Springfield Echelon - Glock 17 Killer or Over Hyped?

There's been a lot of hype around the Springfield Echelon, positive and negative, as springfield made a huge marketing push earlier this year around their latest pistol. GunTubers all over were reviewing this thing. Ones that received one for free raved about it. Ones that didn't receive one tore it to shreds.

I have no association to Springfield, so I can remain unbiased. I wanted to wait until the pistol was out for a few months before doing a review to see if any major issues would emerge from the community. I recently rented one because I wanted to see if the positive and negative hype that was initially all over GunTube was well founded. To be entirely honest, I think most in the community got it wrong.

The most optimistic reviews said this would be the new Glock and Sig P320 killer. Being a chasis based system we all had dreams of an Echelon Raider. Some were claiming that this pistol was phenomenally better than glock in terms of factory operation.

Negative reviews really railed on problems with the extended magazines that shipped from the factory. Others were reporting frequent malfunctions.

In my opinion the optimistic reviews got it more right, if a little bit exaggerated. Let's start with the pros. You guys know i really like glock. I shoot a 34 in competition. I conceal carry a 26. I've built a ton of 19 clones. The echelon feels like a gun built for glock guys, which is a really good thing.

It actually is more ergonomic than Glock, it is very comfortable to grip. Its pretty similar to CZ in this sense, but I actually found the Echelon to be more comfortable. It has a 360 degree stipple which I really like, the accelerator area of the frame is also stippled although not cut.

The pistol operationally feels a lot like glock in the way that it handles. I wouldn't say its better or worse, its about the same, which is a good thing.

One big advantage is the chasis system. Ideally, you'd be able to switch out multiple grip modules similar to the Sig P320, or turn this thing into a PDW like the flux raider. That is the real draw of the P320, modularity. The P320 has a major problem though, it has a super high bore axis because the fire control unit takes a ton of grip space. With Springfield, I didn't notice this issue. It felt like the bore axis was still fairly low, which is why it shot as well as glock does. However, the Echelon as of the editing of this video doesn't have nearly the same after market as the P320, so the chasis system isn't really a major factor going for this pistol as of a half year since it's release.

The pistol has a lot of great features. The sights are excellent, also better than stock glock. The U-Notch rear sight is nice, the tritium front sight is great. Coming from the factory optics ready is a huge plus. The steel magazines are nice, the flush fit mags hold 17 rounds just like a stock glock 17 magazine. The controls are simple, almost exactly where they would be on Glock. Jumping from Glock to the Echelon and vice versa is really easy to do.

The trigger on the echelon is also really nice, similar I would say to the Glock performance trigger in terms of feel.

So I'll say this, the Echelon primarily feels like an upgraded Glock. However, it isn't so much better than glock that the pros would outweight glocks massive after market. From holsters to parts to other accessories, Glock has by far the biggest after market support of any platform. The echelon about half a year in doesn't have nearly the after market support I would hope for, so in this sense even if it performs a little better, it doesn't kill either Glock or the Sig P320.

The pistol has some nice upgrades but it doesn't feel significantly by leaps or bounds better than its competitor pistols. I will say if you're starting from scratch it isn't a bad choice, its actually in my opinion Springfield's nicest striker fired pistols, and I've been a long time XD owner. This is a huge upgrade over the XD. But I wouldn't say that it is significantly better than say a Glock 17, and lacking major after market support, I'd still go with glock over the echelon.