I read more then I post. Despite what my join date or post count says, I’ve been around a bit longer.

I want to dispense some of what I have learned for those of you who care to listen. I have worked hard to attain this opinion. Givens, Spaulding, the fine folks at OPSPEC training. With few notable exceptions, I’ve been there.

I’ve seen guns blow up. Good shooters make bad shots and bad shooters make great shots. I’ve had the honor of training hundreds of people, many of them never once picking up a firearm before I got to them.

I have had the pleasure of shooting more then 100k rounds of Ammunition Depots reloads through Bruce Gray turned P320s.... year over year.

So please, when I tell you today, I figured it all out. Believe me.

I took a brand new, overpaid for P365 SAS out of the box, and was determined to see what all the fuss was about. I shot 200 rounds of the aforementioned reloads, not one issue. I used 10, 12, and 15 round mags.

I will tell you the sight is unique..... I shot at 3,5,7, and 10 yards and managed to maintain decent groups. I say decent because I felt my eye continuing to want to close to get the damn thing in focus.

As for recoil mitigation. Guys. Shoot more. I shot my regular 365 vs the SAS and felt no real difference between the two.

Its not a wonder cure. It’s just a different take on things. If you like your p365, you can keep it, they work the same. I will shoot the SAS some more, right now, I would lean on staying with my current 365 in a MilT Sparks IWB holster, as god intended.

As a side note. How many of the people who talk about “ports will destroy your night vision!” Have ever fired a handgun in darkness?

Please stop that crap. I recently went to the NRA Law Enforcement Division instructor school. They has an entire portion dedicated to night shooting. Go stand in a field and light off a 9mm, your vision is gonna be blurred, ports or no ports. I’ve done it. It’s not an issue.

Onto the X5. Sweet mother of god. Here is the bottom Line. It’s going to shoot where you point it that’s the bottom line. I was really exhausted but wanted to get some rounds through it. At the 15 yard line I was just nailing center target.

Spoiler alert. The 17 round mags from the regular 320 do not seat. I forgot to bring 21 rounders with me. If I have to buy more mags, that’s gonna blow. I’m going to use this thing for steel challenge and maybe some Upcoming courses with Ben Stoger, let you known how it goes.

The Surprise guest. A Remington Tac-14 hardwood. Again, bottom line, SO MUCH FUN. I was very surprised! I was “surgical with that bitch”. I shot a variety of mini shells and full power loads with very little issue. GREAT GUN.

So what did I figure out you ask?

If you are going to the range. You gotta have a plan. Tom Givens says this all the time and I really get it. I’m standing there, pile of guns, mags, Ammo... but I am just turning money into noise.

Bring ONE gun to the range, have drills worked out, test yourself and don’t give a shit what people around you think. Shoot the 25 yard line, press out, make every shot count.

Now I am not suggesting going to the range can’t be fun. However, the time at the range is precious, and expensive. Use that time and money wisely.

And for god sakes! Dry fire!! So much can be learned from just practicing your draw, pushing out, aligning your sites, and pressing through the trigger.

I appreciate you reading and hope some of it helps.

Thanks for confirming what I thought would be the case with the 365SAS.

My data and experience with porting goes back to the dark era of the .357 revolver. I cant say it ruined my night vision but it was distracting enough to turn me off a carry gun with porting. A 365 is on my wish list.

I don't worry about muzzle flash from porting. The only ported gun I owned was a Taurus .44 magnum. The porting was a series of round holes pointed straight up next to the front sight. They were a pain to clean, and caused significant blast to be felt by the shooter (although I doubt this would be as much of an issue with 9mm). My buddy has a ported S&W .44, and the ports are designed to deflect the blast and soot out to the sides a bit, which I found to be effective...it's much more pleasant to shoot than my Taurus was.

Porting is one of those things that can be done right or done wrong. I personally tend to prefer not to have porting on my guns, but I wouldn't outright write a gun off simply because its ported.

If you have an abundance of regular 320 magazines, it only takes a couple of seconds, with a belt sander to take the wings off, so they will fit in the xfive. That's what I use for IDPA.

I agree with the adage to bring one gun to the range. I'll admit I will occasionally bring 2 and shoot just 2-3 mages throught it, but then I focus on the one gun.

