Sig P320 Compact Review

Today, we’re doing a Sig Sauer P320 Compact Review, the compact variant of the classic pistol that was introduced in 2014. 

You can’t talk about the Sig P320 series without talking about the Sig P250. The P250 was introduced in 2007 with a hammer-fired double-action-only modular handgun deSign. Despite not being a commercial success, the P250 did set the stage for the later P320.

What sets the Sig Sauer P320 apart from most of its competitors is its modularity.

The P320 has a serialized fire control unit that includes the trigger, rails, and serial number of the firearm. 

Because of this, the unit is considered the serialized part of the P320. 

On most other handguns, the frame of the firearm is considered the serialized part. This difference means that one can order a variety of frames for the Compact right off the internet.

Because they don’t have a serial number you don’t have to undergo a background check or paperwork. 

You still only have one gun. This is not a way to get around a background check. It makes it much easier to accessorize your P320 pistol. 

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Sig Sauer also sells complete slide units. You can switch out the caliber and barrel length of the gun. 

The P320 is what I would call the first commercially-successful modular handgun. In 2017, the U.S. Army adopted the Sig M17 and M18 as the new sidearms of the U.S. Army. Many other American military entities followed suit. 

Now that we’ve looked at its legacy, let’s get into the real details of the Sig Sauer P320 Compact review. We’ll tell you everything you want to know about this variant.

Roles

The Sig P320 Compact is a small enough gun that it can be used for concealed carry or daily use. Think of this as the Glock 19 equivalent within the P320 lineup. 

This gun is definitely too big for pocket carry. It’ll work great for inside the waistband (IWB) carry or any kind of outside carry. 

You could shoot competition, and, while it’s not optimized for that, it could work great in a two-gun competition or any kind of outlaw match you can imagine.

Features

The P320 Compact has a 15-round magazine in its 9mm configuration. 

This magazine is not the only capacity the gun will accept—Sig also ships the gun with 10-round magazines if you live in a capacity-restricted state that does not allow standard-capacity magazines. 

They also make 17-round magazines for the full-size P320. 

You can get 21-round magazines for the gun as well. I should mention that the 21-round magazines are not always legal for shooting competitions. 

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They run right on the line of 140mm-length magazines. 

Some of them fit within 140 millimeter gauge while others do not. So that is something you’ll have to check with the individual magazines that you order.

Magwell

The magazine well on the Sig P320 Compact is pretty standard. There’s no real bevel on it whatsoever. 

That said, the top of the standard magazine is fairly well-tapered. The back of the well has a guide that can actually be used to help insert the magazine. 

This is not the easiest magazine in the world to insert. It doesn’t have a big magwell like something like a Glock 19 Gen5 or even the Sig P320 XCarry. 

I don’t find the small magwell to be a problem when it comes to reloading the Sig P320 Compact. This is still a fairly easy gun to get the magazine into.

Grip/Ergonomics

The grip on the Sig P320 Compact is what’s called a compact medium grip.

This is the standard grip that comes on the gun straight from the factory. The Sig P320 grips do not have the ability to change out backstraps; instead, Sig Sauer went for a format where you just change out the entire grip module. 

This makes a lot of sense considering their grip modules only cost around $40 to $50 apiece. 

The Sig P320 grip module is based on the OG Sig P320 ergonomics. 

Since then, they have come out with multiple other grip modules. Including the X series, Tungsten (an XCarry grip made of the namesake metal and infused polymer), and AXG series grips. 

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The latter is an aluminum grip that has the option for a removable backstrap and grip panels on the side. You could modify your Sig P320 Compact with these grip module. You alsso could just buy a gun that already comes with them.

Beavertail Sig P320 Compact Review

The Sig P320 Compact does have a slight beavertail in the back. The tank is very well-rounded and very ergonomic to get your hand around. They did an excellent job of deSigning it. 

It’s also not that sharp on the top. So if you’re carrying this in the appendix position and have a little bit of a belly, it’s not going to feel uncomfortable when lying on top of this firearm.

