Project Rocinante: Chasing modern handgun perfection with Sig’s quadragenarian workhorse

[rudukai13]

Still works.



There’s another 300 rounds and 0 malfunctions to kick off the next period of 2,000 rounds, which will be attempted with no additional lubrication or cleaning. Here are the rules for the next 1,700 rounds:

- NO additional lubrication, grease, CLP, etc will be applied anywhere on the pistol since receiving it back from my gunsmith. The one exception to this rule is that I’ll still be running a bore snake through the barrel every other range trip, because fuck you it’s my gun.

- The gun will NOT have any carbon removed, cleaned, scraped, scratched, etc from the interior workings of the pistol or the feed ramp, barrel hood, locking lugs, or any other exterior portion of the barrel. I will occasionally use a dry rag to spot clean the exterior of the slide/frame, but only with the slide forward and fully in battery so as not to cheat and “accidentally” scrape some carbon off the ejector or something.

- I will still be using damp lens cleaning wipes to clean off the bezel of the X300U and the lens of the optic. Those won’t affect the function of the gun and it’ll keep them useable throughout the 2,000 round process.

As usual ALL malfunctions, failures, issues, etc will be documented and recorded here.

Rounds since last cleaned/lubed: 300
Malfunctions: 0

 

[Nate Osborne]

I’m not at all a fan of Sig’s “integrally compensated slide” system, which in reality is really nothing more than a bushing compensator. It’s just a way for Sig to half-ass their way into getting the prestige (and MSRP) of selling “compensated” pistols from the factory while saving a shit load of manufacturing time and money. The Legion also uses an aluminum frame, whereas the Classic and Sport variants have stainless steel frames. I like how much the weight of the gun soaks up felt recoil, so the aluminum frame doesn’t particularly excite me either. Much of it is obviously personal preference, but if I were looking at purchasing a P226 X-Five again now that the Legion is available I would still buy the Classic variant.

Once I send mine out to GGI to whip it into an utter masterpiece it’ll put this Legion nonsense to shame

Perfect, that was my impression, but good to hear from someone with actual experience. I agree, their solution is cheap (and technically within USPSA rules) and does some compensating, but nothing like a proper comp.

 

[rudukai13]

“Life finds a way to get in the way.”

- Me.



Well after far too long I finally got back to the range today for another 300 rounds, and did some more practice in the 15-25 yard range. Started out a bit shit but started to tighten back up towards the end. That brings the total to 2,600 through the gun, 600 since it was cleaned and lubed, and 0 malfunctions either way.



I did experience my first “anomaly”, if you even want to call it that, with the pistol today when the slide auto-forwarded once upon reloading. It hasn’t happened before, I wasn’t able to replicate it, and I don’t really view it as an issue anyway. It was likely just due to the location of my trigger finger riding the slide release and forcefully inserting a new mag.



This was the second range trip since the gun was fully stripped, so I did remove the barrel and spray the bore. Pulled the slide apart, sprayed only the inside of the barrel with Rem Oil, let it sit while I wiped the optic lens and light bezel, and ran the bore with a snake twice. Carefully avoiding wiping any other dirt or carbon off, I reassembled the pistol and put it back in the safe in this condition:



Mmmm, carbony.



Makes its own gravy.

Total rounds through the pistol: 2,600
Rounds since last cleaned/lubed: 600
Malfunctions: 0

The Roci’s gonna be a dirty girl in another 1,400 rounds

 

[rudukai13]

Stopped off at my LGS on the way home from work and put in an order for another few magazines, and ordered the base pads and springs from Springer. I think for the time being until the gun hits the 10k round mark, every time I get an urge to buy some aftermarket parts for it I’ll just buy another set of magazines.

Gonna have a lot of magazines for this thing…

 

[rudukai13]

Three more cause MOAR

 

[rudukai13]

300 more rounds down the pipe, still no issues.



I entertained myself a bit with some Mozambique/Failure to Stop drills at 5-10 yards today. Basically just something to slow me down from pulling the trigger as fast as I can.

No bore snake this trip, so just wiped off the X300U bezel and the optic lens and back in the safe she goes.







