By Mike Cummings
U.S.A. –-(libertyreport.co)-
On Tuesday August 22th, 2017 I had an opportunity to speak with Bruce gray, the owner of
Grayguns via phone conversation. Grayguns is a custom gunsmithing company based out of
Spray, Oregon that specializes in work with the traditional wood and steel pistols as well as
polymer based guns.
Bruce is a semi retired from competitions and enjoys not only intellectual conversations, but
getting his hands dirty using a file. Many of his most significant brainstorms have come at the
local cafe or at dinner with his wife, Rebecca, and where he scribbled the idea on a napkin.
Bruce is very active in social media platforms and reaches out and helps customers and non-
customers alike in trouble shooting minor issues and giving solid advice when it is warranted.
Mike– In the Sig world, you have earned a stellar reputation. What was your inspiration to get
into gunsmithing?
Bruce– I want to preface our conversation in saying the reputations as I enjoy as a person is
really built on the backs of an awful lot of people that have hung with me and just an amazing
job building the Grayguns company. There are 15 other people within the Grayguns family right
now. I can’t forget a whole bunch of other people that are contractors, friends, shooters , and
law enforcement that I have an enormous respect for that make the company look really, really
good.
I wanted to be an oceanographer actually or something in the hard Sciences but putting math
to your data became a struggle. I felt assistance in college I wanted to be a scientist but I
wanted to be an oceanographer actually or something in the hard Sciences for house and you
know you can’t really do much of a scientist if you can’t put your metrics into to your data.
Math is not my strong suit so naturally I went into a profession that is all math. With all
the internal and external ballistics, measurements, and designing items it’s kind of ironic.
the real story started in high school. The owner of a camera shop I worked in during High
School on as a hobby handed me a 99 Krag that needed a firing pin. I didn’t know Numrich Gun
Corp existed, and I set off using a borrowed lathe to successfully make a firing pin. the owner
turned around and gave me the rifle and it was my Mr. Miyagi moment and from there, Lord
willing, I’ve developed a passion for it and a certain amount of interest and basic Talent if you
will. That was 43 years ago.
Mike– Can you talk about what advantages modern firearms have today over the Firearms of
yesteryear?
Bruce– In comparing the 320 and modern firearms to say a Browning hi-power that had a
service life of eight to twelve thousand rounds, the quality is simply a product of superior
design. Sig Sauer can make the P320 competitively for a very affordable price and offer people
something that guns of the seventies were not able to accomplish at almost any price. You
could not get a high-quality double stack 9mm pistol to go nearly as many rounds as some of
the competitive shooters put through from Team Sig Sauer in the
competitive USPSA action we’re putting through the gun in a season. Mason Lane specifically
who shoots for Sig Sauer Academy has 50 or 60 thousand plus rounds through one particular
gun and no issues. The modern polymer frame service pistols and metal frame P-
Series predecessors are truly vastly Superior for their intended use compare to what I had in
1974. I build 1911’s as works of functional art, but I no longer really truly feel that that it the
relevant go to choice for somebody to carry. There are more modern and cost effective pistols
that will do what you need for a great value.
Mike– The p320 is exploding in popularity. From winning the MHS Contract to being the best
selling non-rebate eligible gun in June 2017, what advantages does Grayguns tuning give 320
shooters?
Bruce– Out of the box, the P320 is a perfectly capable service pistol. Anybody with any interest
in self-defense and protection can and should be able to clean it and lube it appropriately get
some training get the right holster and shoot the gun exceptionally well. my initial impression
of the P320 wasn’t quite as confident because it is an unusual gun. It’s trigger mechanism is
truly unique. Roy who was employed by my shop, said “It looks like it’s built from parts from a
VCR player.”
