Ultimate Springfield Echelon.. Thousands Of Rounds Later

Now, would I or should you listen to a random guy on the internet about a life decision? No, absolutely not. I've got a bit of a double feature for you guys today because not only are we going to be going over these two echelons right here and the several thousand rounds that I have through them and how they have been performing over the past year or so, but we're gonna talk about everything that's now available for the Echelon Platform, which is a lot, because they seem to be growing more and more popular. And of course, talk about that any issues come up along the way, especially when we started having some real fun with these things. And starting off with the performance, now that each of these has well over 2,000 rounds for them, not only in the videos I've done here on this channel, but I've used them over on the Iron Infidel channel. I've used them for testing all of the different products like the optics and that stuff you see here on these. So I've gotten to the point where I am very familiar with this thing. So let's talk about that performance, the accuracy, and all of the things you're gonna wanna know here. So the accuracy up front, I've taken these things out to a hundred plus yards before without issue. Now, granted, that's going to be a skill thing, but these pistols are going to be as accurate as me and you as human beings can be. And of course, if you want to mechanically test the ultimate accuracy of these things, you would need to put them in a ransom rest or something like that. But these machines are going to probably outperform just about all of us out there minus somebody like Jerry Michalik or JJ Ricasa or some crazy person like that out there in the world. Now, what about the reliability? Because anytime a new pistol comes out, that is a benchmark that has to be met. When you're talking about a duty pistol or a concealed carry pistol, you're gonna wanna walk around with out there all day. Now, having several thousand rounds through these pistols at this point, I have had a couple of stoppages and we'll talk about those. The initial one was caught in the video in the initial review and it was a stovepipe or a failure to extract and eject fully. Quick tap rack, went back to business after I caught that on film. Now I have had one more and there is one thing that is in common with every stoppage I've had pretty much over the past six to seven months with pistols and it's been the ammo type. It's all been this Turkish imported ammo, whether it was I think DSR or DRZ or ZSR or something like that. There's two different brands out there, but there's a lot of other stuff that's relabeled in those brands as well. And I've just not had good luck and that's been across the spectrum of brands of pistols. I've had squibs, I've had bad primers, I've had low powder loads. However, minus those couple of stoppages that was in my opinion, 100% ammo related, I've not had a single failure with either of these pistols to function in any way. Moving on to the shooting experience. How do these things actually feel and run out there on the range? And I will have to say I'm actually pleasantly surprised here because the shooting experience has been great. I have become quite a fan of these pistols, not only on how they run, but the feel of them and the overall package and the modularity. There's just a lot when it comes to these pistols. They've got the different colors out now. There are at least two companies that I know of that are gonna be making grip modules for these things that are gonna be very cool. I think at least one of them is going to be aluminum and the other one's gonna be polymer. They're coming out real soon. And then Springfield has their own grip modules out now with the different colors and they will be releasing a compact very shortly, I'm sure of it. At least that's what the rumors are out there. So you're gonna be able to put that modularity to work not only with the different grip sizes, but the different grip lengths and slide lengths real soon because that's the ultimate goal of a modular setup or chassis cog designed pistol. There are a couple of rules when it comes to a gunfight and that's going to be making holes, stopping holes and God forbid, plugging holes. Now HRT Tactical can help you with that. They've got an assortment of different plate carriers and armor available on their site along with all kinds of other soft goods to carry your kit around. They make those soft goods for your hard lifestyle. Make sure you check out HRT Tactical if you're in need of a plate carrier, duty belt or anything else to carry your kit. But these pistols run flat and they run fast right out of the box with just about every single option you could want when it comes to a striker fired pistol. You get that multiple optic mount system direct to slide. However, if you are going to run something like an Acro or a Steiner MPS, you will need a plate because I don't think there's a real way to mill the slide for an Acro and all of the different cuts at the same time. If there is, I would love to see it and see that as the next iteration of the modular pistol optics mounting system. You also get great grip texture, interchangeable back straps. You get those recoil reduction ledges up front, front serrations, rear serrations, night sights, metal sights right out of the box, threaded barrel option if you want to get the threaded barrel option. There's just a lot going on here. And of course that cog system or chassis system which means you can take the whole fire control unit which is the serialized part, put it in another grip module and have a compact or hopefully a compact