I’ve often thought when my eyes are not so good, I’ll get a reddot. Well, getting a host ready for a suppressor has sped up my interest in reddots.
My dream suppressor pistol would be a Sig P320 45 ACP in carry (full sized grip and 4″ barrel) with threaded barrel, suppressor high night sights and slide cut for a reddot. Sig says they will not make a 45 acp threaded, so I found an almost brand new P320 compact 9mm, threaded and non-threaded barrel (2 barrels), suppressor high sights (night sights), with cut slide with three magazines AND Sig Romeo 1 red dot optic for $750.
I have a 5″ p320 in 9mm and a carry p320 in .357 sig (they share the same serial number), adding a P320 compact RX makes it so I have an upper slide 5″ and a 4″ upper slide that can be swapped easily between complete p320 lower.
MY observations of RedDot pistol
- optic excels at fast shots, especially close up
- suppressor sights don’t work so go in default holster(s) and it drags heavily on the sight groove, even after heat gunning it.
- Reddot prevents pushing the gun into the holster and it is slightly “out” by 1/4″(in a cheapo holster the guns often come in) – I wonder if bladtech would clear the optic?.
- The sig threaded barrel uses a non-standard thread pitch.
- Optic bounces around a lot and the shooter may be tempted to make the gun fire as the red dot comes into the center of the target instead of properly getting the “surprise break” by adding continuous pressure to the trigger.
- Type 2 malfunctions are near impossible. Thus I found myself doing Type1 response of Tap, Rack, Flip. (I’m trying to use up my large supply of junky home-land ammo remanufactured ammo (which has brass and powder issues).
- reddot indoors looks big, but outdoors the 3 MOA dot looks small.
- Iron sights work much better for precision shooting…for me(over 1000 hours of professional training…with iron sights).
- Slightly different presentation, kind of the last few inches the gun might pop up and show the red dot. Think of you have 20,000 repetitions and the red dot is slightly higher, so you adjust down to where you are used to presenting the gun to eye level.
In short, I would not take a marksmanship matters class with a reddot because we do a lot of precision shooting and the optic IMO (currently) is much better at fast shooting and not so good at slower/precision shooting.
Options – too many options
From the photos, you’ll see there are a ton of options with these P320s. If you have not heard, you can move the trigger group (that has the SN) from one lower to another in less than a minute. Which means if you are in a state where the gov makes it difficult for you to buy protection tools, you can get one SN and a few different p320s xchange kits like a compact, carry or full sized p320 as well as 9mm, 40 and or .357 sig (45 acp).
I’m putting the 5″ upper slide into my P320 compact RX “kit bag”. Better there than in the safe doing nothing w/o a SN.
SUMMARY:
I’m really happy with the P320. I think its a fair price for night sights, great trigger, excellent reliability, and I like the way it looks & feels. I like the modularity/almost endless swapping of options. Only 21+1 magazines in 9mm 😉
About the only downsides is the mags are a bit more pricy than competitors. But I LOVE the mags, empty drop free/black steel. If you care about ergonomics, you’ll agree the Military choose the correct firearm to replace the M9/Glocks (30 year old technology) etc.
