Some beginning information on long guns
Will you be lucky, or are you looking at a lemon?
Just like when you’re purchasing a new car, you wonder the same thing: Will this new car/handgun be fantastic or will it be a huge and expensive disappointment? Does this question stop you from buying?
No.
So, this day, we’re at a gun shop.
“Hey, Joe!” I call.
He breaks away from looking at long guns.
“It’s that Sig we’ve been reading about! Remember? The write-ups have been super. This is a .22 that holds 20 rounds – 20 rounds!” I marvel.
Joe wanders over and looks at what I’m holding.
“With one in the chamber, that makes 21 rounds,” Joe corrects me. He likes to be precise.
“Wouldn’t this be the best training gun? It’s a .22 and it’s made by Sig. We like Sigs.”
Joe knows what’s coming.
“We help lots of newbies at the Wakulla County Sheriff’s Office range every Wednesday morning. Wouldn’t they love a gun that’s easy to shoot, reliable and holds 20 rounds? Yes, and with that extra one in the chamber? Joe, it’s a Sig!” Emphasis on Sig.
We’re looking at a handgun that the Sig Sauer site says is: “loaded with premium features… has ambidextrous controls, interchangeable flat and curved triggers, fiber optic front and rear sights… the new P322 is the highest capacity, most advanced 22 pistol in its class.”
Yep. We gotta have it.
The P322 comes with not one but two 20-round magazines. Once you load them, you have 40 rounds ready to hit the target. It’s compact, but bigger than I’d carry in my purse. I might carry it appendix style.
The P322 is 7 inches long, 5.5 inches high and 1.4-inches wide. On the face of it, 1.4-inch wide seems wider than most handguns, but a good reason for the width is that the controls are large and easy to reach.
The P322’s barrel is 4-inches and is made of carbon steel. The P322’s weight is only 17.1 ounces; mostly because the frame is polymer.
The P322 comes with two triggers. One is flat and the other is curved.
Yes, it has a safety, and you know I don’t care for safeties, but in this case, I think a safety is a fine idea. This is because of the extremely light trigger pull. Keep the safety on until you’re sure you want to pull the trigger.
And it’s a hammer gun. Oh, yes, it looks like a striker-fired gun, but you can’t see that it’s a hammer gun until you take it apart.
When I look up information on handguns, I often turn to The Truth About Guns. Mostly because I usually agree with their assessments. So, Dan Zimmerman of TTAG says that Sig has built in “virtually every feature consumers look for in a semi-auto rimfire pistol these days. The one spec that will catch the most attention, though, is the P322’s impressive 20 +1 standard magazine capacity that beats just about everything else out there. The P322 is a blowback operated, enclosed hammer, single action only pistol. And unlike many rimfire pistols, you can safely dry fire it as often as you like.”
The P322 comes with its own sleeve to help load those 20 rounds. As Dan continues, “you’ll probably only need the loader if you have reduced hand strength or very sensitive fingers.”
He goes on to note that it’s easy to dump rounds into the magazine, thus rendering a misaligned round. Misaligned rounds won’t feed into the chamber, but, he says “The good news is that’s a user error that you’ll only make once.”
Another source I like is Pew Pew. Sean Curtis gloats about the P322: “There’s no recoil, your sights stay on target, the trigger is really good, and the ergonomics are great!
The only thing that sucks about this gun is you very quickly find yourself having to reload, over and over again.”
Yes, he likes the P322. “Box after box the P322 ran with remarkable reliability.”
I look further. Kerith Cooper in the Gun Critic, raves about the P322 as well.
“The .22LR caliber might seem modest to some, but in this pistol, it performs admirably. The accuracy is top-notch, with tight groupings achievable at typical pistol ranges. The trigger mechanism is crisp and responsive, providing a consistent shooting experience.”
And fit in the hand? Cooper continues: “The P322 fits in my hand as if it was made for me. Its grip and balance are exceptional making it comfortable to shoot for hours without fatigue.”
Luke C., on the Firearm Blog, sums up these sentiments. “For now, I think I can conclude that the P322 is shaping up to be one of the best rimfire pistol offerings the world has seen.”
Bottom line is, do Joe and I need this gun? C’mon. After all these great articles, of course we do. We needed it yesterday.
At the WCSO range, we decide to shoot 10 rounds of CCI mini-mags each.
The good news is: both Joe and I like the grip. Yes, it fits large and small hands alike. We agree that trigger pull and trigger pull travel are light. And yes, there’s not much recoil at all.
However. The bad news is: Joe gets 4 stovepipes and the slide doesn’t lock back when the magazine is empty. My last round is a stovepipe, too.
I try to load all 20 rounds into a magazine. Just push the button down on the magazine and drop in the rounds. Well, it’s much easier said than done. After 13 rounds, my thumbs have had it. I tried to use the double-stack UpLula, but it doesn’t fit on the magazine.
That’s not the only difficulty. Richard Mann, of Field and Stream says: “You can’t just shove rounds in the magazine willy-nilly and get to shooting.”
He isn’t kidding. Push the button down for one round only. If you push it down further, the rounds won’t feed in the magazine straight. They’ll tilt some. Push down a little too far, and you’ll end up having to unload the magazine and start loading all over again. You’ll need practice.
Chris Baker, in the Lucky Gunner finds “the slide stop does not work correctly. It barely locks the slide open. The slide will close if you just look at it funny. Or anytime you insert a loaded magazine.” Also: “The slide doesn’t always lock open after firing the last round.”
Yes, we experienced these difficulties too. And, while both front and back sights are fiber optic, they are so tiny that it’s hard to see them. The back sights are so far apart, it’s challenging to space them equally on either side of the front sight.
Finding a new handgun can be tricky. While the one you’re looking up may have many great reviews, it may also have some negative ones. Usually, the gun with a lot of positive reviews, especially from sites you find accurate, is exactly what they say it is.
But sometimes, you’re not so lucky. Is the gun a lemon?
As Baker notes: “Now, even with all of these problems, I’m still holding out hope that the Sig P322 could be a good pistol. Maybe not this specific P322. This one needs a lot of work. Maybe Sig will fix it for us.”
That’s the conclusion Joe and I have come to as well. The Sig P322 has many great features, but this particular gun has too many difficulties. For now, we’re going to send it back to Sig.
When it comes back, who knows?
Marj Law is the former director of Keep Wakulla County Beautiful who has become an avid shooter in retirement.