long slide or a compact slide long frame. We will see where the options take us both from the factory and the aftermarket. And I'm sure that stuff is all coming real soon, like I said. And yes, I promise you, we are going to get to everything that you see on this and the other pistol once we wrap up their performance and the reliability here. So the last couple of options that are worth note here are the trigger. It's definitely a lot better than a lot of other striker fire triggers out there. Double undercut, accessory rail. So overall, the thing is just option packed. Now the performance again has been almost 100%. I relate the issues that I have had to that ammo. You can check that out for yourself, watch other people's review, get the best idea of what you can for yourself. The accuracy is there and overall, I've become more and more of a fan of the pistol as a whole because it runs nice, it runs fast, it runs flat and overall ambidextrous controls, it just gives you pretty much every option that a lot of people turn to the aftermarket for. Now talking about how these things are outfitted and what is on them, because there is a lot to go over between this one and this one right here. So what you want to see first, you have port comp, port comp, port comp, let's go port. So let's talk about what we have here starting down here at the Magwell Patriot CNC. Magwell in here, Patriot extensions right there. Very nice, very well machined. There's a little bit of difference between this Magwell and the Floyd's Magwell that we will get to in a second. Overall, gonna do everything you want a Magwell to do, which is provide you a little bit of pinky ledge, a little bit more of that surface area for those fast magazine exchanges. And of course that base plate gives you a plus of a couple of extra rounds in there. I think they've got standard, I think they've got plus two, plus fives, completely up to you on what you want to go with. Upstairs, RMR direct to the slide via that variable interface system. It's been solid, it has not come loose. It's performed exactly how I would expect it to because it's an RMR and it's direct to slide. It doesn't get much better than that. Surefire X300 up front, one of the best lights, if not the best light out there in the market. Definitely not the cheapest light out there in the market. Now, if you have a threaded barrel version from the factory or you decide to buy a threaded barrel because you can buy threaded barrels from Springfield that are factory, you can get that Patriot comp up front, which I will say absolutely performed out on the range and the lines of this thing and how it meets the slide are absolutely sick. It is a traditional comp design, so it is threaded on. And then you do have to use thread locker on the retention screws in there. So if you're in a thread restricted state, unfortunately that is not going to work for you at this time until you can get politicians to stop politicking and doing stupid things. Let's talk about the cost of the Patriot CNC stuff. So the magwell, about 75, I think that's pretty usual. And the mag extensions, I think are 25 to 30, depending on which ones you get, pretty standard for that. They're very, very simple to put on, single screw in the bottom, kind of a retention pin on the back, like the Terran tactical stuff. And then the comp up front here is going to be 75 ish bucks. I say ish because prices seem to be jumping around a little bit right now on things. So being that I film these videos sometimes months in advance, I don't want to be wrong on price. So overall for the options, very solid prices for the performance that you are gaining out of those small parts. Next up for my ported fans out here, a channel favorite, the Floyd's custom work here. I've had several things done by Floyd's, all of which have been top notch. So we have a Floyd's magwell around here in the bottom and the Floyd's extension. This is some of the nicest stuff out there in the market. He just does a fantastic job machining everything that he does. It's going to do everything you want a magwell to do. Very nice design on the magazine extensions. Again, I think he's got the standard plus two, plus three, four, five, whatever you want. It's got that stuff going on. Prices are going to be about the same 25, 30, depending on which one you get. Magwell's about 75. Ultimately super clean, very well executed there. Up front here, full slide package from Floyd's here. Went over the top with the serrations. Got that porting on the side. It's like a tri-port design that's angular and kind of towards the front and towards the rear on that slit. And the thing just runs top notch. Now we will get to which one I think, and my buddy Jonathan from Tactical Toolbox, thinks performed maybe a little bit better. But Steiner MPS on this one on the Acro footprint plate. So even though this is a direct to slide optic mounting system, if you've got the Acro, you've got to have the plate that goes with it. You get it from Springfield, you're good to go. Again, Surefire X300 out here. So overall, just a great overall setup that will definitely impress out on the range when it comes to the performance. Since we have two different Magwell's and two different extensions here, let's talk about what fits what. Now the Floyd's Magwell's fit the Patriot Magwell. However, the Patriot extensions didn't always play nice with the Floyd's Magwell. Left a little bit of a witness mark on the back because again, these magazine extensions from Patriot have that little nub right there. So what I did was just kind of jammed them up in there until it scratched a little groove or you can take a Dremel, knock a little bit out of the