Saturday, August 27, 2016

Sig P320 Part Duex:The Grippening

One of the unique features of the Sig P320 is that the trigger group is the registered part and the grip is an unrestricted hunk of plastic. Allowing Sig to provide to the end user an assortment of grips without having to purchase another gun. The grips come in three sizes, Large, Medium, and Small in each of the different sized of guns from compact to full size.
Here is the Carry version, full size grip with 4" barrel, in L, M, and S from left to right. In testing this gun out, we were a group of four shooters needing all three grip sizes. One lefty and experience from a person who has been out to the range a sum total of less than a dozen times to competitive shooter/instructor. Our newest shooter walked right through the grip change in about a minute and a half. I got a video of me swapping from large to small and I have done the change once before after having been shown by my friend once. That's how easy it is.
In addition, something I discovered is if you are like me and have monster monkey hands with large fat fingers and you use a good high two handed grip, there is the distinct possibility that the gun will not lock open after the last round as your thumb rides the slide stop. Well, Sig knows about that and has already addressed it with a new grip design with a protected slide stop. While I was provided one, I did not swap out to it as that would require taking the trigger group apart to install the new slide stop and time and propriety just didn't let me get to it.
Interesting observation during shooting was one shooter had slidelock malfunctions with the Large grip but the gun ran flawlessly for him with the Medium  grip. Also, while I usually lean towards the largest grips I can get my hands around, the medium grip worked well for me. The ability to change grips to find what worked best for who made it very easy to shoot well with this gun.

Sig P320 Part the first

Last Thursday evening while grocery shopping we ran into a really good friend that we haven't seen in many moons. He works for Sig. Conversation went from how ya doin to shooting. As it always does. One thing led to another and now I have a P320 Carry (4"bbl w/full length grip) to T&E. Along with a few boxes of Sig ammo.

 For initial thoughts, as a gun nerd and overall mechanical geek, this is a thing of beauty in design. The idea that in about 30 seconds you can do what is essentially a field strip and have the entire fire control group out of the gun swapped into a different size grip and slide on any caliber top end you wish and still only "own" one gun. Seeing as the FCG is the registered part you can have as many grips and top ends as you want. There will be a video of grip change in the next post because they have done so much more.

For my initial test, I went to my old standby; 15 rounds at 15 yards in 15 seconds. Think extended Bill Drill.  For that test I used the Sig ammo provided 115Gr FMJ, Independence 115Gr FMJ, Freedom Munitions 124Gr JHP, American Eagle 115Gr FMJ, Remington 124Gr Golden Sabre +P, and just for fun Tula 115Gr FMJ.

So today I wandered out to the range (we have a 25ydsX25yds three sided berm pushed up in our north pasture) and tossed up a target and started shooting. Interestingly the ejected brass all ended up in a pile about 6 feet to my right, except the nickel plated brass of the +P. That stuff ended up about 3 feet behind my right shoulder.

OK, I know I suck and don't practice enough, especially considering the proximity of the range. This target is all 90 rounds fired from the very first round, that first 15 included the low left three. I'm still consistently a tad left even after I settled in.  I will be going out and shooting more tomorrow in between rain storms and at some point I'll swap grips the the Mrs can go shoot it some herself and give her opinion. Then some friends are coming over to give it a whirl and see what they think.

Next up, grips and what Sig has done with them.