Sig Sauer P211 GTO Complete Disassembly
Welcome back to Jim's Armory. In this one, Jim puts the Sig Sauer P211 GTO on the bench for a full teardown, right down to every last pin and spring, to see just how proprietary this 2011 really is against the others he's worked on. Along the way, he also walks through a common competition modification: converting the gun's series 80 firing pin block system over to a series 70 setup.
Safety First Jim starts the same way he always does, showing the chamber clear with no magazine in the gun before any tools come out.
The Grip and Frame: A Different Kind of 2011 Right away, the Sig departs from the norm. Most 2011s Jim has opened up - he references the Kimber and the Romulus by Alpha Foxtrot - use a pin through the magwell to retain both the magwell and the main spring housing. The Sig instead uses a T15 screw that's captured in its own slot in the magwell. The grip panels come off with a T-25 screw and a small angled cut that slides into the frame.
Getting the thumb safety off requires some finesse. Jim avoids a screwdriver here, which he warns will dent and scratch the finish, and instead uses inexpensive automotive trim tools to pry the safety out as the hammer sits to the rear. Underneath is a detent spring that likes to launch across the room - Jim uses the same trick he's used on other guns, bending the spring over his thumbnail to tame it without hurting function. The ambidextrous right-side safety simply slides up and off, indexing on a pin.
Pro-Tip: When comparing thumb safeties side by side, Jim finds the Sig's contouring noticeably more comfortable in the hand than the Kimber's, which has a bump near the grip safety post he's wary of reshaping.
Once the hammer is dropped and the main spring housing punched out, the main spring, sear spring, and hammer strut all come free. Jim compares the leaf spring to a standard Colt 1911 low-power spring and finds it's essentially the same design, meaning a standard 1911 spring will drop into a 2011 as long as the gun isn't proprietary elsewhere.
The Ignition System and the Series 80 Mechanism Before pulling more parts, Jim demonstrates what actually makes this a series 80 gun: pulling the trigger raises a small lever that pushes a firing pin block plunger out of the way, which is what allows the firing pin to move far enough to strike a primer. Without that plunger depressed, the firing pin barely moves.
Digging further in, Jim removes the hammer, hammer strut, disconnector, sear, and the small lever that actuates the firing pin block - parts he admits he doesn't know the official names for. The sear catches the
