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Sig Sauer has been known for decades as makers of finely engineered, high quality pistols.  With its long history and proven track record of building pistols for military, law enforcement, and civilian markets, Sig has a great reputation and is a force to be reckoned with in the US handgun market.  In 2014, Sig introduced their P320, which was a continued development of their P250 modular design, striker fired pistol.  With its modular design, the platform provides for great flexibility to shooters of all kind, whether it be competition, self-defense, plinking, or combat shooting.

Founded in 1977 to better serve the growing demand for customized pistols to support the popular shooting sports of the time, Wilson Combat, and its founder, Bill Wilson, began as a custom gunsmith, working on improving popular handguns of the day.  Revolvers, 1911 pistols, and hunting handguns were what got things started.  Custom built, proprietary 1911 parts were the next evolution, until full house, internally built 1911 pistols became the main stay in 1996.  Never one to stop growing, Wilson expanded their line by introducing custom work, at first, and then full house custom packages in collaboration with Beretta and Glock, who provide some of the most popular pistols on the market.

Last year, it was a natural evolution for Wilson Combat to introduce custom work on the Sig P320, which was adopted in 2017 by the US Army as the M17.  A few months ago, Wilson Combat announced that, following their success with the Beretta and Glock pistols, in collaboration with Sig Sauer, they would be introducing a custom P320 pistol, the WCP320.   Starting with a modular chassis and unfinished slide, using Wilson’s recently introduced engineered polymer grip module, which provides improved handling, “pointability” (with a grip angle more closely resembling that of a 1911 pistol), and recoil control, a slide that is re-machined in-house with the Wilson Combat X-TAC pattern for improved grip texture with front a rear cocking serrations, slide top serrations, a Sig factory barrel, and a Sig XFULL flat faced trigger, which is designed to increase leverage and help improve perceived trigger pull, this pistol is designed for practicality, performance and accuracy.  The slide is topped with Wilson’s combat rear sight, which is a U-notch adjustable sight, and a red fiber-optic front sight.  As an added option, the gunsmiths at Wilson Combat can further tune and enhance the action with Gray Guns custom parts.  I had decided to order the pistol to give it a try, and opted to go the fully-enhanced action.

When I called Wilson Combat, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they had WCP320 pistols in stock and ready to go.  These pistols in inventory, however, do not have the desired action tuning and need to be sent to the gunsmiths for the work, which, at the time of my order, was a quoted lead time of a 2-3 weeks.  Right on cue, after about 3 weeks, I received notification that my pistol had shipped. 

Upon receiving the gun, which comes in a standard Sig P320 box, with 2 Sig factory 17- round magazines, a bottle of Wilson Combat oil, and instruction manual, I wasted no time in handling it, getting a feel for the grip module, slide texture, sights, and trigger.  The trigger, after the optional action enhancement, was absolutely fantastic.  It was crisp, light, with a good breaking point and a very short, and audible reset.  Being mostly a 1911 shooter, I am used to, and really prefer, the 1911 trigger, and its reset.  This WCP320 had a trigger that, for a striker fired pistol, felt almost like a 1911.  It is better than almost any trigger, factory or after-market, I have felt on any other brand of striker fire pistol, and I’ve tried almost all of the currently available after-market triggers, for most of the popular brands out there.  This trigger, and the entire pistol, as a matter of fact, just plain felt great.

Knowing that I had a Pistol Range Day planned at Gunsite a few weeks later, I decided that I would wait to do any work with it until that day.  I did take it to a local indoor range and shoot 10 rounds out of it to make sure that it functioned and that the sights were on.  I was surprised to see it shoot a nice one-hole group right out of the box.  I was told that the pistols are actually sighted in by the gunsmiths before they are shipped out and this certainly showed.  As the old saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, this WCP320 impressed me.

Pistol Range Day at Gunsite usually consists of some warm up drills, various typical Gunsite school drills, either on a square range or on simulators, and any variety of common well known drills, for a full day session.  Led by Gunsite instructors and Rangemasters, we started the day with warm up drills consisting of pairs, hammers, head shots, speed and tactical reloads, and failure drills, all at various distances out to 15 yards.  We put approximately 50 rounds down range for these warm-ups and the pistol performed flawlessly and accurately.  It handled well, pointed well, and the enhanced action was really a pleasure to shoot. Being a standard size P320, the pistol fits in any full size P320 holster.  I used my Simply Rugged buffalo hide competition holster, along with magazine pouches, without any difficulty.

Moving to more standard drills, both for speed (Bill Drill, 6 in 5, etc…) and distance/accuracy (Gunsite school drill), the pistol continued to impress.  The grip module allowed for a firm, consistent grip facilitating quick follow-up shots and repeatability.  The combat sight rear sight and red fiber optic front sight, the same sights that are on other Wilson Combat pistols, provided quick target acquisition even at distances out to 25 yards.  The mag well allowed for quick and efficient reloads, the XTAC slide serrations allowed for easy and quick manipulations, allowing for faster reloads and getting the pistol back into the fight.  Speed drills proved no problem for the pistol.  Quick target acquisition and recoil control were easy and fast. 

I used a few different brands of factory ball ammunition for the day, and various bullet weights.  The pistol had no trouble whatsoever with any of the roughly 500 rounds of FMJ loads I shot.  This included Double Tap’s great 115 gr, S&B’s 115 gr, Magtech 124 gr, Aguila 124 gr, Blazer Brass 115 gr, and Winchester 124 gr.  I also had success with the JHP ammunition that I wanted to try, which was a mix of Winchester 147 gr, Sig Sauer 124 gr JHP, and Corbon 115 gr JHP.  In total, I probably only shot about 50 rounds of JHP ammo through it, so it may not have been enough to get a good representative test though my experience is that if a pistol is not going to handle JHPs, it will usually do so early on.

Overall, I was very impressed by this pistol.  The only hiccup I ran into, over the 500 rounds that I shot that day, was that the magazine springs in the brand new magazines were a little stiff and, when fully loaded with 17-rounds, caused some failure to feed issues on the first round out of the mag.  This is not an uncommon issue, in fact it is an issue I have learned to deal with when shooting AR rifles, and is easily resolved by down-loading one round from the mag.  After some break-in time, I expect this issue to resolve itself and I can go back to fully loading the magazines. 

I am very pleased with this pistol and how it performed, without any break-in period.  It is most definitely a keeper for me and has already become a part of my battery.  II wouldn’t hesitate to carry it for self-defense.  I do have a P320 Compact in the safe that I might just send to Wilson and see if they can work their magic on it too!!

MSRP for this pistol, at the time of this writing (June, 2020) is $1195 and $1350 with the action enhancements.

For more information on the WCP320 and other products / services offered by Wilson Combat, visit them online at www.wilsoncombat.com.

Buy ammo online at Double Tap Ammo: www.doubletapammo.com and Lucky Gunner: www.luckygunner.com.

For the finest in carry and competition leather, go to Simply Rugged Leather: www.simplyrugged.com.

Get Wise! Get Trained! at Gunsite Academy: www.gunsite.com.

Matt Olivier

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