Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all bout the rimfire firearm world and all of its different guns, ammunition types, shooting sports, and history. SIG Sauer has recently released a new iteration of their successful P322 pistol – the P322-COMP. I want to start off this week by making it 100% clear that I am completely biased in favor of the P322 pistol already as I personally feel like it has been the single greatest semi-auto 22LR pistol to be released in the last decade. The P322 is an excellent cheap, optics-ready, suppressor-ready package that costs less than $500 – who doesn’t like a good cheap gun? Even with all of that being said, something new like the P322-COMP needs to show us it’s worth the extra dough that SIG is asking for – about $200 or more according to online pricing. I was recently able to take both my original SIG Sauer P322 and the new P322-COMP out to the range to shoot them both side by side to see if the extra features and components are worth the money.

More Rimfire Report @ TFB:

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• The Rimfire Report: Uncle Fudd’s Wild Forward Charging 10/22
• The Rimfire Report: The Complex British-Made BSA Ralock

The Rimfire Report: The SIG P322-COMP – Worth the Extra $$$?

When you take a really close look at the P322, there really isn’t anything groundbreakingly new about the pistol aside from some added accessories and aesthetic changes – all of which are still worth something to someone who is either actively looking to get into a competition or is already participating in a competition like Rimfire Steel Challenge. The primary differences between the P322 and its competition variant are the new clear anodized slide finish, slide racker, compensator, extended magazine release button, the Sport takedown lever, and the inclusion of one 25-round magazine in addition to the standard flush-fit 20-round magazine.

Overall I think the new SKU for SIG’s fun plinker has enough extra cool stuff attached to the package to make it worth a little bit of extra cash. The P322 in my experience makes a fairly poor choice for Steel Challenge competitions for a couple of reasons we’ll get into, but the compensator, slide racker, and other features do have benefits that apply to more than just people like me who spend their nights dreaming about shooting the same 5 steel plates over and over again. I think if the P322-COMP were to be priced right at the $500 to $550 range it would or should be an instant buy for any firearms enthusiast with the cash to spare.

What do the “Improvements” Do?

All the extra stuff on the P322-COMP isn’t worth much if it doesn’t help you in some way, right? To get one out of the way first, the two-tone appearance technically doesn’t do anything for you other than look cool. If you’re worried about the extra glare from the more reflective clear anodized finish, SIG was thoughtful enough to put anti-glare serrations on the top of the slide. The P322-COMP can have its included ROMEOZERO Elite red dot replaced with Iron sights for use in the Production division in Steel Challenge, or for those who just prefer to use the rear adjustable irons with the fiber optic front sight post.

The compensator might seem like a dubious addition to a pistol that already has so little recoil but the compensator does in fact do something to mitigate the snapiness of the pistol especially when being shot with high-velocity ammunition like CCI Mini-Mags. For a steel challenge competitor, this means a faster time back on target and less disturbance of your sight picture. The compensator in tandem with the Sport Takedown Lever (which most people would call a “Gas Pedal” on an MKIV), helps you achieve much better control over the recoil of the firearm which translates to faster split times.

The slide racker is an extra piece of polymer that screws into a new special tapped hole in the rear of the P322-COMP slide. Two additional bosses on the slide help secure the slide racker in place with the help of the screw. I originally thought this setup would be extremely weak compared to the dedicated sold bolts or clamp-on charging handles for the Ruger MK Series of pistols, but throughout the last couple of months, the slide racker has held up amazingly well and is a massive improvement in terms of making the pistol more friendly to operate at the range – especially for newer shooters. On the competition side of things, this just means that the overall operation of the pistol, press checks, and clearing malfunctions quickly make the P322 a slightly better candidate for the Steel Challenge sport.

Is it Fast Enough?

Steel Challenge guns need to be fast. The faster you can rip off splits without disturbing your sight picture and maintaining good control over the gun, the better you’re likely to wind up on the leaderboard. The P322-COMP still doesn’t quite approach the utility of fixed barrel, non-reciprocating slide 22LR pistols in the competition sphere, but it does help make the P322 better suited to it if you just enjoy competing – which is what I love doing.

Next, we’ll be taking the P322-COMP to a local Steel Challenge match to hopefully shoot both it and the P322 standard variant side by side to see if the extra features make it any more competitive when time is on the line. In the interim, I can still say I’d highly recommend this pistol just for the fun factor alone. The P322-COMP can still be used with a suppressor using the included 1/2×28 threaded muzzle adapter, and the P322-COMP also comes with a different recoil spring which should help keep it running smoothly with different suppressors.

Combine all those features with its generous 25 or 20-round magazines, RMSc optic footprint, and relatively low price, the P322 continues to be a series of pistols I’m interested in seeing being iterated upon to further improve its utility within the sports shooting scene, maybe a tungsten infused or steel frame next time?

If you’ve had any recent experience with either the P322 or the new P322-COMP let us know what you thought about it down in the comments! Thanks as always for stopping by to read The Rimfire Report and we’ll see you all again next week!

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