Texturing

The texturing on this Sig P320 Compact is fairly aggressive. Still it’s not so aggressive it’s going to hurt when it’s up against your skin. It feels like 600-grit sandpaper. 

I really like it and it encompasses the grip 360 degrees. 

One thing I will say that I wish the gun had was texturing up above the magazine release. This is the area where your palm will likely contact the pistol, and it’s just very slick there. 

If you dry-fire the gun a lot, the finish will start to wear away. Live fire will obviously do the same thing, so it would be nice if Sig would offer more texturing in that space. 

A nice thing about this gun is it having a relatively cheap grip module. 

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You could home-stipple this grip and then just have another if you didn’t want to worry about losing some value on the pistol by stippling the gun. 

You could also send the grip module off to have it stippled without having to deal with a dealer and paperwork. That’s what’s great about the P320 Compact platform. 

You’ll likely notice a trend in this review where modularity gets this gun a lot of points.

General Feel

The Sig P320 Compact is a chubby little gun. It fills up your entire hand, at least as far as the palm and the sides of your hands go. It also feels like it has palm swells on it, despite being made of polymer. 

My one complaint about the Sig P320 Compact grip is that it is very short. 

I can normally carry a Glock 19 and have just a little bit of room so that my bottom pinky does not hang off the bottom of the grip. There’s around an eighth of an inch of leeway on that grip, so I really don’t have any concerns about my pinky falling off the bottom. 

This gun, with an identical capacity, has a much shorter grip. 

The reason for this is the high bore axis of the gun, which pushes the trigger guard and your hand lower on the gun.

I have medium to large hands, and this gun fits me just fine. If you have larger hands, you’re going to want to look for a gun like the standard P320 or P320 XCarry as they have longer grips that allow you to get the full leverage of your bottom pinky when firing the gun. 

The pinky is the strongest finger in the hand when it comes to controlling a handgun. 

Getting that leverage on the firearm is instrumental in controlling recoil really well.

Sights Sig P320 Compact Review

The Sights on the Sig P320 Compact are standard metal three-dot Sights. 

They’re not bad, but I really wish they had gone with a blacked-out rear. This would’ve made the Sight picture a lot better. 

I find the rear dots to be obnoxious and overpowering, so I might take a Sharpie and try to color those black so they’re not as distracting to my eyes. 

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The good news is there are a ton of aftermarket Sight options for this gun. 

Almost every site manufacturer makes Sights for this gun. Glock does have the Sig P320 Compact beat on aftermarket Sight options, but they’re the only company that does.

Red-Dot Options

The Sig P320 Compact I’m reviewing does not have the option for a red-dot. 

That said, Sig does make a variant called the Sig P320 RXP Compact that comes from the factory milled for a Sig ROMEO1 and includes said ROMEO1 on the gun. 

You could always take that Sig ROMEO1 off and use adapter plates to install another red-dot like a HOLOSUN 507C or a Trijicon RMR. 

There are plenty of companies that will mill the Sig P320 compact, but for the money, you’re probably better off buying a Sig P320 RXP Compact, and if you don’t like the red-dot, you can sell it or just rock the ROMEO1.

Controls

Since the Sig P320 lineup is a family of pistols, we’re not just going to talk about the Sig P320 Compact but also some of the other variants as it relates to controls.

Safety

There is no external safety on the Sig P320 Compact. That said, there are other Sig P320 miles that do have a thumb safety, so the Compact may be offered with that in the future. 

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Personally, I think Sig did a great job with the safety on the Sig P320 series. It’s very 1911-esque. It’s not quite the same, but it’s placed in roughly the same position and you can use it just as you would a 1911 safety. 

Most striker-fire guns really tend to screw safeties up, so I’m glad that Sig executed the P320 safety well.

Magazine Release Sig P320 Compact Review

The magazine release on the Sig P320 is reversible for right- and left-handed use. 

It comes from the factory set up for a right-handed user so that they can depress the magazine release using their thumb. 

With my medium to large hands, I do not have to break my grip to reach it. 

However, somebody with smaller hands will definitely have to break their grip, and if you have very large hands, you still will likely be able to use this without having to break your grip. 

