I am hearing a lot of pros and cons about these; does anyone own one? What is your opinion? I hear that they can be a little choosy about what they eat? Now that I am unemployed, I have to be a bit more careful about the guns I buy so I am wanting more data before I grab one (with a suppressor).
The main problem that I have with the Sig is that it is made from Zinc. I don't know about you, but I'd rather have a nice stainless or 4140 steel pistol. IMHO, and that's all it is. I have a few .22's, some I like much more than others, but one always stainds out: a Ruger MKIII. If you get a bull barrel, you can move the front sight back a bit and have threads cut on the end for your suppressor. The complexity of the Ruger's internals was daunting at first, but I got over it. If I can find it, there is a company that makes a kit to simplify the takedown and cleaning of a MKII or MKIII. Here are some of the .22's I have direct experience with- Walther P-22: I love this pistol, it feels great in the hand and can get some decent groups at 25 yards. I wouldn't count on it for the long haul, because of it's plastic frame and Zinc slide. It will shoot a brick or Rem Subsonics in a day and not make you tired. It may start to malfunction before you get halfway through the brick without spray lube. Advantage Arms Glock 17/22 conversion: Uses a stock Glock 17 or 22 frame, so you can put a better trigger and connector on it. The magazines are made in California, so it can only hold 10 rounds. The slide is aluminum, and the barrel is stainless. It shoots rather well, but I had to send the unit to Troy at TROS to have the barrel threaded. It definetly needs to be meticulusly cleaned at the end of the day, though. Ciener 1911 conversion: Uses aluminum magazines that hold 15 rounds each! The slide is aluminum and the barrel is blued steel. I had to send t out to TROS also, but the wait was worth it. If you have a 1911, and you have a .22lr suppressor, you NEED a kit like this. The weight of the 1911's frame and the light recoil of subsonic .22 makes hitting a 6"x4" steel oval target eay at 50 yards. All day long, and with the simple sights found on the basic 1911 conv kit. It, so far, shoots while it is dirty, too. Ruger MKIII: Nice trigger, but the pistol needed broken in (500-1000 rounds) before I could take it apart to throughly clean it the second time. The first time I cleaned it was after 50 rounds and it was a bitch. Tolerances and fit is very tight just off the assembly line! Don't try to take out the parts of safety to try to get to other parts; you WILL lose the safety spring and Ruger will NOT sell you just that spring! You have to buy the whole safety assembly. I guess it's kinda like a "I told you so" because it is in the manual, several places. So now I just double make sure it is empty when I am done with it. If I was able to do it over again- I might look into the Marvell 1911 conversion kits instead of the Ciener, because you can get an extended, threaded barrel for it with the kit. It may cost more up front, but after sending my unit to TROS, and the three months it took (not complaining, just saying) to get it back, may make the Marvell unit a better buy. I wouldn't waste so much time, energy, and money on the Walther. Just the barrel thread adapter and be done with it. All the other gizmos didn't help accuracy in the slightest. I would have gotten a Ruger MKIII with a bull barrel, intead of the tapered barrel. It was much harder to have threaded than a bull barrel, and when I get it back, it will not have a front sight. So now, I have to find a nice pistol scope and rings for it. I would also get stainless, not blued if I had the choice again, if for any other reason is that it would hold up to corrosion a little bit longer. Sorry if I didn't add anything useful about the Sig Mosquito, I only ever held them while in the shop, and don't own one. But after owning several other decent .22's, I decided against it. I have heard that Sig is going to market a .22 conv kit for the 226. If you own one of these fine pistols, you may want to hold off for it.
I have several .22 and .22 mag handguns, including a Walther PPKs, a Llama that looks like a shrunken 1911, a Colt Ace Conversion 1911, a High Standard Trophy Citation, two High Standard HD Militarys, a Ruger single six, a Bearcat, a Colt Diamondback, an Iver Johnson Target, a NAA mini-revolver, a Colt Huntsman, and my all time favorite, a Colt Woodsman made the same year I was (1956). The Mosquito is something that am curious about.
Hey Seacowboys, I had a Walther PPK in .22lr, note it was not a PPK/S, it was a fun gun to shoot and I was made a better than I paid for it offer, which I couldn't refuse. The Sig mosquito interests me in as much as it is in .22lr and the ammo is cheap and cheerful, and with the amount of range time I get the rising price of ammo is starting to spoil my fun. Tony
Heard that the Sig is picky with ammo like the Walther p-22. I've been considering the Browning Buckmark Micro with the 4' barrel. Ruger or Browning are the best.
I have the Mosquito, and I love it. Mine has a threaded barrel so that someday I'll put a suppressor on it. The range I work at also has a mosquito in the rental case. Yes they are picky on ammo, but what I have found is that most .22lr semi-auto handguns are or can be. Keep up with the maintenance and keep it lubed and it will run fine. I have had 4 "malfunction" problems with mine, in about 300 rounds so far (yes, I'm keeping a maintenance log). Those 4 problems were within the first 50 rounds. I do occasionally have a mag problem but that is only with CCI-MiniMag (what they recommend to shot out of it). That problem is when the 9th round is fired, as the empty case is ejected occasionally the 10th round will also be ejected. I haven't bought a new mag yet to see if that will solve the problem. I'm not sure on this, but I think it was the older Mosquito's that used zinc, I think the newer ones are steel. I was considering the Browning or Ruger, but I wanted the ability to have a threaded barrel, the only to achieve that with those was to replace the barrel, and that would have just added to the cost of having a suppressed weapon. All in all, I'm happy with my Mosquito.
After shooting the Mosquito quite a bit at the suppressor shoot, it will be my next .22 The Walther P22 just feels too small. I like the Sig a lot better.
Sounds like you have a great collection there, SC! If Sig is actually making the frame and slides out of REAL metal instead of zinc, I can't find too much more to fault with it. The only one I got to play with (handle, not shoot) was zinc. It didn't impress me, especially after I found out that the Walther P-22 (after I purchased it) was zinc also. I just wish I could have found out all the info I posted before I bought half the .22's I own. I would have a much better collection and some cash left over to boot!
I have a PPK in .380 but would love to have one in .22; the PPKS is a bit larger to comply with some stupid import thing related to Saturday-night specials and they are very hard to find here.
That statement is probably truer than you know and we can all remember a gun that we have bought and learned the hard way that we made a mistake. My worst gun purchase was the RUGER Mini14. I now have two AR15's, and they are both more accurate than my Mini 14 that I spent loads of money pimping up could or ever possibly could have been. Tony