It honestly pains me much more than I expected to not just wipe some of this crud off…So tempting…

Total rounds through the pistol: 2,900
Rounds since last cleaned/lubed: 900
Malfunctions: 0

 

[rudukai13]

300 more rounds through the gun tonight - and we have a malfunction! Well, not really a malfunction of the gun, exactly:



At about 100 rounds left tonight I started to notice my accuracy degrading. Chalked it up to being tired and decided I’d just finish out the remaining rounds I’d brought with me to the range. Then with about 25 rounds left out of the 300, I took a shot, felt a small *plink* on my forehead, looked down and saw one of the optic screws on the concrete.



Originally I figured it’d just come loose and backed out, but on further inspection the screw sheared off before rudely tapping me in the forehead. That means there’s still part of the screw left in the slide:



That’ll have to be a problem for my gunsmith to fix. I believe the culprit is the use of a filler plate to mount the RMR-footprint 508T to the DPP-footprint slide cut. While filler plates are supposed to be better than adapter plates at avoiding exactly this issue, this experience has been enough to make me lose trust in the use of plates altogether. Which means I need to replace the 508T with a DPP-footprint optic, and there’s only one such pistol dot on the market I trust for a serious defensive use pistol:



I had been considering getting the SCS-320 over a 508T for this pistol when I first bought the gun, but at the time the optic was still brand new to the market with very little testing information available and nobody even had them in stock. I’ve seen enough at this point to give one a shot riding the slide of this workhorse.

So, right now the Roci is sitting in my safe unloaded. When I get the SCS in I’ll take it to my gunsmith to remove the broken screw, mount the new optic, and zero it with the 147gr HSTs.

After some consideration I’ve decided NOT to qualify this as a malfunction for the purposes of this 2,000 round no cleaning/no lube test, as the pistol still functioned flawlessly and this was a failure of the optic mounting system. I still blasted through the remaining 25ish rounds I had left and still not a single feeding/cycling error. That means the gun has fed and fired 1,200 rounds completely error-free since the last cleaning or lubrication. The optic screw lasted just shy of 3,200 rounds before shearing off.

Frustrating, but this is why it’s important to test your own equipment and not just trust online reviews/experts. I’ll get the new optic in soon, get it mounted to the gun, and carry on throwing more teflon-coated tungsten steel slugs at five thousand meters per seco - er…Bullets. Throwing more bullets downrange…

I should read (listen to) Leviathan Wakes again…

Total rounds through the pistol: 3,200
Rounds since last cleaned/lubed: 1,200
Malfunctions: 0

 

[rudukai13]

Well the SCS was waiting on my doorstep when I got home from work today so I grabbed the Roci and ran back out to get it in my gunsmith’s hands before they closed. Should have it back within a week and we’ll get back to blastin’

 

[rudukai13]

Back to blastin’

 

[rudukai13]

Finally got a slight respite from work this weekend and took a Stop the Bleed course with my brother at the local range, then spent a very short amount of time shooting afterwards. Just another 50 rounds through the gun but still problem-free. The gun still hasn’t been cleaned or lubed. I’ll have time for a more serious shooting trip this coming week and put a few more hundred bullets down the pipe.

I’m thinking the last 100 rounds of the 2,000 round no cleaning/lube function test will be the HST JHP loads, just to see how the gun fairs with carry ammo while all cruddy and carbony.

Total rounds through the pistol: 3,250
Rounds since last cleaned/lubed: 1,250
Malfunctions: 0

 

[rudukai13]

Another range trip, another 250 rounds through the big bastard, aaaaand…Still no malfunctions. I’m honestly a bit surprised it hasn’t so much as hiccuped yet, I’d be very interested to see some of the other popular metal-frame, hammer-fired pistols put through a similar no clean/no lube test to see how they fair.



Took the slide off the gun to get a better peek at the interior and…





It’s getting harder to resist wiping it down with a rag, but resist it I did. Wiped the WML lens clean and put the Roci back into dock.

Total rounds through the pistol: 3,500
Rounds since last cleaned/lubed: 1,500
Malfunctions: 0

 

[Nate Osborne]

I was at a local shop and they had one of the classic German x-fives used for sale for almost the exact price of a new one. I’d certainly be more interested in the German one from a collectors perspective, but for shooting I’d honestly probably get a new one, as much as it pains me to say it.


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[rudukai13]

I was at a local shop and they had one of the classic German x-fives used for sale for almost the exact price of a new one. I’d certainly be more interested in the German one from a collectors perspective, but for shooting I’d honestly probably get a new one, as much as it pains me to say it.


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I think that’s a fair assessment