It’s a standard release: it works well, it’s positive, and the magazine drops free right away. 

There are no sharp edges to speak of. It’s just a good deSign.

Slide Stop

Sig located the P320 slide stop towards the rear of the gun, similar to their P229 and P226 firearms. 

It’s not quite as far back as those two, but it is a little further back than most slide stops that sit on similar guns like Glocks. 

Even though it’s further back, your reach actually tends to be similar to a gun like a Glock. This is due to the gun’s high bore axis.

Overall Ergonomics

Overall, the ergonomics of the Sig Sauer P320 Compact are quite good. 

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The gun feels good in the hand, the controls are all easy to reach, and it’s just a good, well-set-up firearm. There’s nothing exceptional about it, but it works well and it’s on par or a little bit better than most of the guns out there on the market.

Slide Serrations

The slide serrations on the Sig P320 are located at both the front and rear of the gun. 

They are not that deep, but they are definitely aggressive enough. If I was designing this gun, I would’ve made the serrations just a little bit deeper. 

That being said, the front serrations work fine for press checking—even if you have sweaty hands, it’s unlikely this gun will be so slick that you won’t be able to operate it. 

The finish on the slide is also more of a matte finish, so it tends to give you a little more grip than a finish that looks slicker.

Trigger

The Sig P320 trigger is different from most striker-fired firearms as it does not have a built-in drop safety. 

The idea for this gun is that the trigger is so light that it will counteract the inertia if this gun is dropped. 

For those of you not familiar with the history of the Sig P320, there was a mass voluntary recall (or, rather, an upgrade) issued by Sig Sauer years ago on all guns manufactured before a certain date.

In my opinion, that was Sig’s way of minimizing their liability. 

I do not know if the Sig P320 still has issues with safety. Sig says it does not, but there have been several lawsuits by law enforcement officers or agencies regarding the safety of this gun and it going off accidentally. 

However, that could be users not accepting their own negligence.

One thing about the Sig P320 is it does have a fully-cocked striker. 

Guns like the Glock in their factory configuration have a partial-cock striker. If that striker were to fall forward for some reason and the firing pin block did not do its job blocking the striker from hitting the round, it would likely not have enough power to ignite the round. 

The Sig P320 Compact, on the other hand, would likely have a round go off. 

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At the end of the day, I haven’t really talked to anybody that’s convinced me that this trigger system is completely safe, but I also haven’t talked to anybody that convinced me that this trigger system is inherently dangerous. 

There are tens of thousands of officers and probably similar numbers of everyday people concealed- or open-carrying this gun on a daily basis without issue. 

There is always the risk, and that’s something you’ll have to decide on whether or not this gun is the right choice for you.

Pull

Now let’s talk about the actual trigger pull. 

This is a standard striker-fired trigger, and when you go into pull the trigger, you’re going to feel just a slight bit of take up. 

Once you feel that take up, it’s going to get right into a nice but springy rolling break. It’s not a heavy trigger, but it’s not light either. 

You feel just the slightest bit of creep right before that break. 

Now it resets right in front of that initial wall and then you have that same springy break. I find this rolling trigger to be extremely shootable, especially when taking long distance shots. 

We’ll cover more about shooting the Sig P320 compact trigger later in the review.

Aftermarket

There are a ton of aftermarket options for this gun. 

As we mentioned earlier, you can get almost any of the aftermarket Sights you would want. They also make the take-down lever in a format that allows you to use it as a thumb rest for your support hand. 

This allows you to apply downward pressure on the gun to better control recoil. 

There are a variety of aftermarket frames available from both Sig and other manufacturers such as Icarus Precision. You can even get aftermarket slides from a variety of manufacturers like Killer Innovations and Norsso. 

You can really build a Sig P320 Compact into anything you want it to be. 

If you plan on building from the ground up, you might be better off looking at the Sig FCU (Fire Control Unit) for the P320. 

That would probably be a more affordable option as those are cheaper than a complete gun and would be a better route to go if you want to replace almost every part of the pistol.

Maintenance

Maintaining the Sig P320 Compact is a little bit more difficult than a gun with a Glock-style take-down system, but it’s the next easiest thing. 

