Today the Caracal ran a large variety or ammunition and added another 1500 rounds to the total round count. It is now up to 2500 rounds and has had one failure to extract issue. This was with the 147gr Federal FMJ and was the first round I fired with that ammunition. After that, the remainder of the 200 rounds ran flawlessly.
The day also included a mixed bag of defensive ammunition with at least 100 rounds of the following loads:
115gr Honrady Critical Defense
115gr +P Corbon DPX
124gr +P+ Hydra Shock Federal Premium
124gr +P T-Series Winchester LE
124gr +P Speer GDHP
147gr Speer GDHP
The start of the day and a sampling of the rounds to be fired.
The rest of the day was filed out using Winchester white box 115gr FMJ and Blazer Brass 124gr FMJ. With the exception of the FMJ 147gr problem on that one round, there were no other malfunctions attributable to the gun. I did have a 20% failure rate with the Hornady Critical Defense ammunition. Essentially, those loads were not powerful enough to cycle the action. In fact they felt like squib loads to me. I tried running a mag full through my always reliable P226-9 and it had the same problem so I am calling those issues ammunition related.
147gr Federal FMJ. 1 out of 200 rounds did this and is the only malfunction attributable to the gun. maybe…
I attached both a Surefire X300 and an Insight Procyon, splitting the rounds equally. I had several people shoot it that way and none experienced any cycling issues or changes in the POA/POI. The big test came when we tried to get it to malfunction. At least two dozen attempts were made to simulate limp wrist or recoil anticipation induced malfunctions. The gun ran flawlessly. We even tried shooting it upside down using only the little finger to activate the trigger and still had no issues.
The founder and original Director of the SIG SAUER Academy, George Harris, tried to get the Caracal F to malfunction to no avail. In the end, it earned a nod of respect and a, “I’ll have to get one of these.” from George, which is great praise.
We finished the day with 500 rounds of rapid fire. We ran the gun as fast as we could load and fire the magazines and it still continued to run. Overall it was another good day and I am happy to report that the Caracal has yet to be a disappointment. Several of the most curmudgeonly of the group even admitted that they are impressed with it and are making plans to add one to their collections. I would consider that praise enough if you consider that most of these guys are current or former operators who prize function and usability above all else when it comes to kit.
The rest of the testing is pure longevity, so unless there is some significant change in performance, I will check in with periodic updates, but based on what I have seen so far, it is holding up very well.
I have a friend who was involved in the original Caracal imports and bought one. I’ve shot it, and was impressed.
If only they would get a nice set of sites on that thing it would be a winner.