was operating in a bowl of pudding. I also replaced the hammer pin since the pin style safety uses that funky extended pin. While I was there I did a bit of fitting on the sear pin since it stuck out quite a bit further than it should have.
The factory trigger was the flat faced, adjustable version and felt like it was being squeezed by two rubber squeegees and broke consistently in the 5.8-6.2# range. I replaced the factory unit with the short version (I have short fingers so the trigger and thumb safety swap are a must for me) and while I was there I spent about an hour cleaning up the trigger bow channels on the frame. Between the roughness of the machining and the finish, the factory trigger was doomed. The trigger swap and the channel clean up dramatically helped to smooth out the trigger and a few strokes with the stones and a slight spring adjustment yielded a very smooth breaking trigger consistently hitting the 4.3-4.5# range with just a hint of creep. That is with the factory sear, hammer, and leaf spring combination. I should also note that I replaced the factory 24# mainspring with a 19# Ed Brown version. I'm sure that helped as well.
The gun came with a set of Hogue...uh???..."snakeskin," style grips with a matching mainspring housing. They look nice and are very easy to hold firmly. The nicest feature is they extend below the bottom edge of the frame to form a mag well. Fit was not as nice as it could have been, but for a factory gun it was a good start. After a few passes with a file and some fine grit sanding I ended up with a very nice fit and a very functional mag well. These grips and MS housing are a very nice feature. I did change out the grip screws to the slotted style so that I could take the grips off more easily in the field. I will never understand why any manufacturer of the 1911 uses anything but slotted grip screws. I would have preferred that the grips not cover the MS housing pin so that disassembly could take place without removing the grips, but they made up for it by forming the left side panel properly so that it provides support for the plunger tube.
The grip safety is a very well fit beavertail style with the standard "rock-catcher" slot. Perhaps some day they'll stop doing that??? They did a very nice job fitting the grip safety and it is shaped in a pretty cool way. I ended up spending a lot of time, about 45 minutes, on the firing pin safety mess. The factory arms were rough and ill-fitting. The upper arm actually made re-assembly very difficult. I had to file the top edge of the arm and then polish the edges and sides in order for it to function smoothly. Let me say that it worked just fine as it came out of the box, but it was rough and a hinderance to the smooth operation of the trigger assembly. I'm sure all I did was accelerate the wear process but it helped out a lot.
The one thing that is certain is that Sig remained true to the Scorpion theme with all the sharp edges ready to bite you each step of the way. The rail, leading edge of the dust cover and the leading edge of the slide are all extremely sharp and will most likely be missing their finish in a very short time. Not to worry though, the finish is so thin that the rest of the gun will be able to keep up pretty well. I know that's harsh, but the vendor using doing the Cerakote is obviously thinning the product a bit too far and the overall quality of the gun is suffering for it. I don't blame the vendor for this, I blame Sig QA. I have been told that they are working on this though so future samples may be better.
The slide itself is the typical slab sided Sig square and it does what it is supposed to do. The barrel is fit well with a tight bushing. Overall there is a small rattle to the gun, WHICH IT IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE, which helped eliminate any excessive build up of crud during shooting sessions.
Running the gun was fun!!! After the changes I felt more like I had an old friend in my hand and we put it to work. Using Lawman Frangible, 185gr Hydra-Shok, 200gr +P Corbon and 230 Ranger Bonded I took it for a 1200 round ride with nothing but time to cool and oiling while we loaded mags. All rounds were fired using the factory supplied 17# recoil spring. I began with 500 rounds of the frangible using CMC 10 round and WC 8 round mags. I had a single FTF issue on the 12th round, and then nothing but smooth sailing. The gun did get sluggish after about 300 rounds but I attribute that to how dirty the ammunition was. A heavy dose of oil and a 10 minute cooling break and we were back at it.
Switching to the SD ammo I expected to get beat up a bit more, but the added weight of the rail and the forward weight of the block they call a slide really helped out here. The 185 grain ammo had 5 FTFs over the course of 200 rounds which was expected since it is pretty short OAL and most 1911s don't do well with short ammo. Once I switched to the 200 and 230 grain stuff (250 of each) it ran perfectly for the last 500 rounds.
Overall, I'd trust it, but finding a holster for it pretty much a no-go which makes it a tactical or house gun.
I fired the initial 500 rounds of ball without the light. The last 1200 rounds were with the light attached.
Hit me with any questions, I'll do what I can to answer them.