I did this last weekend (one gun) with the P365XL and had a plan. No more than 150 rounds. Failure drill first because that's the likely scenario. It will be drawn and shot in a hot second.
Followed by methodical press outs. I then followed with controlled pairs and then hammers from 7 and 10 yards.

I walked away even more confident in this already capable platform.

Thanks for the informative report, but I must ask:
Were your low light shooting experiences with premium ammunition with flash suppressed propellants? Perhaps you know, but not everyone does, so: It makes a big difference as compared with the inexpensive stuff that’s commonly used for training.

Lowlight training done with same reloads state’s
Above. It’s not an issue.

quote:

I have had the pleasure of shooting more then 100k rounds of Ammunition Depots reloads through Bruce Gray turned P320s.... year over year

I certainly have not seen anyone else with multiple hundreds of thousands of rounds down a 320 posting (100k x how many years on how many guns?). Maybe we could have some pictures of the 320(s) involved and some description of the parts consumed/replaced/repaired?

quote:

Originally posted by hrcjon:

quote:

I have had the pleasure of shooting more then 100k rounds of Ammunition Depots reloads through Bruce Gray turned P320s.... year over year

I certainly have not seen anyone else with multiple hundreds of thousands of rounds down a 320 posting (100k x how many years on how many guns?). Maybe we could have some pictures of the 320(s) involved and some description of the parts consumed/replaced/repaired?

I would post photos but you would find them incredibly boring.

The two firearms In question are a P320c with an OD green Small grip and a converted P320c fire control unit that was placed into a full size conversion kit. It sported a full size OD green small grip, until the Bruce gray full size grip came out, it now had that.

I guess we could say both guns have been "rebuilt twice". The first time, after having approx 5 rounds at MOAC (on top of several Tom Givens courses), they got placed into Bruce's care for upgrades.

Then after another brutal year, they went back for the Sig voluntary recall (to bruce).

I assume both guns got checked out throughly and parts replaced as needed but I did not ask many questions. They went boom every time they can back and always shot very well.

In this last year, I have not had the time to shoot and often, maybe 5/10k rounds this year. Most recently I had the Full size out at the NRA Pistol court, probably 1500 rounds, shoots just fine at 25 yards.

Several forum members have seen these guns and can attest that they have been through some very high round count courses, 2 MOACs and a Practical Fundamentals course with the OSPEC guys alone.

The aforementioned detonation DID occur at the practical fundamentals course. Looked to me like an overcharged round, blew the frame out.

I stuck the FCU into a new frame, kept right on going.

quote:

The 17 round mags from the regular 320 do not seat.

This is a simple base pad change.

Current base pads compatible with new SIG P320 magazines have the square pegs. The original magazines have the base plates with the round peg.

Those with the round peg will not properly seat in the xSeries frames. You have a few options.

First, you can "sand down" those lips (or cut them away) to allow them to seat. If you have the proper tools to do this, it's straight-forward to do, just don't burn up the pad as you're sanding away polymer.

Second, you can order the new base pads on their own. They have the SIG circle logo on the bottom. You'll also need to replace the inner base plates so the square matches the square.

Third, you can order aftermarket base pads. Just ensure you order the correct set. One example is the Grayguns Hard Duty P320 Mag Base Pads. You'll need to also order the Inner Base Plate as well for each mag you want to update.

quote:

Originally posted by steve495:

quote:

The 17 round mags from the regular 320 do not seat.

This is a simple base pad change.

Current base pads compatible with new SIG P320 magazines have the square pegs. The original magazines have the base plates with the round peg.

Those with the round peg will not properly seat in the xSeries frames. You have a few options.

First, you can "sand down" those lips (or cut them away) to allow them to seat. If you have the proper tools to do this, it's straight-forward to do, just don't burn up the pad as you're sanding away polymer.

Second, you can order the new base pads on their own. They have the SIG circle logo on the bottom. You'll also need to replace the inner base plates so the square matches the square.

Third, you can order aftermarket base pads. Just ensure you order the correct set. One example is the Grayguns Hard Duty P320 Mag Base Pads. You'll need to also order the Inner Base Plate as well for each mag you want to update.

Steve.

I wanted to confirm before I posted. I have switched all my base pads to squares over round.

While I was at the range I tried to jack my 17 round, square peg, mags into the legion. Unfortunately. It will engage the mag release but will not chamber a round.

