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Good post sns3 guppy. Appreciate your view. And your custom guns sell for how much? Just reality my friend. No one has ever heard of your great guns. | |||
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No one has heard of my "great guns?" What is it that you think you're talking about? I get it. Your got our panties in a wad because you paid too much for wilson's pistol and you have your ego wrapped up in the price tag. You don't know what custom firearms I own, and yet you're commenting on whether others have heard of them? Is this about likes or some childish thing like that? I own a number of custom firearms. Actual custom firearms, which I bought because I appreciated the fit, function, craftsmanship, and quality, and yes, they were substantially more than your Wilson P320. Grayguns made a custom P320, which they said they'd offer at some point (haven't seen it yet); it was a winner with a fitted bull barrel and all their touches and work. Wilsons uses drop-in parts, a bit of slide work, and a re-finish (cosmetics). It boosts the price well above a new factory pistol with the aftermarket grip module, trigger, and sights added. If one wants to spend that much markup for a bit of slide treatment, it's not hurting anything, but certainly not worth it to me, and it is NOT a custom pistol. | |||
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Sorry members, I didn’t mean to hi jack the post. I will let the small guppy post speak for itself. I am out. | |||
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Prepared for the Worst, Providing the Best |
It's funny because it's true  ! And also a little sad...Folks can disagree with guppy all they want, but he's right on this one. The Wilson P320 is just a parts gun with some cosmetic (and a few functional) embellishments, a huge markup, and a Wilson logo. If you like the features, can afford to pay for it, and want to do so, then that's your prerogative, but don't fool yourself into thinking that you're getting a custom-fitted, accurized handgun in the same vein as a custom 1911. The WC P320 anybody could slap together on their kitchen table in a few minutes given the necessary parts. The same thing can be said for the various upmarket models direct from Sig. A true "custom" gun requires knowledge of how the parts interact with one another, the tools to measure and produce the exact tolerances, and the skill to fit them perfectly to produce the desired result. The modularity of the P320 is interesting because it's turned handguns into an erector set, similar to what has happened with ARs. It's cool because it has made tweaking the platform to your personal preference a very simple and affordable thing to do, and it's getting even easier as the aftermarket jumps on the bandwagon and has begun providing a huge variety of options. By all means, enjoy and take advantage of those options. But don't get suckered into the marketing that every new specialty release is "custom" and worth 3x the price of a regular P320 just because it comes in fancy colors or has some different textures on the outside. | |||
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Can you name a custom P320 that is custom in the sense of the custom built 1911's of the past? | |||
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Short answer is no. But to be fair, it would depend on the definition of custom? How many manufacture their own slides and frames. How many outsource some parts. CNC machines have changed the world. A low-end Les Baer and a Dan Wesson can have similar price points. One is a hard fit barrel. One is an air gage fit. Hard fit is supposedly better according to some. Yet, hard fit may not be as durable. If the machining is good, how much hand fitting does the gun need and how much difference the consumer finds may vary just like production guns. Bruce Grey partnered on a 320 and that gun might qualify "in the sense of the custom built 1911's of the past." It will have trigger work, different parts etc. But you are limited as to how much you can improve a striker fired trigger. I can tell you that a Langdon Tactical Beretta or a Kimber Beretta seem (subjective feel) more improved over my first Kimber Gold Match and my first Wilson. It isn't that the Kimber was bad but that the Gold Match was good. | |||
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Many are saying that because you can slap parts into a 320 that's not custom. So it looks to me what you're saying is "nothing one does to a 320 is custom". Yet you can change everything, slides that have a better build, barrels that are of a higher quality, triggers that are superior, grip modules that are a superior quality, better sights, you can change everything but as many of you say "that's not a custom build" So I take a 320 and I purchase all the above, there isn't a part on it that's stock, even the FCU has a different trigger and some other parts related, like different springs and polished and massaged parts, yet you say "it isn''t custom. are you serious? In custom 1911's Mfg's are simply doing the same things I talked about above in the 320, Mfg's play with what's already there and all of a sudden they are custom guns, Some of you may need to justify what you're saying as it relates to 320's. There's one important difference in the 320's " you can customize it yourself without anyone else" and that's a custom gun! | |||
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What, no Spartan? Yet how could any P320 be truly MAXXed or a tried-n-true SIG without the dehorned and EquiNOXXed My Little Pony Rainbow camo? Now THAT would be the ultimate finishing touch to such an edition. -MG | |||
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| Prepared for the Worst, Providing the Best |
