Recently LotBoy (occasional poster on AR15.com) got his sig 556 that he put his name on a waiting list for at our local FFL. Not sure how long it took for him to get, but it has to be over a year. So he brought it over to the house and I got to sneak a peek at the rifle.

I have not yet had the chance to shoot it. Perhaps this weekend we’ll get it out and fire it.

Sig 556 impressions from the AR owner perspective:

The first thing I had to look at was the M4 style stock and buffer tube. I got a request to look at what, if anything, was inside the buffer tube. Well.. there’s nothing in there. There’s a partial restrictor plate blocking the tube, but you can see in there with a flash light, and there’s nothing there!

The sights are the next thing I noticed. They’re pretty bad. The front (blade only) flips up. There’s no part of the FSB that protects the blade in the up position. As an AR man, this was bizarre looking and would take some getting used to. The rear flip up app does not seem like it would hold up to much abuse. I guess you’re supposed to flip it up by digging it out of the top rail with your finger nail. This is odd considering how overly complex other parts of the rifle are. I would guess that these poor sights are strictly a back up option and the gun must be meant to run with an optic on the top rail.

Next I had to dry fire the rifle to get a feel for the trigger. I can’t even describe the trigger pull, but I’ll try. It’s hard to tell what is take up or when the trigger might break. It’s one big mushy mess from take up, through the break, and even on follow through. There’s some sort of over travel piston thingy that the trigger hits in the rearward position. It looked like it was adjustable for overtravel, but it wasn’t locked in place. This piston is under spring tension and acts like a shock absorber which further makes the trigger pull a long mushy uncertainty from hell. It would take a lot of getting used to.

The next feature I noticed was the A2 flash hider. I like the A2 because it’s more than adequate for the 5.56 cartridge even on short barrels in my experience. The strange thing was that the crush washer used was backwards compared to how all the other manufacturers install them. No biggie, since it won’t affect any function. But the washer was also off center as though the inner diameter of the washer was too big for the barrel. Kind of sloppy looking for such an expensive rifle.

The front handguards have the rails molded into them. They seem durable enough, but were just unimpressive. I guess you could put a light on them and it would be no worse than the simple light mounting set ups that I use on my ARs.

Take down, on the other hand, was probably the worst aspect of the weapon. The gun basically breaks down like an AR. The rear take down pin pushes out like you’d expect. Sig has one upped Colts old screw driver pivot pin however. You need TWO slotted tip screw drivers to get the pivot pin out and separate the halves. Beyond that, I got lost. The piston and bolt disassembly were complicated to me, but I suppose you could master it like anything else. Upon reassembly, LotBoy had a hell of a time getting that front pivot pin to go together again and rejoin the upper and lower properly. Operator error? Yes. But who needs that aggravation for such a simple aspect of take down?

The rifle came with one NHMTG 30 round mag and a cheapo hardshell foam lined case. I hope to get a chance to shoot it Sunday.

I know I haven’t covered every aspect of the rifle, but these were the features that immediately jumped out at me.