You’re just going to want to take the magazine out, lock the slide back, ensure that the gun is unloaded, and then rotate the take-down lever forward. 

Once you rotate that lever down and forward, you can then press it out from the right-hand side. 

That pin can be a little bit difficult and stiff, but once it’s broken in, it does get easier to take in and out of the pistol. From there, you can let the slide forward and it will come right off so you can take out the recoil spring and barrel assembly, allowing you to clean the firearm. 

You can also pop out the fire control unit quite easily by pulling it forward. 

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You just reverse these actions to put the gun back together. 

When putting it back together, you want to make sure you have the pin lined up correctly and have all the right angles as that can be the most difficult part about putting this gun back together. 

For some reason, some Sig P320 compact pistols I’ve seen have major issues when reinstalling the recoil spring. 

If it’s not lined up just right, it will cause issues and will not go back together correctly. That is something to take into account. 

It’s definitely going to knock off some points for me and the overall P320 Compact review.

Aesthetics

Aesthetically, the Sig P320 is an attractive firearm. It doesn’t look insane or incredibly good, but it’s a solid, good-looking firearm. 

The least attractive portion of this firearm is probably going to be the rounded, fatter-looking grip. It doesn’t look as proportional as the rest of the firearm, but overall Sig still did a good job. 

They didn’t get obnoxious with the badging and the profile of the slide looks clean.

Shooting

Shooting the Sig P320 Compact is a dream. 

Despite this gun having an extremely high bore axis, Sig did a great job tuning the recoil spring and this gun, while it has muzzle flip, falls right back to your point of aim every time. It’s really an excellent soft-shooting gun. 

Another nice thing about the Sig P320 Compact is its trigger. Again, it has that rolling trigger I was talking about earlier in the review. 

A lot of people say they don’t like rolling triggers, but most of those people are either very high-level or new shooters who don’t understand what a rolling trigger does for you. 

Rolling triggers give you just a little bit of surprise and keep you from wanting to try to game the Sights. 

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That means you pay more attention to your trigger pull than you do to the Sights, and actually helps you to avoid slapping the trigger, thus making you more accurate.

Another nice thing about this gun is the huge trigger guard.

If you were shooting with gloves or just have very large fingers, this trigger guard is very nice. I really have grown to like the large trigger guard on the P320 Compact. 

The most negative experience when shooting this gun involves the Sights. The Sights on this gun are just lacking. 

While they’re metal and quality enough to carry, they should be replaced with a decent set of Sights to allow you a better picture. 

You could definitely shoot with these Sights fine, but if you want to get the topmost performance out of this gun, you’ll want to upgrade them to something better.

Final Thoughts

The Sig P320 compact is an excellent value firearm. 

You can pick these up for a little over $500. What makes this gun exceptional, in my opinion, is the tuning of the recoil spring. This gun just fires so softly and presents itself back right where you want it to go. 

I’m really impressed with how good of a job Sig did on this feature. The trigger itself is also a great benefit when it comes to this firearm. 

If I didn’t have concerns about safety issues with the Sig, this probably would replace my Glock as my main carry gun.

I’m going to go as far as saying the Sig P320 guns shoot almost as well as 2011s that have been tuned from the factory (and they cost a fraction of the 2011 as well). They don’t shoot quite as well, but they are still really easy guns to shoot accurately.

I can shoot my Glocks just as well as I can shoot this gun, but it takes a lot more effort. 

This gun has something about it to where I can’t shoot it any better than I can shoot my Glocks, but I don’t have to put as much effort in when shooting the Sig P320 Compact to get the same results. 

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That’s a nice feature to have in a defensive firearm. 

If Sig Sauer could somehow reassure me that the safety was not an issue, I would definitely trade up my Glocks for a P320. If you yourself are not concerned with the safety issues, then it’s going to be very hard to beat the Sig P320 Compact.

I hope you’ve enjoyed our Sig P320 compact review. 

Please leave us your thoughts below on the safety issues with the Sig P320 series, as well as your thoughts on this gun.

Let us know what we can do to improve our Sig P320 Compact Review.