The P365 is a striker fired, short-recoil handgun with a stainless steel slide, treated with a black Nitron finish, and a polymer frame. The slide has serrations on both front and back for easy slide manipulation. The polymer grip accepts a double-stack 10-round, 12-round, or 15-round magazine. The magazine is released by a triangular button on the grip located at the undercut trigger guard section. Per SIG Sauer, the P365 has the lowest bore-axis ratio of any handgun currently made. Sights are green tritium three-dot night sights that are made of steel and are capable of being used to cycle the slide in the case of one handed use being necessary. Aiming is by combat sighting. A proprietary rail is located below the barrel. Both red and green lasers and a light will be offered as accessory items for this proprietary rail. Adapters to convert the propriety rail to a standard rail for use with standard rail accessories are also available. Disassembly requires no tools and does not require that the trigger be pulled. For Massachusetts Attorney Generalcompliance requirements, a model with a manual safety and loaded chamber indicator is available. In May 2019, the P365-MS, a model with a manual safety, was made generally available.
Comparisons
The grip encloses a stainless steel fire control unit similar to that in the SIG Sauer P320. Due to drop-safe issues with the P320 in 2017, the P365 was drop tested over 500 times using an enhanced testing protocol which dropped the pistol at different angles from varying heights to ensure that no such problem would occur. The striker firing system is nearly identical to that in the P320. The short recoil locking system is the SIG Sauer System created by SIG Sauer in 1975 for a Swiss Army contract by the then-existing Swiss Industrial Group. The SIG Sauer System improved upon the Petter-Browning system used in the French Modèle 1935A, which SIG had licensed from SACM in 1937 and used in the SIG P210 handgun design, but is not the same system, having been considerably improved upon. Compared to the SIG Sauer P290, the P365 is slightly larger and has a lighter striker trigger pull of versus the P290 at. The P290RS has a restrike capability, but also has a long double-action only trigger pull. The takedown system is similar to that of the P320, in that a lever is turned down with the slide locked back to release the slide from the frame. A P365 with its optional 15 round magazine is 0.46" taller than a Glock 19 with its standard 15 round magazine.
Variants
P365 XL
In June 2019, the P365 XL was released. It utilizes the same fire control unit as the P365, while having a larger grip module that accepts 12-round flush magazines, a flat trigger, and a longer slide and barrel. The rear sight on the P365 XL slide is removable, to allow a red dot sight to be attached. The slides and frames of the variants are interchangeable; for example, the longer slide of a P365 XL can be used on a P365 frame and vice-versa.
P365 SAS
In October 2019, a SIG Anti-Snag version of the P365 was released. It has a ported barrel and slide, no front sight, flush takedown and slide catch levers on the frame, and an embedded and flush fiber optic sight at the rear. Other than a slight reduction in height, the SAS variant has the same dimensions and weight as the original P365.