I tried it with the second gen 21 rounders and good to go.

So I will need new base plates for the 17s. Unless I am missing something. Please advice?

OK thanks for the reply on usage. 'high mileage' 320's are not that common in the posts I see. So here's what I get from your post:
- 100k rounds per gun (assuming "year over year" means at least two years (200k/2guns))
- since we know that sig didn't rebuild the guns as part of the recall the best we can assume is Bruce might have touched them once? or twice?
- so that would mean about 30-50K or so between any serious maintenance.
- since you don't mention anything you did as maintenance that would mean that recoil springs, striker spring,firing pin, FCU, mag springs etc. all went 30-50K without any maintenance or failures. and since it seems unlikely bruce would have replaced the barrel without you knowing it the barrel as well.
That seems pretty impressive.

quote:

Originally posted by hrcjon:
OK thanks for the reply on usage. 'high mileage' 320's are not that common in the posts I see. So here's what I get from your post:
- 100k rounds per gun (assuming "year over year" means at least two years (200k/2guns))
- since we know that sig didn't rebuild the guns as part of the recall the best we can assume is Bruce might have touched them once? or twice?
- so that would mean about 30-50K or so between any serious maintenance.
- since you don't mention anything you did as maintenance that would mean that recoil springs, striker spring,firing pin, FCU, mag springs etc. all went 30-50K without any maintenance or failures. and since it seems unlikely bruce would have replaced the barrel without you knowing it the barrel as well.
That seems pretty impressive.

Yea. That’s about the sum of it.

I did clean them both every day after a heavy iteration. No other major maintenance was performed.

I will more then likely take the full size to givens master instructor, Gunsite, and MOAC2 if they actually do a follow up course.

The back up however is going to now be the X compact carry. My favorite iteration of the p320.

I think you have something else going on if the magazines seat but don't feed a round. I shoot a P320 X5 and X5 Legion and I use the standard 17 round magazines with the new style base plate. If I try and use a old style magazine it will not seat in the gun and it is stopped by the "tabs" on the magazines. So I don't think it is the base plate.

Are you using the magwell on the X5 or did you remove it? If it is on the X5 try removing it and see if that fixes the problem.

If you posted pictures it would help diagnose things a little better.

quote:

Originally posted by Factor8:
I think you have something else going on if the magazines seat but don't feed a round. I shoot a P320 X5 and X5 Legion and I use the standard 17 round magazines with the new style base plate. If I try and use a old style magazine it will not seat in the gun and it is stopped by the "tabs" on the magazines. So I don't think it is the base plate.

Are you using the magwell on the X5 or did you remove it? If it is on the X5 try removing it and see if that fixes the problem.

If you posted pictures it would help diagnose things a little better.

It’s just the standard out of the box x5 legion, 17 round mags, new style floor plates.

That’s very interesting. I’m going to now double check. More later tonight.

quote:

Originally posted by leonidas211:

quote:

Originally posted by Factor8:
I think you have something else going on if the magazines seat but don't feed a round. I shoot a P320 X5 and X5 Legion and I use the standard 17 round magazines with the new style base plate. If I try and use a old style magazine it will not seat in the gun and it is stopped by the "tabs" on the magazines. So I don't think it is the base plate.

Are you using the magwell on the X5 or did you remove it? If it is on the X5 try removing it and see if that fixes the problem.

If you posted pictures it would help diagnose things a little better.

It’s just the standard out of the box x5 legion, 17 round mags, new style floor plates.

That’s very interesting. I’m going to now double check. More later tonight.

Well. Now we have a mystery. Using dummy rounds (can you still call them that?), I loaded a 17 round, square floor plate magazine, into a gray Guns x frame. Rounds loaded just fine.

Putting the same magazine into the legion. Magazine will seat, round will not chamber.....

Quite the mystery we have.

Do you currently have the magwell installed? Also pictures would help diagnose things a lot faster.

quote:

Originally posted by Factor8:
Do you currently have the magwell installed? Also pictures would help diagnose things a lot faster.

Yes. Just as it was out of the box.

I fail to see how photos will help? This isn’t exactly custom set up here..

I have to look up my photo bucket account.

With the mag well installed, a 21 round magazine makes more sense.