backside of that Magwell and they will fit fine. But here's the Patriot extension on the Floyd's Magwell. And as you can see, fits fine, locks in, has that little bit of movement that you want. However, you do have to kind of put a little surface scratch in your Magwell or something like that, which honestly you shouldn't care because you're gonna be driving a metal feed lip into that Magwell like that. So it's gonna get scratched anyways, don't be a baby or just go all Floyd's or all Patriot or Patriot on the Magwell and Floyd's on the extensions. You can do whatever you want. Just be aware that if you use the Patriot CNC extensions with the Floyd's Magwell, you might have to make a little witness mark in the center back portion of the inside of the Magwell when it comes to Floyd's. Other than that, the fit and the finish of all the parts from both of these companies was top notch. Now triggers, I don't have them yet, but I know there's at least two companies that may even be out by the time this video is out, but there are at least two companies. One of my personal favorites, Overwatch Precision, should have their trigger out for the Echelon soon. And I think Tyrant CNC is coming out with one soon as well. And I'm almost positive that one or two other companies is working on it, but I don't know if they're in the final design phase. So if those aren't out, they will be coming very soon. So did one perform better over the other? Because we always get that conversation of a comp versus straight up port. And for that, I'm gonna turn it over to my buddy, Jonathan, from Tactical Toolbox with a little bit of range session to see what he thought. Gear's not in. All right, let's try that again. So it's compared to like the standard Echelon. Oh yeah, it's a lot better. Super flat. So that one is the Floyd's Machine Shop. Yep. Yeah, that was a lot better. Tell me that's not better. Yeah, that's better. 100%. Like you can see it on the camera. Oh, it's so much easier to get a rhythm with it. Yeah. I absolutely thought that the comped version from Patriot performed better. However, this is a caveat because the version of the Floyd's porting I got with just the side ports right there, he now is gonna be offering the commander porting, which has the porting across the top, which is going to reduce even more recoil. However, for how these two were set up, the Patriot version right here did feel better. It felt like it ran a little bit flatter and I was able to run it faster and Jonathan felt the same thing. But what are our trade-offs here, right? Because there's always gonna be a trade-off. First of which being, look how long that thing is, right? As compared to that one right there. You can see there's a lot of muzzle sticking out past that. So if you don't plan to run a light and you don't want that flush look out there, maybe you care about that length. Maybe you don't, I don't know. But you gotta have a threaded barrel and you've gotta want that extra like over an inch. That's like an inch and a quarter longer. Or maybe you don't get something that runs as flat if you go with this porting and you're completely flushed or you go and wait for that other top port in there, a little bit more expensive. And you can run it that way if you wanna run it flush or have your light extended, completely up to you. But the cost stuff here on the Floyds, obviously since it's porting and the slide and the barrel, it's quite a bit more expensive. So with a single color Cerakote, I think it was 300 bucks. If you wanna nitride your barrel and your slide, which is what I did, I think it's 375 with the porting work. And then if you just want to leave it that kind of sexy two-toned polished silver look with the machine work, I think it's right at like 200 or two and a quarter for the porting on the barrel and the slide. So depending on if you want Cerakote or nitriding or leave it that bar stock look or whatever, your price could vary like 175 bucks or something like that. So double check into that as well, because again, the comp on there, if you already have a threaded barrel is like 75 bucks and me personally, it performed better than the porting, but we have that new version of porting as well with from Floyd. So, you know, you gotta pick and choose what you want. One being completely permanent and the other being not permanent. That's also a big factor to take into account as well. Now we were at that point in the video when we talk about, is there anything else that came up, things I noticed, things that should be changed, any other problems that arose, things that the internet has said about this pistol because I'm a few thousand rounds into these things, right? Like I said. So there is one specific thing that I noticed that I would love to see changed either by the aftermarket from the factory, the slide stop slide release here. It's ambi, it's really good, but I would like to see like 10% more on the size of it. And I think that would be just about perfect. So it's just a little bit small in my opinion. And I think they could have maybe like a slight edge on it kind of turned down because the way it is, it's just a flat ledge, just like this. So I think it could be a little longer and maybe a little bit rolled down on that side right there. Maybe that's just a me thing, but I've heard that from other people out there as well. There's nothing wrong with the way it is right now. Completely works. I didn't miss it, didn't have any problems, but I think having just a slight extension on there would be better. I'm a fan of extended controls. I usually put extended controls on most of my pistols. It doesn't cause a problem for me. It has caused a problem for other