I think you're missing the point. By a simple dictionary definition of the word "custom", yeah, you can say that swapping parts on a gun makes it "custom", because it makes it unique. But it doesn't necessarily make it better, or higher quality. Most gun guys, when we use the word "custom" are referring to something that is accurized, tuned for optimum performance, and fitted to exact tolerances. It's not just a cosmetic change, but something that will make a measurable, objective difference in how the gun performs across the board. We had a discussion here a while back about the definition of the word "gunsmith". I contend that a gunsmith is someone with the knowled and equipment to machine and hand-fit parts, or even build them from raw stock, to the exact tolerances necessary to achieve reliable operation. A gunsmith has the knowledge and skillset to modify tolerances on factory parts to achieve optimum performance out of a given platform. An armorer is someone who is simply trained to diagnose problems and replace parts...but they're not making them or fitting them. You end up with a well-maintaned, reliable gun if you use quality parts, but it's still just a factory-spec gun with different parts (unless you use junk, out of spec parts). Anybody with some basic tools and a little functional knowledge can be an armorer...I'm a certified armorer on several platforms, and it only took a 1 or 2 day class to get those certs. But as an armorer, my knowledge and ability falls FAR short of that of a an actual gunsmith. Most P320 builds are very similar to what folks do with an AR-15...they swap parts. It's armorer level stuff. It's cool that you can do it because it makes the gun fit you as a shooter a little better, or allows you to add some visual appeal, but it doesn't make your gun accurized or optimized like a true custom gunsmithing job would do. | |||
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I already did, but it's not being offered to the public or listed on the grayguns website, presently, for whatever reason. Maybe there's just not the market. If they do offer it, I'll get one. For the most part, the P320 platform is pretty good for what it's designed to be, out of the box. I have a shelf of P320's in one safe (and another smaller safe of just P320's) that have all been modified in some way. I'm neither gunsmith nor armorer (and there does seem to be a distinction). I'm a mechanic by certification (et al; among other dubious and questionable endeavors), so could be a tinkerer, and that's what I do. Tinker. I put on sights, change triggers and springs, swap grip modules, add weights, maybe a little bit of this or that, stick on the mag well, put in the weights. Order a custom holder. Work up ammunition for the specific pistol, press, chronography, etc. Still can't hit the broad side of a barn. If were to change the color or texture, it wouldn't really be changing much. I crowned my own barrels on the 9mm and .357 P320's. I put fiber optic sighs on some, competition triggers. Forward set triggers. Straight triggers. Overstop and overtravel, and so on. A little light work on the grip. Didn't mess with slides with holes in them or extra serrations, patterns, etc. Nothing I did would be customizing the pistol. Just swapping out parts, really, which is what the pistol was designed to do. It's modular. That's the whole point. I wouldn't call the P320 a tack driving precision tool, but at the same time, sitting on the bench, working up test ladders of different primer, powder, case cartridge length, crimp, and bullet weight/type/coating/profile combinations, I've had a few in specific pistols that all touched or went into one ragged hole. The pistol can do it. I can't, but the pistol is capable. Short of making some cosmetic prettiness, coatings, a change in slide profile or other appearance-related modifications, I'm not sure what else one might do. Grayguns did a pistol for someone who became a champion. It featured a conical bull barrel that was accurized, instead of just one that sits in the frame, and other stuff that's their magic and bread and butter. I called, asked about getting it done to a pistol, or buying one. Still in the works, I was told. That year came and went. and so far, part of another. Maybe covid intervened; it's messed everything else up, so I'd like to think that's why the pistol hasn't become available, but I think whatever Grayguns did to their P320 competition project, it might be considered a custom mod, a real honest-to-betsy gunsmithing project done by real gunsmiths who know what they're doing and not simply something slapped together with aftermarket parts. Sig is selling a "custom FCU," but come on. Really? What they're selling is an FCU. Not a custom pistol, and not really custom anything. Pro cut slides, all the cosmetic changes made to appeal as eye candy aren't going to do squat to put that bullet any closer to aim point, or the second or third ones in the same place. It's a P320, which is a P320 which is a P320. Sig offers lots of options, which is nice. I just saw a lot of soldiers carrying M17's: P320's on low, heavy holsters, as they climbed off my airplane in a foreign location. Sig's making a lot of money offering a lot of pistols to the military, and to any law enforcement that can manage to holster one without shooting themselves. Their P320 market isn't in custom pistols, but selling pistols is their business and they make what sells: they make lots of eye candy which when you look past the trappings and colors and holes and roll marks and bewildering array of names and re-names, is a P320, which is...an FCU with a life support system. Wilson didn't change that dynamic. I like Wilson. I really do. There is absolutely no doubt that Wilson has the capability to design and build, modify and change, enhance and improve, a firearm, gun, rifle, gat, pea shooter, rubber band gun, or sling shot until it all but guarantees that holes form themselves in targets that haven't even been made yet. But the Wilson P320 is a gussied up, pretty, stock P320 with some altered slide serrations and some aftermarket parts, and not what anyone who appreciates a custom firearm would be willing to all "custom." Hell, I even have two Wilson P320 tee shirts (they were on special when I ordered some magazines), but I probably