What kind of gun are you talking about?

Just on face value though I would not immediately dismiss the guide rod simply because it is plastic. Half the guns on the market are half plastic these days and you rarely hear about polymer frames cracking. It does happen sometimes but my point is that polymer technology has come a long way. There are polymers out there that have higher abrasion resistance than steel and have melting points way above what most polymers can stand. Now of coarse I have no way of knowing what kind of polymer your guide rod is made of but there are polymers out there that are more than up to the task of serving as a guide rod and I would be willing to think that the good engineers at Sig chose a good one.

If you have further interest in the properties of todays engineering polymers you can wikipedia a couple such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_h...t_polyethylene .
Or go to www.mcmaster.com and look up all the polymers they sell. FYI McMaster-Carr is an industrial supply company if you have never heard of them. They basically stock just about all the raw materials you could think of to build anything with. Great company.

My CZ P-01 and my former Glock 22 both use plastic guide rods. It's no big deal honestly.

great! thanks for the advice. it was a p226 btw.

Originally Posted by TitanCi

will this rod last long or should i opt for an all metal one? any one have experience with this? i'd imagine a higher quality rod from sig and for the price...but who knows...

Their is a guy on ebay selling solid steel guide rods.

I do much machining work in the printing and engraving industry. We are constantly changing out old metal parts for the new plastics that have come out in the past 10 + years. You can't beat some of these polymers. They are tough and we can usually get more speed out of our presses due to their toughness, duability,and light wieght.

If it came with a plastic/polymer guide rod - just keep it that way - they never wear out. A metal replacement rod will peen the guide rod hole and/or slap stuff around that doesn't wish to be slapped.

My Sig has the plastic rod and has not failed or given me any trouble.

it just seems... wrong...

since we are on the subject the only difference between the Berretta M9 and 92fs that i've been able to discern is that the m9 has a full metal guide rod where as the 92fs uses some polymer, and a hollow one at that. any idea's why the military would use metal over plastic?

Originally Posted by Gunners_Mate

it just seems... wrong...

since we are on the subject the only difference between the Berretta M9 and 92fs that i've been able to discern is that the m9 has a full metal guide rod where as the 92fs uses some polymer, and a hollow one at that. any idea's why the military would use metal over plastic?

Probably just a MILSPEC. Some genius O-4 deciding that all metal parts have to be better than plastic ones. Remember the grief over plastic guns when they rolled out the M-16?

Glock has been using plastic guide rods for years and it is a service weapon. No problems there.

Me I think it is a gimmick.

the part of me that is still a civilian that never signed all those papers wants to believe there's a legitimate reason behind the full metal guide rod, however, the part of me thats survived and experienced everything since AFTER signing all those documents has to agree, it probably was some higher up saying "plastic? f that, I want metal in there"

but I just remembered something. CLP doesn't agree with plastics, so the m9 might be a FMGR simply because of how and what we use to do maintenance. hmm