I’m kind of not kidding. This was the best product introduction I’ve ever had. It helps when you know both of the shooter/reps personally. My hostesses for this tour were Team Sig members Annette Evans and Jacqueline Janes, who also happen to be friends of mine. These gals are so excited about this gun, that they practically vibrate 🙂 Absorbing information from them was a bit like drinking from a firehose, and I finally had to resort to iPhone video just to keep up! (I’ll include links to that at the end)

These women are accomplished shooters. No, that’s an understatement. They have a PASSION for shooting – and it showed in everything they spoke about with the P320. While they are excited about the gun, they are SERIOUS about guns.

For those who don’t know, the P320 is Sig’s first entry into the polymer striker fired pistol market. It debuted last year, and has been getting rave reviews. Yours truly, however, has not seen it yet. We started with the brand new P320 Target model version. This gun is the result of input from all of Sig’s team shooters over the past year, based on their experiences with the full-size model. This fact in itself is exciting, as it shows how Sig is listening and responding their shooters. There is still some tweaking going on before final release this summer, but Annette and Jacqueline showed me the basics as they currently exist.

The first feature that is obviously new for the Target model is the 5-inch barrel and slide. (The regular full-size P320 is about a half inch shorter.) This lends a slightly longer sight radius and better accuracy. Adjustable sights have been added as well.

New trigger options are available, and the gals spent some time enlightening me about advantages and personal preferences for various trigger styles.

There is also a newly designed grip module, which has interchangeable panels. At first I didn’t think this was a big deal – until they showed me the difference in grip textures that could be had simply by swapping out a panel. I am also assuming that this will soon mean different colors available with those different textures, as well. (I’m all about personalization, in case you haven’t figured that out). I also believe that there is a grip module available which has a flared mag well already built in. The Target model still takes double stack 17rd magazines, but there will be available 21rd mags coming soon.

From the Target model display, we then moved over to the Carry model display, which is where the real meat of the deal was for me. If the AR-15 has been called “Barbie for Men” because there are so many accessories and parts and pieces that are interchangeable, then the Sig P320 is “Lego for Shooters”.

What makes this pistol SO exciting, is how completely modular it is. The gals explained to me how interchangeable the parts are. The internal guts of the gun come out as a single module, which they called the Fire Control Unit. This is apparently the only part that has a serial number as a “gun”. Literally everything else is interchangeable (and also shippable between friends or whatever), so you can swap out different slides and different grip modules to “Frankenstein” your gun however it suits you. 

This is possible because the slide rides on the Fire control Unit itself, not on the grip module, so size truly does not matter. Grip modules are sized by small, medium, and large, as a whole module, rather than just the backstrap. This allows a fit to the whole proportion of your hand, which you can’t really get with just a backstrap switch. The grip modules are relatively inexpensive though (45 Bucks! She exclaims in the video), so you can own more than one to customize for different purposes.

As the gals explained, (and if I understood them correctly – because it seems unbelievable to me) the P320 design is so flexible that you could actually have the subcompact model as a carry gun, and the full-size version as your “match gun”, but still only have “one” gun – because you could swap the Fire Control Unit out between different frame and slide combinations. OR, you could also have literally two guns, but use the carry version as a back-up at a match. Say for instance you had a catastrophic trigger failure in the middle of the best match of your life – you could just drop the whole FCU from your carry gun into your match gun, and Ta-Da, you’re back in the game! I am VERY intrigued by the idea of having a match gun and carry gun be one in the same thing. Muscle memory anyone?

I’ve become a fan of single stack carry guns over the past few years, but this potential synergy between Match and Carry, may have me switching back to double stack. This seems game-changing to me. Annette and Jacqueline even gave me info on where to get colored basepads to fit the subcompact model! (I need another job to support this habit!)

This brief explanation really can’t do the interview justice, so to round out the report, here are Annette and Jaci in their own words 🙂