won't be buying their P320. I have bought, and continue to buy some of their other stuff, though, and I like it. Sometimes even lust over it. Maybe even have inappropriate, lustful thoughts about it. Just not their P320. When I put Bruce Gray's fat guide rod in my pistol (I know that just sounds wrong, but bear with me), I felt a smoother cycling pistol. I cannot tell you why. I can't explain how that happens, because it makes no sense to me. The guide rod exists not to center the slide, but to keep the spring from escaping. The Grayguns fat guide rods keep the spring from jumping coils, which could cause a pistol lockup or worse. I haven't seen that, but I'm sure it can happen. The P320's I have set up for shooting steel all have the fat guide rod, and there is a palpable, obvious change in the way that pistol cycles, even cyling by hand, with the fat guide rod in place. Is that a customization, to drop in an aftermarket part? I wouldn't call it that, but I would call it a distinct improvement. Is it a customization to put in a different spring? Bryce Gray sends a 15 lb spring, and I have several different ones, presently either a 12 or 14 lb that I'm running, based on playing with different loads and some range time. Is that a customization? Technically, I guess, but I don't think so. It's just another aftermarket part. There's no rail adjustment, stoning of sears, ramp work, custom ejection, or even trigger work, beside the (very good to very excellent) competition trigger kit. I put Dawson Precision fiber optic sights in the competition pistols...fiber optic is all the rage, but the Dawson sights make even the crappiest shooter (me) hit somewhere near the target. Where ever that little red or green dot goes (I can see the damn thing, even with my bifocals, so long as there's some light, somewhere), the bullet also goes. I don't have to think, adjust, guess...it's like the sight was made perfectly for the pistol. It's a tiny, low profile sight that's barely a step removed from peering along the top of the slide itself, but just put that little fiber optic pipper on something and press the trigger, and the plate falls down. Customization? Witchcraft? Simple aftermarket part that just works? It just works. None of my pistols are pretty. A few of them look kind of beaten up, scraped, dirty, franken-pistolish. They're unpolished. No custom paint. they sometimes get dragged along a barricade, and even the magazines (custom mags, I guess...because they have aftermarket taren tactical +5 baseplates) look like they got dropped one too many times...maybe they're not custom at all, because they're not pretty. Or maybe they're just not custom because they're not. They're just pistols that I added stuff to, to get what I wanted...and they work. Seems good enough. Not the kind of thing that sells pistols, but I'm happy with them. If I could just find a custom P320. Man, wouldn't that be the thing? | |||
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| Prepared for the Worst, Providing the Best |
Well, we clearly can't come to an agreement on terminology, and that is what it is. I'm glad you're happy with your P320, and that it works for you. I like mine as well. They're really good guns, and an excellent reliable tool. Sig has made a good ammount of money on them due to their design merits, and even more through marketing hype. I hope you're wrong about true gunsmiths, though. A world full of modular, utilitarian tools without any regard for precision craftsmanship is just sad. Keep in mind that just because someone calls themself a gunsmith, doesn't mean that they actually are one...or at least not a good one. I'll always appreciate the work and effort that goes into a perfectly tuned, hand-fit firearm, even if I can't afford to own most of them. | |||
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| That rug really tied the room together.  |
I just saw this new P320 Max today for the first time. I started reading reviews. According to the reviews, it comes with a new $650 Romeo optic with a brand new mounting platform. Never seen before. No third party mounting plates. In fact, no mounting plates at all. We already have ten different standards, and here comes Sig, introducing yet another, small format red dot that will need its own mounting plates and is incompatible with prior systems. (at least thats what the comments were saying) ______________________________________________________ Often times a very small man can cast a very large shadow | |||
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That's the one with the rainbow colored slide, isn't it? | |||
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| Junior Member |
There are still 1911 custom builders out there. And their products are as good as anything from the past, probably better as they're able to use better parts today. I don't own any, and have no plans to, too rich for my blood, but if that's your cup of tea, good on ya'. | |||
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Even the old-school 1911 custom shops didn't make their own slides and frames. Back then it was probably a commercial Colt slide and frame, or an old military gun. | |||
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| Junior Member |
I read somewherre that the Romeo 3 Max has the C-More RTS footprint, don't know if it's true. A Trijicon footprint would probably have been more versatile, but they didn't ask me before designing the gun... And the gun comes with the $600.00 dot and four 21 round magazines. that's about $650.00 - $700.00 in upgrades over a standard P320 X5 Legion (I don't know if the Legion comes with two or three magazines). Pure economics-wise, it's a pretty decent deal. And a lot of what I'm seeing at matches are cats getting aftermarket custom slides cut for an optic, so if you factor in the cost of a new slide, the gun is an even better deal. Only downside is no sight cuts, so you can't switch to Production (if you're a USPSA shooter) without a whole new slide. | |||
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