people because they hit them on accident, but I seem to do pretty good with them because I changed my grip immediately to match that control. Whether you're into that or not is completely up to you. There is something else that definitely needs to be talked about. So originally when these came out, there was a 20 round extension in the box with your Echelon pistol, polymer extension. And I myself installed that thing wrong in the initial video. And when I dropped the mag or put it in there, it came off. Well, I quickly picked that up, looked at it and be like, hmm, I bet that little retention plate is supposed to go over the back, not inside the magazine. And once I put the thing together right, it didn't happen again. My magazine didn't yeet the rounds all over like a PEZ dispenser on the range. However, a few people out there made videos talking about the magazines didn't work and they're flying apart and just repeatedly put the magazine together wrong without taking a good look at it and doing some critical thinking. And then we're like, oh, these magazines are bad, this and that. No, that's not a manufacturer issue, magazine issue. That was a, you failed to critically think while looking at the magazine and put that big, huge retention plate on the backside of it. Again, I did it as well, but it only took me one time to figure it out. And then I put it together right where other people didn't seem to get that point. So when something like that happens, yes, it's a new design. There were no instructions per se that I remember seeing in the box for that magazine extension, but I still have that same magazine. I've run that magazine a lot. And when it's put together right, it doesn't fail. So kind of a non-issue, but it did cause a lot of stink on the internet. Another thing that I have heard is somebody had something to say about the molding line that goes down the line of the pistol right here and how it was just, oh my God, there's this line from the mold in there because it's polymer. So there's always gonna be a mold line on that pistol and how their Glocks and their M&Ps or whatever pistol didn't have that. And I thought, well, that's pretty crazy because I've got about two dozen Glocks, multiple M&Ps and other pistols. And guess what? That little line is on every single one of them. However, I will say while inspecting all of my pistols, I noticed that it was least noticeable on the Glock 21 Gen 4 for some reason. However, that became a big stink and people started repeating that. And I think that had to do with somebody read something on the internet and failed to again, think critically and look at their other pistols and realize that that little line is just about on every single striker fired pistol in the world because you've got to mold that grip somehow and there's going to be a mold mark. Not an issue, but it seems to be that lit the forums of fire for a little bit and offended the senses of some people out there. Now to the inevitable questions that are going to come up in the comments, would I carry this pistol for self-defense? 100%, I'm completely comfortable with this pistol. In fact, I quite enjoy it and I've been carrying it more and more and I've been using it in videos and out there on the range more and more when I'm shooting with my buddies. Now, would I carry this thing for a duty pistol? 100%, I would have no issue carrying this thing at all. I would be quite happy, not only with the accuracy, the performance and the fact that it gives you about every single option you could want in a pistol. And since those options are from the factory, you don't have to worry about getting some little thing improved or approved, excuse me, by your command staff, like a good trigger, you know, stipple work, all that good stuff. It's already there in the pistol out of the box. Now, would I, or should you listen to a random guy on the internet about a life decision? No, absolutely not. Find other relevant data on these pistols on our video from trusted sources. Maybe go hands-on with this thing, get a feel for it if you've got a friend that has one or you can go rent one at the local range and see if the thing's gonna be for you. Find trusted sources of information though. I know personally, when I'm looking for something new and I don't have it and I wanna get a good idea of somebody that I'm gonna trust, I watch somebody like Honest Outlaw. I know him personally, does great reviews and he's a no BS kind of guy. It works or it doesn't. So if I don't have something, that's pretty much where I look right off the bat. I will say though, is when you're getting this information, you're getting opinions from people, don't listen to the one person out there or multiple people out there that might just tell you, go get a Glock. If somebody tells you that, not only is it lazy, it's just ******* stupid because they probably haven't thought critically enough to know that maybe the Glock doesn't fit you, maybe your wrist don't work with that grip angle and overall personal fitting of a pistol, a rifle and a shotgun should be taken into account. I think a little bit more than they are, but you just have those people that just default to their favorite brand or because they don't have the knowledge of other brands out there to whatever they think they know or read on the internet. However, there is one really great reason to have a Glock and that's to watch the ATF guy completely ---- the bed when he tries to take that thing apart on camera. And being in a firearms expert and completely fails to take apart the probably most simple breakdown process of a pistol in the history of pistols. So that is definitely one reason to just get a Glock.