At 10 yards, the bad guy stood no chance. Not with the Sig Sauer P365 XL Romeo Zero, plus Sig’s own Military-Grade 9mm NATO rounds.

Yes, the “bad guy” was a target, specifically a Birchwood-Casey Silhouette Bad Guy IPSC target. But the micro-compact P365 XL Romeo Zero was proving itself a formidable carry pistol — accurate, reliable and boasting an impressive 12+1 9mm ammunition capacity. 

And the Romeo Zero 3 MOA red-dot optic on the P365? It came already installed.

No doubt, customers have looked over your red-dot sights for handguns, liked what they saw, but didn’t actually buy one. In at least some of those cases, they skipped the purchase figuring that mounting the optic would be too much trouble. Or, they knew it would require a gunsmith and didn’t want the extra time and fee.

Sig Sauer has overcome this purchase hurdle with the P365 XL Romeo Zero semi-automatic with the optic preinstalled and zeroed. Sig is offering the preinstalled optics on several other pistols, too, at prices less expensive than it would cost to buy the pistol and the red-dot separately and then have a gunsmith install the optic.

“Sig Sauer is the only company that can truly integrate an optic and handgun together into a single system, with an optic already zeroed and ready to go right out of the box,” says Jason Wright, Sig’s senior director of brand management. “We paired the handgun with specific optics for top performance and increased accuracy in a way that is radically simple.

“And if you use Sig Sauer’s high-quality range and self-defense ammunition? You have a triple play that no one else in the shooting sports can provide.”

Welcome to what Sig is calling the “Red Dot Revolution.” Expect your customer base to be very, very interested.

Ready to Work

I used a P365 XL Romeo Zero at a half-dozen range sessions and asked friends to shoot it, too. In over 300 rounds, we never had a single malfunction, and the Romeo Zero always put us on target. At 10 yards offhand, I was able to shoot five-shot groups of 1.5-inches, and 1.0-inch groups at 5 yards.

For ammunition, I used everything from inexpensive FMJ range rounds and frangible ammo, to the above-mentioned Sig Military-Grade 9mm NATO and Sig’s Elite Performance Range 9mm.

I did have a concern about the pistol as a concealed carry option, though, and your customers might, too. Wouldn’t the optic get in the way for concealed carry?  

To find out, I carried the P365 XL Romeo Zero for a week, switching between two holsters made by Galco Leatherworks. The holsters worked fine, carried the pistol comfortably and put it at the proper angle for easy, efficient draws.

Piece by Piece

Sig debuted the original P365 micro pistol in January 2018 and it quickly became a favorite of gun writers, gun publications and, most importantly, gun buyers. The striker-fired P365 featured a 3.1-inch barrel and was designed around a 10-round magazine. Of course, this version is still being made by Sig.

Optic aside, the XL Romeo Zero model is much the same base handgun — striker-fired, with a stainless-steel frame and slide — but has a slightly longer barrel at 3.7 inches.

The P365XL is also considered the first P365 in the Sig X-Series, and as such sports a slightly extended beaver tail and a flat trigger. The grip is lengthened to fit 12-round magazines flush, whereas the P365 is about 3/8-inch shorter and fits 10-round magazines flush. The P365 XL models also incorporate Sig’s X-Series grip module for a comfortable grip and an integrated mag well.

My test pistol was the P365 XL Romeo Zero, SKU 365XL-9-BXR3-RXZ, which comes with two 12-round steel magazines. Sig also offers two Romeo-attached SKUs that are compliant for state laws in Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey and New York, plus a SKU with a 10-round magazine.

The Romeo Zero is made specifically for micro-compact pistols, and it runs on one CR1632 battery. Sig rates the battery life at 20,000 hours. You have to remove the optic from the pistol to install the battery but that is easily done with the removal of two Allen screws at the rear of the optic.

Elevation and windage adjustments are made via small Allen screws located on the left rear and top rear of the optic base, respectively. The Romeo Zero features eight daytime illumination settings.

The P365 XL also has a XRAY3 Front Sight post with a green dot in the center. The XRAY3 works very well at night when the red dot itself is off, showing up clearly and cleanly through the optic lens.

The only potential problem with the Romeo Zero optic is that customers with large fingers may have trouble with the tiny activation tab inside the optic frame and near the front. I had some difficulty pressing the tab myself using the tip of my index finger, but I found that the end of a car key, the Allen wrench used the adjust the red-dot, and numerous other small objects worked fine to turn the optic on and off.

Though it is a smaller pistol, the P365 XL’s trigger guard was actually very roomy. Using the pistol with gloves presents no problems. The trigger snaps off cleanly, and my Lyman Electronic Trigger Pull Gauge measured that pull at 2 pounds, 9 ounces on average. 

As noted, I carried the P365 XL for a week using two Galco carry holsters: the QuickTuck Cloud IWB Model QTC838B and the Tac Slide Belt Holster Model TS838B, an outside-the-waistband model. Both models were made for the standard P365 pistol and were not specifically designed for the optics model. Yet, both fit my XL Romeo Zero fine.

The Galco holsters carried the Sig comfortably and put the pistol butt in my hand when needed. I practiced drawing, and while I needed to accommodate for the additional height of the optic, I soon learned to pull back on my shirt or jacket just a bit more. This was easily achieved, I discovered, by slightly raising up the back of my thumb as the pistol came out of the holsters.

There are, of course, other holster options for the pistol, including a couple offered directly by Sig.

Helping You Sell 

First rule for selling the Sig P365 XL Romeo Zero: Make sure it has a charged battery! Customers need to hold the P365XL, aim it and see how easy it is to have the red dot come up to their eye.

Counter staff should stress the red-dot advantages over iron sights, including the fact that red-dots are generally faster to get on target versus iron sights where one must align the rear and front sights. The later takes more time, plus reduces the shooter’s field of view to the sights and what is directly in front.

With a red-dot, though, the shooter can keep both eyes open and can easily see to the sides of their targets — very important in self-defense and tactical situations.

Sig Sauer dealers are eligible for a good deal of in-store help to sell Sig products like the P365 XL, including point-of-purchase displays, stickers and patches.

“We’re also pushing out a very significant marketing effort on the Red Dot Revolution that is and will continue to be supported by editorial efforts, both in consumer facing print and digital editorial,” says Michael Marotte, Sig’s manager for media relations. “We have and will continue to produce video content, too, produced by Sig as well as our media partners.”

Sig’s growing line of optics-installed pistols will be appearing on television screens, including Guns and Ammo TV, the Handguns and Defensive Weapons show and the Guns and Gear series, to name but a few of the outlets.

As far as those other pistols, Sig now offers the Sig P320 full-size pistol line with the Romeo1Pro red dot, as well as certain P226 and P229 offerings. For 2020 and beyond, the company will be rolling out other models with pre-installed optics, too.

The Red Dot Revolution is coming your way. Be ready when your customers start asking about it.