Well, after giving up on Optics Planet ever getting any in stock, I sold my trusty XL and ordered one of the "package" deals. More about my feelings on that below, but for now I will just get into the gun/sight.
Whats in the Box: First things first, it DOES NOT come with a rear sight or plate. You get one sight, and that is the front one. The dot comes mounted, you get a spare battery, some literature on the sight specifically, standard Sig manual, stickers, lock, lube and chamber flag. You also of course get the gun and 2 twelve round magazines.
Before we get to if it works, does it look cool: So the Zero fits in the gun cut out very well length wise, and looks good on the gun. Aesthetically the finish, color and lines match with the plastic and the grip texture of the gun and it looks lit it belongs on the gun, not an afterthought.
I was surprised that it is not completely flush and still has some overhang. Not a lot, but its there. It is also a fairly sharp edge. You are probably going to want a sweat guard on any IWB holster you carry this thing on.
There is also a gap where the front of the Zero is being pushed up by the rubber like gasket material that is underneath it. This is a problem for two reasons. The first is that it keeps you from being able to get a real sight picture as the front lip of the lens shroud cuts the front sight in half and the glue at the bottom of the lens obscures what you can see. The other is that it means that water and moisture can get into the battery compartment. That's not good. I plan to call Sig and ask if they will have kittens if I just trim that rubber gasket so that the gun can actually seal and function with the rear acting as irons.
How Spot on is the dot when on: The dot is bright. I mean its BRIGHT. Like daylight bright on medium. If you live in Arizona and shoot your red dot at high noon in an open field you will appreciate it.
What you may not appreciate is that if you have man sized fingers you can't adjust the dot. I have big hands, could not do it. Gave it to a friend to fiddle with, he could not do it. Ended up using the end of a sharpie. See the adjustment is this tiny hard plastic bump right inside the lens shroud, just behind the lens.
To make it even better, there is no feedback. No click, no detent that you can feel, either it changes (which is hard to see because your finger is covering the dot) or it doesn't. Don't really know which until you poke around in there enough to get the dot in a "good enough for most things" point and leave it. This is not like a Trijicon or Delta Point Pro where you can adjust it easily while transitioning from daylight to cover. How much of a deal breaker this is, I leave to you. I hated it.
So about that lens: So the Lens is good. Not a lot of distortion. It has a red tinted coating that is not really noticeable under sunlight. It does have a lot of goop around the edges. This leads to it feeling kind of cheap, and reminded me of the Jpro/Shield sights and lens so much that it would not surprise me if it was sourced from them.
Little guns get dirty quickly, and the lens got some fouling, but after 150 rounds of Geco and WWB it was still plenty usable. I don't think you are going to shoot this little thing in a single range trip to where you will need to clean it off, and short of using it as a crew served weapon in some zombie apocalypse I can't imagine it getting too dirty to see through.
A Zoro zeros his Zero: Cause epeeist get it? Zoro and Zero... Okay nevermind, tough room. Anyway, it adjusts by way of two small hex heads. There is no detent, and no real feedback. There is also no locking system in place to keep them from moving, but they are sufficiently stiff in the effort needed to turn them that I don't see them shifting under recoil.
The gun was off when I got it out of the box. Like a lot. About a foot left and six inches low at 10 yards. I would think a factory mounted dot would be zeroed, but I was also expecting it to come with a sight plate so what do I know.
How was the drop test: It wasn't. Not that it failed it, I just did not even try it. I was being careful with the sharpie so I did not pop the lens out trying to adjust the brightness. It may not BE as fragile as it FEELS, but it sure does feel like something to be babied to me.
I have a lot of experience with red dots on guns. I have been running them in competition for years. I have used about everything out there except the Arco and the SRO and they are on my list to buy. The only sight that felt this fragile to me, like I may pop the lens out if I bumped it against something or that it would break if I tightened it to much was the Shield/Jpro. And both of those things happened to me on those sights by the way.
Its not a question of if I will break this thing, its just when. If it lasts 6 months as an all weather carry gun I will apologize profusely and provide and updated review, but I just don't see it happening.
Yes but how was the play Mrs. Lincoln: As for the gun, its a 365 XL. Easy to shoot well, trigger and slide are tight out of the box but it breaks in and eats everything. No primer drag, chisel point firing pin, very controllable. Shoots like a bigger gun. There are plenty of glowing reviews on the XL including my own and this one was identical to my experience with that one, right down to having a loose hinge pin on the box. Really Sig, are captured hinge pins to much to ask?
Pros:
* Cheaper than the current competition and seemingly of equal quality. Either they took apart an SMSc and cloned it, or they said "this is the bar, lets not overthink it" cause it feels an awful lot like one, just cheaper to buy.
*Bright dot
*Small footprint, fits the 365 very well
*The lens quality itself is pretty good for a tiny lens
*Easy to adjust and zero
*Held zero well
*Light weight. Probably weighs less than the sight plate and irons it replaces.
Cons:
*Stupid hard to change brightness settings unless you have pixie fingers
*Can't use rear bumps as irons due to poor fitment and flex of the sight body. They are also just too small.
*Goop around the edge of the glass is amateur hour and looks more Ebay knock off than Sig.
*Feels cheap and fragile. Not something I would normally want on a duty gun. If it can survive on a EDC gun will remain to be seen.
Romeo Romeo, where for so art my fing sight already: So a lot of us who pre-ordered the Zero sight were understanding when it got pushed back a month, annoyed when it was pushed back another month and pretty ****** when it is now getting pushed back yet again from some vendors. So what's the problem? Seems Sig decided to sell the 365 XL with the Zero installed, before there were Zeros in the wild for the people who were early adopters of the gun. Once again the moral Sig teaches us over and over is that they will beta test on and screw over the loyal customers who are foolish enough to trust their gear on release. Unfortunately its pretty **** good once they work the bugs out and someone has to test it. Apparently that someone will not be Sig, but its customers.
