Sig New-Niche 9

Why Not 25?

One test of the P365 I’ve read had the gun rated for accuracy at 15 feet. Gunwriters can cut some slack in this respect for small pocket pistols; fate and reality, however, may not cooperate. So I still test at 25 yards, which is customary for full-size service pistols, where the standard seems to have evolved that “five shots in four inches at 25 yards equals ‘acceptable service pistol accuracy.’”

Given the vast number of police shootings evolve out of some perpetrator originally ravaging a helpless citizen, I kinda like the idea of the citizen being able to solve the problem before the police even get there. Another given: armed citizens carry guns to protect themselves from the same vicious criminals the police carry guns to protect them from. Therefore, it strikes me as a good idea to see how the carry gun of the real first responder (the intended victim) compares to the official first responder (the arriving officer).

I’ve made it a habit to test with the three most popular bullet weights in the given caliber, 9mm of course in this case. The 147-gr. subsonic kicked very softly in the P365, and two loads (SIG FMJ and Remington-UMC) both went just a bit over 4″ for all five shots at 25 yards from a Matrix rest on a concrete bench. This testing format will give you a good idea of what an experienced shooter can expect in perfect, stress-free conditions. I also measure the best three shots in each such group, because exhaustive testing has shown this roughly duplicates what that gun and that load is likely to do from a machine rest. The 147-gr. loads gave three-shot clusters of 1.55″ (Rem-UMC) and 1.60″ (SIG FMJ), which was way more reassuring.

However, in both tests 115- and 124-grain ammo shot tighter than the 147s. Two 115-gr. Federal products, cheap American Eagle FMJ training ammo and the hot 9BPLE +P+ JHP, were tested. The ball round ran pretty close to the 147s in accuracy, but the high speed JHP 115 put all five shots in 3.10″ and the best three in exactly half at 1.55″.

Real magic happened with the 124-gr. “middle weight.” One of the most street-proven 9mm rounds is Speer’s 124 gr. +P Gold Dot, known as “the New York load.” It passed the service pistol test in the tiny SIG P365 with 3.95″ for all five shots at 25 yards, the best three in 1.80″.

And topping the accuracy mark was SIG’s 124-gr. V-Crown JHP which put five shots into 1.5″ at 25 yards. A single .40 slug could have touched all of the best three in the group. For a gun this size, this is simply phenomenal.