I am pleased to report that the United States Army made a good decision to go with the Sig Sauer P320 for its Modular Handgun System. This is my range report on my P320RX with the Romeo1 sight.
Up until last Friday I had not had the opportunity to take the Sig Sauer P320 to the range and check it out. It felt like a very nice handgun. It felt really good in my hand. It had that solid feel that a well-made gun has. But, from the outset, I was afraid there would be issues. For example, the cap that covers the Romeo sight on the pistol simply would not stay put. That was irritating; I finally just took it off.
The next problem I noticed, in dry-fire (snap cap) practice, was that it was hard to get a natural point of aim that allowed me to use the red dot to fire. I almost immediately had a form of buyer’s remorse that I had spent close to $1000 on a pistol I might not actually like or be able to use.
But, of course, the worst problem I had was that the P320RX with the Romeo sight was sort of a bastard firearm. None of the big guys made a holster to fit it. Aliengear did not. Nate-Squared Tactical did not. Even some of the lesser names did not offer a holster that accommodated a red dot sight. And even some of those that claim to make Kydex holsters to fit guns with lights and lasers (a natural fit I would assume) did not make one for the P320RX. There is a dent in my office wall from where my head kept crashing into it!
But one of my chief assets is tenacity, and I am nothing if not dogged in search of a solution. I finally found, on Amazon, a holster by Concealment Express. I found it by accident. I looked at a question that dealt specifically with my weapon, and the answer was “no, it doesn’t fit.” But right after it Concealment Express had posted an answer that said “try this one,” with the link to the correct holster.
Like a chicken on a June Bug I jumped on that link and ordered the ridiculously low-priced holster for $34.95 (free two day Prime shipping). It came on Friday and my comments about how the holster performed are found here.
So, the P320.
First, if you were doing target shooting that nonsense I wrote about a natural point of aim might be relevant for the first ten or so shots. After that you adapt to the Romeo sight pretty easily. But, what I found in practice at the 5 yard, 7 yard practice lines, was that I rarely ever got the weapon up to eye level before I fired, using essentially a kind of point-shooting that I have always used. I found that my combat accuracy with the Sig was at about 80%, and will likely improve with practice. I found this Sig to be the most natural firearm I have ever used. The recoil was manageable, follow-up shots were easy, and at 5 to 7 yards, combat accuracy for me was excellent.
In the first 100 or so rounds I had probably half a dozen stovepipes with the P320, but this is an ammo thing. I bought some cheap ammo from Academy. It was the culprit, not the P320. Once I went to Winchester and Remington 9 mm ammo, everything was terrific.
As I mentioned in another post, I am very much happier with the Sig (which does not have an ambi safety) than I am with the S&W M&P Model 2.0. The S&W I wind up losing up to second because I forget to drop the safety. So I spent the remainder of the range time that day working on that because in a stress situation, you do what you have done in practice, and I want to make damn sure if there’s a safety that I am taking it off.
This first video here is from my two target drill, with two shots to both targets. I consistently shot this two target drill in about 3.5 seconds.
This next one is from a side view in a similar drill.
As you can see the P320 performed very well. And in shooting from 15 yards for accuracy, the red dot was zeroed perfectly, right from the factory.
All in all, the P320 gets a thumbs up from me in terms of operation.
Cleaning was interesting too. I’ve cleaned lots of Glocks and other pistols, but this is the first one I got to take the guts out of to clean. I rather liked that. I know for certain now that all of my pistol’s inner workings are clean and free of fouling. There are several very long-winded videos on You Tube on how to disassemble and clean this pistol, but I simply followed the very informative instructions in the manual, and it worked very well.
I give the P320 a full 15 round magazine of approval!
The Well Armed Attorney 