I have come around to believe that is truly exceptional. We are not doing anything to
make them better, as we do nothing to improve the reliability of the basic P320. With very few
exceptions such as magazines, ammunition, or the occasional Compaq extractor issue which is
been resolved, we have had no problems. The carry package back in my day was quite a few
hours spent making sure the gun even worked. Reliability is now off the table. After a half a
million rounds through Team Sig, breakages included a few striker reset springs and bending of
parts from being cleaned and maintenance, it turns out to be a bag list that is inconsequential
compared to the round clown. And we never had one that had a major failure. It’s hard to say
that about most other major service pistols today.
For those Elite users, we have developed a patent pending system that preserves the
original Factory safety values at any trigger pull weight you wish to achieve. the P320 does not
lend itself to traditional Gunsmithing approaches. without compromising the
potential mechanical safety of the pistol. We came up with a mechanism that allows us to get
to the trigger pull weight that we want and get to feel we want without sacrificing any inherent
mechanical safety characteristics that makes this gun successful.
Mike– Word on the street says you had a part in the development of the P320 X5. Where did
the inspiration come from to develop a pistol that truly pushes not only the rules of ISPC,
USPSA, and IDPA but the striker fired platform?
Bruce– The development of the X5 was not all Grayguns. Jeff Kramer, who was the director of
product management at Sig Sauer going back to July from 2014, reached out to me and
ask me to help them with the project. The project included sitting down with Jeff, John
Rosner the sitting director of product management at Sig Sauer, Ron Cohen the president
and CEO of Sig arms laid out the skeleton of what would be the competitive version of the
P320 to helped popularize the gun and give it more capability. They very generously ask Greg
guns for help.
Team Sig Sauer was formed to help develop this pistol and make it ideal for
competition. Roy Nelson of Grayguns designed the initial grip module. a lot of hours, epoxy,
filing and dremmeling when to the design which houses the largest magazine well Allowed by
competitive shooting organizations For production divisions. we built the grip module
around ergonomic values synthesizing from the guns that were beating Sig at that time in
competition, that is the shape that makes sense.
We’ve Ended work on Bull Barrels and slide mass and tested for optimal slide Mass. Yong Lee and Annette Evans really helped develop the ideal slide giving invaluable input to work with their body styles of recoil and how flat the
gun needed to be. we presented our findings to Sig Sauer and their engineering team produced
everything that we wanted as competition shooters. This means being competitive against not
just other striker-fired pistols, but anything in production division competition. in my
opinion, the P320 X5 is an F-86 Sabre jet in a world of prop-driven planes.
Mike: That leads me in to the recent voluntary recalls Sig Sauer has put out. What is Grayguns
doing to work around the issues that have been acknowledged by Sig Sauer with the P320 even
though they have passed all the industry standard tests?
Bruce: I am not at liberty to say exactly what our potential options for our customers will
be, but we have definitely been working on a variety of options. Our principal focus right now is
to help people continue to have complete confidence in the firearm they bought and to
preserve the value of what they paid. Whether it is by the original pistol, a competition
upgrade, or in the form of aftermarket accessories, we want to make sure people feel strongly
as we do that what you bought is a good gun and to be confident in Grayguns commitment to
reinforcing the quality of the gun. We will have an announcement regarding that very shortly.
Grayguns will take care of our customers and all the people involved with the recall and
do right by them. Whatever that takes as I hear retirement is boring. there’s a whole lot more
work to do and this experience is going to make us, gray guns as well as Sig Sauer
better. there’s a lot of blood, sweat, and hours in research and development working things
through.
Mike: That’s great to hear. I look forward to the end product Grayguns comes out with!
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Bruce: Yes, as a matter of fact. I want it on the record that I carry a Glock 22 on duty and
happened to shoot Glocks very well. I seriously didn’t ounce these partisan bias that people
seem to have developed in relation to a company’s products. This does not make for a
very polite conversation, and these actions
Mike: Thank you for your time.
Bruce. Thank you.
————
Michael Cummings is a drivers education and World History 1 teacher at IDEA Public Charter School of Washington DC. He is also a second amendment advocate pushing for the training and competencies regarding firearms in all opportunities.
