Springfield Armory Echelon Pro Comp Review: 550 Rounds Through the Upgraded 9mm
The Echelon series from Springfield Armory has continued to grow and evolve. Their latest evolution is the Pro series. The Pro keeps the same Echelon design with a few external improvements. Springfield Armory sent me the Echelon Pro Comp, which is the compensated model, to take for a spin.
Springfield’s making three Pro models: the Pro 4.0C Comp, the Pro 4.0FC Comp, and the Pro 4.5F Comp. I have the 4.5F Comp, which is the full-sized model. It comes with the same features that set the original Echelon apart, including the VIS optics system, the removable serialized COG, and ambidextrous controls.
What’s New With the Echelon Pro Series
Adding a Comp to the Echelon isn’t new, but the entire Pro series is comped. The most noticeable change is the Badlands texture, which uses a series of circles with a rough finish for slip-free grip. The Badlands title references the American Badlands, and it’s designed to look like cracked earth. It’s laser-applied and looks and feels good.
Keep following the grip, and before you fall off the edge, you run into a magwell. It’s quite large and made to funnel magazines into the gun. If you don’t like it, no worries, it’s easy to remove. It works well with the three included 20-round magazines. However, with Echelon flush-fit mags, it might be tricky to use.
The slide is Cerakoted grey on top, creating a subdued two-tone appearance. It’s not a huge upgrade, but it does make the Pro series stand out at first glance. On top of the slide, we have a new set of sights. The rear sight is blacked out and textured, and the front sight his a night sight with a bright orange day-bright insert.
Inside, Springfield didn’t change much. They swapped the guide rod for a stainless steel model and other than that, the Pro models are identical internally to the standard guns. The typical Compensated Echelon has an MSRP of $784, while the Pro series has an MSRP of $899.
That’s a hundred-dollar difference, which seems too out of line. A 20-round Echelon mag costs about half that, and the Pro series does come with one more magazine than the standard Echelon. It will be up to the end user to decide whether the extra features are worth the moola.
Throwing Lead With the Echelon Pro Series
First, I added a red dot. Specifically, a Swampfox Kraken 2. The Kraken 2 attaches to an RMR plate, and attaching the RMR plate to the Echelon Pro was super easy. The VIS system uses removable pins that act as recoil bosses aligned with a cheese grater-like pattern of threaded holes for attaching your optic, or plate in this case.
Adding a red dot meant zeroing it. I zeroed at 15 yards, and while zeroing, it’s a great time to observe mechanical accuracy. I take my time, ensuring every trigger press is perfect. Like the original the Echelon Pro was consistently accurate, it can stack rounds into a 3×5 card at 15 yards offhand.
At 25 yards, a 10-inch gong was light work. At 50 yards, I could hit C-zone-sized steel rapidly. As soon as the dot settled back on the steel, I let it go, and every round rang out. As I switched to a more rapid style of shooting, I remained impressed by how easy it was to keep my shots inside of tiny targets.
Riding The Recoil
Springfield Armory calls this a compensated gun, and a lot of companies use the same language for similar designs. With that said, is this really compensated, or is it ported? The cut is in the barrel and slide, much like porting. With that said, does it make a difference?
I had a standard Echelon to shoot it side by side with. I started shooting some short four-round strings, but going as fast as I could. It feels like it makes a difference. The muzzle rise feels easier to control, but the timer difference wasn’t much. We are looking at a .10 of a second difference at most.
Comps don’t typically do much for the lower-powered 115-grain ammo, so I traded up for some 9mm NATO rounds. The 124-grain rounds are a little spicier, and that’s where the difference was more pronounced. In those 4-round strings, I was seeing .17 to .22 differences, which is an entire split time worth of time.
I worked my way through a few doubles trying to minimize my time between shots. I kept my split at .20 or below, with both shots hitting a 3×5 card at seven yards. When shooting one-handed, that’s where I noticed the best benefit it makes a big difference in that discipline. The dot sight resets nicely, getting right back to where I want it between shots.
Using a Safariland Gravity holster, I ran some Bill Drills. I got 2.2 seconds cold, with my draw slowing me down more than anything else. I could probably push the gas a little faster and not obsess so much about tight groups when the goal is just an A-zone.
The Reloads
Does the magwell make a big difference? On a full-sized gun, I didn’t notice much of one. I’m not the fastest reloader, but my time didn’t change between the two guns. One thing I love that gives me problems is the slide lock/release.
I love the shelf-like nature of the slide releases. It makes it easy to press rapidly with my firing-hand thumb, which makes reloads easy. The downside is that I often rest my thumbs on the slide locks, so they don’t lock the slide on the last round.
It’s more of a me problem, but I wanted to note it.
Getting Dirty
After all of those reloads in beach-like sand, I didn’t have a single malfunction. The magazines are gritty and sandy, but they didn’t fail. Neither did the gun. We went through 250 rounds of 124-grain NATO rounds and another 300 of Monarch Steel-cased 115-grain ammo. No malfunctions occurred, except for one primer not igniting with the Monarch ammo.
The Echelon Pro In Color
If you’re an Echelon fan, the Pro Comp is a slight upgrade. If you’re Echelon curious, it’s a great place to start with the series. This full-sized model might be a bit big for concealed carry for some people, but it’s a solid defensive pistol. It’s accurate, controllable, reliable, and packed with modern features.
The Echelon Pro certainly strikes a chord when it comes to being a good-looking gun. I like the grey finish and Badlands texture. It looks good, and it works. We are at a point where there isn’t much companies can do to make their firearms drastically better.
We’ll see incremental improvements, and that’s what the Echelon Pro represents: small but noticeable improvements to a platform that’s been quite popular. Does the Pro do it for you? Let us know below!
About Travis Pike
Travis Pike is a former Marine Machine Gunner, a lifelong firearms enthusiast, and now a regular guy who likes to shoot, write, and find ways to combine the two. He holds an NRA certification as a Basic Pistol Instructor and is the world’s Okayest firearm’s instructor.
