PROJECT P365

[MistWolf]

The P365 is a great little handgun and a surprisingly good combination of compact size and firepower, with both the compact 10 round and the extended 12 round magazine. The night sights and smooth, rolling trigger break make it easy to shoot without the pull being too light for an EDC.

The pistol that started it all. I knew nothing about the P365 when I entered the Sig booth at SHOT and saw it hanging on the wall. I couldn’t believe it held 10+1 rounds


The P365 is the first small handgun I’ve taken a shine to. With the extended 12 round magazine, it’s just big enough to fit in my hand. Combined with the smooth, rolling trigger and real sights, I can shoot it almost as well as a larger handgun. I’ve been shooting the P365 alongside with my friends with their Glocks and it’s held up surprisingly well. The only parts I’ve had to replace was the recoil spring and extractor assembly. It’s served me well the last two or three years, but it’s time to upgrade.

My P365. The little pistols were always sold out, so I had my LGS order one for me. It didn’t come in until that summer. By the time it did it was made, Sig had all the bugs ironed out


Once I had the 12 round mags in hand, the 10 round mags were put in storage. With the extended mags, the grip fills my hand better.


Welcome to Project P365.

I’ve seen the writing on the wall. The future of handguns is optic sights. A friend showed me his Glock that had been milled for an optic by Culper Precision which happened to be only minutes away. The next day, I took my P365 in only to be milled for an optic. Little did I know, that decision would take me down a rabbit hole.

Next: Choose a Color

[MistWolf]

The display P356 at Culpers. It’s milled for a direct mount for a Holosun. Note the rear sight dovetail is retained. The rear sights of the factory milled P365s are part of the cover plate. That’s what decided me to pay for custom milling rather than buy a P365 X


The price for milling includes Cerakoting. Culper Precision strips the original finish down to the bare metal and Cerakotes the whole slide. They explained that after milling, deburring and trying to match the original color & finish of the slide, coating the whole slide looked cleaner and the professional way to do things.

I wasn’t too keen on that as I don’t think Cerakoting is as tough as the original finish. They assured me it was. I asked about just Cerakoting the mill cut- it costs more because of the extra prep work. I decided to have them Cerakote the entire slide it’s original color...

...Until I started turning things over in my pretty little head. Since getting the 12 round mags, the 10 rounders have been sitting in the parts drawer collecting dust. My justification for keeping the standard grip module (besides being a cheap bastard) was that I might want to use the 10 round mags to carry the P365 in a pocket. So far, I've never occasioned to do so. There's also the fact that once the optic is mounted, the P365 will never be a pocket pistol. Time to get an XL frame. I looked around and found Osage sold P365 XL frames for just under $60 and offered a discount to military vets. I ordered one in coyote brown.

I felt pretty good about getting a veteran’s discount on the Sig grip module. Until it came and I discovered I ordered the wrong module. I ordered the module with the manual safety cut outs. I didn’t want the cutouts. Postage to send it back for exchange wiped out the discount. CDO can be expensive!


The coyote brown module meant another trip to Culper Precision to change the color of the slide. I chose a darker brown- I think its called Woodland Brown- for a two tone effect. I think that’s gonna look good!

Changing to the XL grip module means changing magazine baseplates. The 12 round mag adaptors won’t fit the XL frame. You can’t just remove the spacer, the base plate has to be changed as well. Unfortunately, I can’t find what I did with the XL baseplates that came with the 12 round mags and Sig doesn’t offer replacements.

The good news is Magguts offers baseplates that not only fit the XL frame, they increase capacity by +2. The bad news is, at $35 each, Magguts base plates are almost as much as a complete magazine. I ordered two.

Next: How Magguts Taught Me To Speak Fluent Sailor

[FrankB]

Check with Osage County Guns for the base plates. They had them in stock, but the last time I checked, they were out. That was months ago.

Sig has them in stock for $6: https://www.sigsauer.com/floor-plate...5-9-12-rd.html

[MistWolf]

“Mother father daughter! No good farging son of a worthless icehole! Stinking flea bitten mangy weasel suck starter!” Just a few of the choice words that blistered the wallpaper and had the cat giving me disgusted looks and flatten her ears. Fortunately, the wife wasn’t home. She won’t put up with that kind of language.

Installing the Magguts +2 mag kit was… a challenge. The spring is strong and the baseplate is a tight fit. First, you drop in the follower, then the spring. Read the instructions carefully so you don’t install the spring backwards. Next, you have to compress the spring and hold it in place while you try to slip the base in place. Unfortunately, the groove of the baseplate is too short to engage the tongue of the mag tube while my finger is trying to hold the spring down. When I moved my finger out of the way, the spring shot out across the room like those snakes in a can!

I did finally get both Magguts kits installed, just don’t ask me how. The only thing I can figure is there is magic in Sailor Speak that smooth the way.




