From first looks the Springfield Armory Echelon is built to be a contender in the already packed polymer grip striker fired pistol market. Drawing on design attributes made popular by predecessors in the market, like the Sig Sauer P320 and Glock 19, the Echelon is a pistol that is designed with aggressive slide cuts and a tactical aesthetic that gives it a look reminiscent of aftermarket builds. We gave it to some of our staff for a first look to grab their feedback and see what was working and what was left to be desired.
Our Staff
Our staff sample group consisted of 5 men and women with backgrounds including military veterans, law enforcement professionals, competitive shooters, and recreational gun owners. They offered their opinions freely with no other incentive than to provide honest feedback to our customers.
The staff gave us their favorite key features and areas where they thought the gun could improve.
What Did The Staff Like?
- Slide Cuts: The aggressive slide cuts were the first thing that caught our staff’s attention. Everyone loved the look and function of the slide cut.
- Ergonomics: The textured grip was noted by all hand sizes and grip strengths, with the ergonomics of the medium grip module making it easy to set up their grip and achieve a natural point of aim.
- Trigger: The definitive wall and crisp break were noted by shooters of all types.
- Magazine Capacity: The interchangeable baseplate that came with the pistol was a nice add-on rather than an aftermarket accessory they’d have to buy later.
- Front Sight: The yellow front sight was easy to pick up and index when presenting to a target.
The aggressive aesthetics and ergonomics stood out to our Staff.
Where Did The Staff See Room For Improvement?
- Rear Sight: The U-Notch rear sight with white outline was identified as a minor drawback to the otherwise solid offering by Springfield Armory. It’s U-shaped design is a departure from the typical three dot iron sight found on pistols.
- Disassembly: The removal of the Central Operating Group was noted to be more difficult than the similar Fire Control Unit made by Sig Sauer.
- Manufacturing Location: Manufactured in Croatia, our staff noted that they would like to see Springfield Armory bring the design work and manufacturing of this pistol back into the United States.
Key Features
The Springfield Armory Echelon is a polymer grip striker fired pistol chambered in 9mm. The Echelon features a trigger assembly called a Central Operating Group (COG) that is entirely self contained and is precision built from stainless steel. This Central Operating Group is interchangeable with grip modules that give a shooter the ability to swap between small, medium, or large grip modules to give a tailor made feel.
The Central Operating Group aims to contend with other trigger group modular pistols on the market.
Grip and Feel
The Echelon comes with three interchangeable backstraps each with an integrated armorers tool. The interchangeable backstraps are universal and can be installed on all three sizes of grip frames. Similar to the Sig Sauer P320 the Springfield Echelon uses a grip module chassis that you swap the trigger assembly into.
The grip module has an Adaptive Grip Texture that is advertised to feel more aggressive as pressure is applied. Our staff noted that the grip was reminiscent of the Hellcat Pro, feeling comfortable in the hand. Female staff members noted that the texture didn’t feel overly rough and that it wouldn’t tear up their hands.
The grip module frames are equpred with subtle double undercuts that give the shooter the ability to achieve a secure grip high on the frame, aiding in recoil management and grip mechanics from shot to shot. The grip module is designed to be ambidextrous that accomodates left and right handed shooters with full control of the slide stope and magazine release.
Unique to the Echelon are forward textured indexing points that allow a shooter to leverage their grip with lateral pressure into the frame of the pistol. This lateral pressure improves recoil management and the textured indexing points create a natural index location a shooter can train and reinforce for repeatable consistency for an extra-firm grip.
The ergonomics of the grip module and the enhanced texture give the frame a secure feel.
Trigger
With the precision manufactured COG chassis the Springfield Armory Echelon pistol takes the breathroughs of other manufacturers and builds upon them. The highly polished components allow for a smooth action with a crisp definitive feel as you press into the wall and break the shot. The oversize trigger guard of the grip module has enough room to operate the trigger with gloves on without feeling bulky or overdone.
The crisp break of the trigger was universal attribute noted by our staff with the defined wall and definitive reset as something that made this pistol standout in its first impression.
The trigger group drops into the grip module to create scalability between shooter’s hand sizes.
Slide & Sights
The Echelon’s slide has trench cut forward serrations on the forward and rear portions of the slide to create four distinct grip surfaces. The back of the slide is flared with rear serrations offering a wider footprint than typically found in polymer framed striker fired pistols. The pistol’s slide was thoroughly tested to create natural ergonomics for loading, press checks, and manipulating the pistol through courses of fire.
The Springfield Armory Echelon’s slide is optics ready with a new Variable Interface System (VIS) for mounting red dot optics to the Echelon’s slide without adapter plates. This VIS allows users to mount over 30 optics by simply configuring the self-locking pins to the footprint of the optic being installed. Springfield Armory’s new optics mounting system is unique to the market in allowing users to not get pigeon-holed into hole pattern ecosystems found with the Delta Point Pro and Trijicon RMR.
The slide comes with a hammer forged barrel in both a 4.5” standard and 5.28” threaded barrel with ½ x 28 thread pitch configuration. The ½ x 28 thread pitch is typically found in most suppressors like SilencerCo’s Omega 9K , DeadAir Wolfman, and Sig Sauer MODX-9. The barrels are all coated with Melonite for corrosion and wear resistance with a forging process to product a stronger barrel for longer service life.
The slide comes standard iron sights equipped with a U notch rear sight with Tritium front sight. Springfield Armory’s new VIS allows for the iron sights to be co-witnessed with any optic mounted to the slide. There is also a three dot tritium sights model available.
The Echelon comes with a unique baseplate configuration allowing for the mounting of 30 different optic types.
Magazine
The Springfield Armory Echelon features a magazine that comes standard with 17+1 capacity in its flush fit configuration. The Echelon also features an extended base pad to give it additional capacity of 20+1 rounds. There is also a low capacity 10-round model available for additional purchase making the pistol compliant for states with high capacity limitations.
The magazines come in a standard 17 round configuration with a baseplate extension.
What is it good for?
The Springfield Armory Echelon is a very adaptable duty pistol. At 17 rounds or more the Echelon isn’t your typical concealed carry option, although the gun’s size would make it possible with the right concealment garments. The features are packed into this highly configurable and adaptable handgun, Springfield Armory will likely roll out additional accessories and configurations to expand the Echelon’s applications.
Final Thoughts
The Echelon is a unique offering that blends features from popular pistols and compiles them into one package. Aware of this, Springfield Armory has specifically noted in their marketing that the Control Operating Group and critical components have been explicitly tested up to and beyond SAAMI drop test parameters with zero issue or malfunction. They cite a unique secondary sear design to mitigate any risks and prevent unintentional discharge should the firearm be dropped.
There are unique attributes to the Echelon that are noteworthy in their advancement. The innovative variable interface system that the echelon employs eliminates the reliance on adapter plates and opens up a shooter’s ability to move optics from one gun to another regardless of mounting screw hole pattern. Any effort to simplify a pistol’s optics mounting system is a welcome innovation.
For the average recreational shooter the Echelon is a ready to go out of the box solution for those who wish to have the tactical aftermarket aesthetic at a very reasonable price. At $679 MSRP for the most base model the Echelon is a perfect gun to blend the best elements of the Sig Sauer P320 and Glock 19 and compete with other striker fired duty pistols. Our staff had high hopes that this highly adaptable handgun would prove reliable through long days at the range.
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