![]() ![]() The long stroke piston design affords two improvements over the AR-15. The original 550/551 line of rifles used a proprietary magazine, but when SIG Sauer brought the gun into the U.S., they developed the 556 model that used the standard STANAG magazines found in your favorite AR-15. This has the immediate advantage of allowing you to use a folding stock to reduce the overall length of the rifle when transporting it or using it in close quarters. It’s not there because you don’t need it. As a result, one of the first differences that you notice between the P556 and traditional AR-15 pistols is the absence of the buffer tube protruding from the back of the gun. The 550 itself employs a long stroke piston-operated rotating bolt locking mechanism reminiscent of Mikhail Kalishnakov’s original AK-47 design. The P556 is built on SIG Sauer’s well-respected SG 550 platform. I’d heard good things about the 550 line and wanted one in my collection, so I figured it might as well be my SBR. It’s operating system is also different from the short stroke piston designs found on other AR-15 style rifles including SIG Sauer’s own 516 line. The SIG 550 line of rifles uses a different operating mechanism than the direct impingement (DI) operation of the classic AR-15. You can purchase a full AR-15 pistol and later convert it to a SBR and you can purchase a stripped lower and build a pistol out of it, but since I would have to spend money anyway, I decided to go the SIG 556 route. I didn’t own an AR-15 lower receiver that had not come as part of a rifle and due to the vagaries of the various federal gun laws, it turns out that while you can convert a rifle lower into an SBR, you can’t first convert it into a pistol to shoot while you wait. My main reason for doing this was that I wanted an SBR and I wanted something to play with during the interminable wait for the ATF to get around to approving my application (eight months now and counting). Some claim that it has too much recoil, and other than being a range toy that eventually gets tossed into the back of the safe or sold, it has no real use (unless of course you’re planning to make it into a short barrel rifle). Being the unabashed SIG whore that I am, though, I decided to procure a SIG Sauer P556 pistol. It’s considered tough to shoot accurately, being too small and light to manage a rifle cartridge with no shoulder stock. The AR-15 pistol is the Rodney Dangerfield of the semi-automatic 5.56 mm world. ![]()
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