Install video


To make room for the +2 rounds, the Magguts follower is made much thinner than the factory follower. It leaves a gap by the slide catch shelf and the follower looks like it’s going to pop out at any moment. The spring is stiffer but with a little familiarity, it’s easy enough to load the magazine. Spring pressure feels about the same throughout as the mag is loaded and the 13th round goes in almost as easy as he first. The 14th round takes a bit more pressure, but not excessively so. Even spring pressure should give more uniform feeding.

One thing I noticed is even with the extra spring pressure, rounds loads smoothly.

I don’t know how easy a full mag will load in the pistol on a closed slide. The slide, of course, is at Culpers. (Things are backed up for the holidays and set my delivery date in mid-January.)

I won’t know how good the Magguts kit works until I get my P365 back together.

Next: The Dot

[tlong17]

Cool thread on a cool and practical gun.

My experience with the Magguts was that I liked the extra capacity with hardly any noticeable dimension change. They just could not reliably feed 147 HST. Everything else ran fine (115, 124 HST, 115, 124 gold dot)

[MistWolf]

Going into this, I had only the vaguest idea what I wanted and I did not know what I didn’t know and didn’t even know I didn’t know that much. I looked around to see what was available, read up on the details of each, shifted through posts by the P-F Pistol Red Dot Mafia, watched far too many YT vids and narrowed my choice between the Shield and the RMRcc. In the end, the 3 MOA RMRcc won out because of price, reputation for ruggedness and availability.



Pros: The RMRcc fits within the width of the P365. It has a rugged reputation. No special tools such as ittybitty screwdrivers or Allen keys are needed to make sight adjustments. Long battery life. Simple illumination controls. Option to use manual or automatic illumination levels. It was on sale at Euro Optics and I could use PayPal 4 pay (sue me).

Cons: That whole “you gotta remove the sight to change the battery” thing. Blue tint. Distortion when viewing through at odd angles.

When I looked at the whole package, the RMRcc came closest to what I wanted in a mini dot for the P365 and I feel good about choosing it.

It was delivered Saturday and I dropped it off at Culpers on Monday.

Ain’t it a cute li’l thing?



Next: Aziz! Light!

[MistWolf]

What is a modern pistol without a light? It’s not practical to always have a light mounted on an EDC handgun, but it’s wise to have the option. (It’s also a good idea to have an off pistol light with you. They come in handy.) It only follows that the P365 being a small pistol, it needs a small light.

I looked at two lights. The Surefire XSC


and the Streamlight TLR7 Sub


The Surefire XSC is lighter, weighing at 1.7 ozs and is smaller. It’s rated at 350 lumens and is powered by a rechargeable battery. MSRP is about $340. Downside is it has a short burn time, less than 30 minutes.

The Streamlight TLR7 Sub weighs 2.4 ozs and is larger. The front lens extends past the muzzle of the short barrel of the P365. It’s like the miniature version of a X300 on a Glock 19. Rated at 500 lumens, the Sub is brighter and had better throw than the XSC. The Sub is powered by commonly available 123A battery and has a much longer burn time. Price is around $120.

As much as I like my Surefire lights, I had to go with the Streamlight. I can put it in my pocket and use it as a handheld light and is easily installed on the pistol if needed as a weapon light.

I have a TLR7 I bought a few years ago and taking its size and cost into consideration, it performs well.

I guess I’m going to have to look into holsters. I have an On Your Six IWB holster for the P365 and figure I can trim it to fit the optic. There’s no way I can trim it to fit the light!

Next: Thumb Twiddling

[MistWolf]

For the moment, that’s it. All the parts I’ve ordered have come in, the slide is at Culper Precision waiting for it’s turn on the CNC machine, then paint booth and I can do nothing but twiddle my thumbs until the grip module comes from Osage. When that gets here, I can swap over the FCU but that takes but a minute. The easiest trigger installation I’ve ever done was on a P365. Push a pin and lift it out. Drop the FCU in place and install a pin. Done.

AWAP


Of course, I could start ordering the parts needed to build the grip module into a standard P365, just in case I should ever need something to carry in my pocket….

Next: Miscellaneous Bits

[MistWolf]

Tactical Development has an interesting selection of mag base pads. Several are shaped to give the shooter’s pinky better support and gripping surfaces to make it easier to strip the mag from the mag well. They have base plates that will allow 10 round mags to be used in XL grip modules. They have base plates and adaptors for the fifteen round mags that are a big improvement over the open back adaptor Sig provides.

https://tactical.dev/collections/all...-x-xl-products

PS- The Tactical Development website also has links to P365 compensators. Just gotta dig around a bit for them.

While playing around with pieces & parts, I discovered the base plates for the 10 round mag will work with the 12 round mags. The pinky base plate gives your little finger even more room on the XL frame. All you gotta do is trim the little alignment tabs.

[RJ]

Very interesting thread. Thanks for sharing. Will be interested in what you think of the package after shooting / carrying it for a while.

I've been pretty happy with my basic standard P365x+HS407k, but have only a few hundred rounds through. I do like it a lot, so far.