SIG Sauer P365

This is the SIG Sauer P365 micro high capacity pistol. That's what they're calling it. A micro compact that is high capacity. Obviously it is a very small gun. It's going to be able to be carried concealed very easily.

It's going to fit a lot of hands. In fact, the medium and larger sized hands might find that there's not quite enough to hold on to but some of the magazines are going to help fill some of that empty space at the bottom of the hand. Of course this gun is designed primarily for concealed carry and hence the name 365. Now the six hour line of course is one that is either loved or hated by a lot of people. Some people just don't like them they don't think they fit their hands well, other people love them and wouldn't carry or shoot anything else besides a SIG regardless of the model.

So this model has been met with a lot of anticipation both from people who love SIG and are gonna like it no matter what, and people who want to deride it and talk about what's wrong with it. Personally I was a little bit skeptical of it because it looked like the grip was going to be relatively short to the weight and mass that is above the hand and that was going to make the gun be relatively snappy. I don't like a snappy gun, I like a longer barrel. And I like a grip that fills the hand a little bit better but like I said the extended magazines on the 365 will help with that. And as I said, this is a 10 plus one micro compact gun.

And I put this one back in the holster and you notice I'm also carrying my everyday carry here. This is the XDS from Springfield and it's a four-inch gun. The grip isn't much longer but it does not hold as many rounds. Obviously the slide and the barrel are also longer and to me that means it's going to be a more controllable gun. It's very easy to hide that extra length of the slide and of the barrel when you're inside the waistband.

And it's going to make the gun a little bit easier to control. Now that's all supposition of course, based on the physics and the ergonomics of the gun because I've literally never shot the 365 before you're going to see my first shots with it. But first let's take a look at this magazine. Now this isn't the flush magazine. This one has a slight extension but it is 10 rounds plus one.

And when you look in through this window you can see that this is a staggered magazine. It isn't truly a double stack where the bullets are right next to each other. They're just offset a little bit. It's not a single stack. It's not a double stack.

They're calling it a staggered magazine. And that really is what it looks like when you look in through that window, we go back to the gun because I'm going to stick this in there. Keep the gun pointed down at the ground, you can see that there's a little bit of an extension here that now lets my little finger my pinky finger wrapped around that extension and it feels much more comfortable on the gun now. And that probably is going to also help with control. You can see that the texture here is varied around the guns.

We've got more texture in some places, less than the other. That's good. And this is a relatively deep cut. So even for a compact pistol it's got the undercut back here behind the trigger guard. It's got the texturing and it's got a good Beaver tail area.

You can see that the controls here are not ambidextrous. I don't think that's a big deal. I think a single sided controls on the compact gun on a defensive gun are just fine. I don't think you need both sides. And most left-handed shooters, including a lot of our senior instructors in our training programs admit that this is probably the best way to go for most people.

And the magazine release was right now is set up for a traditional right-handed use is reversible, should you want to change it. You notice that there are two cuts on the magazine and that's so that the magazine catch will engage from either side. So that's a reversible, but not truly ambidextrous. The sites are set up pretty good I'm not a big fan of three dot sites or any markings really on the rear sight at all, but they are big and for a micro gun that's important some of the other guns including one of the popular guns that I see a lot from SIG have almost useless sites on the micro sized guns. This gun has good usable sites, a good wide rear notch and a good front post with a white dot.

And again which I would rather not have I'd rather see a square inside of a square but it is a good set of sites. Also they've got a relatively flat front, which means that we can use this for one-handed manipulations if we need to, to hook on the back of the slide there are serrations on the front and rear and they're relatively deep. That's also good. You got a chamber around. And again, these are the first shots that I'm firing out of the SIG P365 and that's where it's supposed to go.

I'm going to slow down a little bit and pay a little more attention to the trigger. A trigger feels really nice it's actually a lot less length of travel than I would have expected from a SIG. Again, the SIG line has evolved a lot over the last few years. Of course, the P320 with the new updated trigger the safety recall issue that they had. I think it's really important you do get the new trigger in there.

It feels great. It's a great gun. It's one of the guns that came onto our recommended list. If you do the upgrade in 2017, this gun really feels a lot better than I thought it was going to. And you can see it's a little bit snappy there.

So some of those shots climb just a little bit high. As I started into that center chest, it kind of came up and that's what I was worried about a little bit high or above the hand and not very much weight out in front of the hand is going to result in a snappier gun which means that if you really want to shoot this gun fast you're going to have to bear down on it. Now having that extra extended magazine where you get to 12 plus one that might help, but most people are going to shoot this gun a little bit slower than a full-size gun, or even a little bit slower than a gun with a four-inch barrel a longer barrel out in front or a lower bore axis. All of those things contribute to recoil management and that's going to mean faster follow up shots. But once again, the SIG P365 it feels a lot better than I thought it would.

And obviously I like the trigger. It really is easy to shoot well and lot of people are going to want this gun as their carry gun, just because it says SIG that's not a really good reason to choose it as a carry gun but if you find that it fits the way you're going to carry and the way you're going to shoot and that you shoot it well, Well, the P365 might just be the gun for you. I probably spend some more time with it shoot it a little bit more. But right now, I mean, I stick with the idea that I like a little bit more length than a little bit more weight out in front of the hand to help manage recoil. But the trigger on the 365 is impressive and the design is certainly great at 10 plus one capacity in a micro compact gun.