Springfield Armory Prodigy Compact
A Compact Go-Fast Gun
Muzzle still on target, one hand only, four spent casings
in the air — Prodigy Compact controllability in action.
Our firing hand wraps solidly around the short but substantial grip frame, its well-thought-out stippling secure in our hard grasp. Our support hand is a hard fist, palm up, under the pectoral muscle to add sympathetic tightening to a gun hand exerting a crush grip. The pistol is tilted 45º toward the non-dominant side, a technique attributed to the great Marine Corps champion Bill McMillan and popularized by world champion Ray Chapman, delivering maximum grip strength.
On the start signal, we fire as fast as we can. The red dot dances in the center of the target as the pistol seems to return itself to point of aim. A fountain of spent casings arcs through the air. The guns stay on target until the slide locks back empty.
We are shooting the new Prodigy Compact 15+1-round 9mm 1911 from Springfield Armory.
The gun comes with two 15-round magazines, which aren’t hard to fill up completely by hand, and which insert and lock easily and cleanly even when the slide is all the way forward. If that’s not enough, it takes the longer, higher capacity mags of its big brother, the full size Prodigy.
Accuracy testing encompassed these three loads — MagTech 115-, Remington 124- and Winchester 147-grainer.
Winchester 147-grain ammo gave the best 25-yard group and shot dead-on with iron sights.
Specs
My test sample, serial number NMP07084, came to me with a Vortex Defender-ST red dot sight already attached. Springfield Armory had already co-witnessed it with the excellent fixed iron sights consisting of a substantial front post with a big white circle around a green Tritium dot — yes, night sights included as standard! The high rear sight included a big U-notch.
Trigger pull? On the Lyman digital trigger pull gauge the weight averaged 5.6 lbs., an ideal range for a “street self-defense gun” intended to be used under extreme stress as opposed to a light pull best suited for target shooting. Re-set was short but not too short; there was the typical 1911 light take-up before hitting “the wall” of firm resistance to the trigger finger. The break was crisp and there was no palpable backlash. In short, just about ideal for self-defense use with a single-action semiautomatic pistol.
Sight radius, measured from the back face of the rear sight to the back face of the front post was 5.15″. Not a concern if you’re using the optical sight option, of course, but with the 3.3″ barrel on our test sample, it was still good enough for decent accuracy.
A spent case rockets past but the muzzle is already back
on target in the hands of pistol champ Gail Pepin.
Photo: Massad Ayoob
Range Time
Using a Caldwell Matrix rest on a concrete bench at 25 yards, I tested for accuracy with “three-three-three”: three brands of ammo, three bullet types and the three most popular bullet weights for 9mm Luger. Each group was measured twice, once overall for an idea what the gun/ammo combination could deliver for an experienced shooter under ideal conditions and again for the best three hits, which testing has shown to be an excellent predictor of what the same combo could do out of a machine rest. Most of our readers don’t have a Ransom Rest but can more easily find a bench rest to compare their results with ours.
Target ammo doesn’t surprise anyone when it shoots the tightest groups and it was represented here with Winchester 147-grain jacketed truncated cone bullet. Winchester popularized the 147-grain subsonic with their OSM (Olin Super Match) load in the late 1980s intended for maximum accuracy, and its variations have lived up to expectation ever since. This load shot dead-on for point of aim/point of impact with the fixed iron sights (the Vortex red dot optic was, of course, adjustable).
The five shot group measured 3.05″, with four of those in 1.30″ and the best three in 0.85″. That sub-one-inch cluster is an example of the “best three” measurement factoring out unnoticed human error.
Premium defense ammo was represented here with Remington’s top-of-the-line Golden Saber, in this case a 124-grain jacketed hollow point at +P velocity. A called flyer stretched the group to 4.90″, but the other four were in a much more pleasing 2.45″ and the best three measured 2.05″ center to center.
Low price training ammo was exemplified in this test by MagTech’s super-inexpensive steel case 115-grain full metal jacket round nose. The test gun didn’t group it nearly as well as the other rounds. Sometimes, guns are like people: Individual specimens of the same breed may have different tastes in what they are fed.
As noted, the 147-grain subsonic was just about dead-on with the test pistol out of the box, using a PIN (Post-In-Notch) sight picture. The 115 and 124 shot a bit low. This is typical, since 147 subsonic generally groups higher for me and most folks. Using the front dot instead of the top edge of front and rear sights — “driving the dot” in shooter parlance — can ameliorate this, since the dot sits very slightly below the top edge of the sight and can therefore bring the group up a little bit.
Recoil was soft with everything, noted unanimously by each tester including the five-foot-tall female who prefers XD(m) pistols to anything hammer-fired. Was it shootable?
Refer to the opening paragraph.
The “Easy to shoot fast …” Springfield Armory Prodigy
Compact was tested with this Vortex optic.
Prodigy Compact’s trigger guard stipple treatment is helpful if you are partial to the wedge hold as shown here.
Speed Racer
This pistol is fast. “Of course it’s fast, it’s a semiautomatic pistol!” Yeah, but hear me out for a moment. What I’m talking about is, it’s easy to shoot fast and to hit with at speed. With polymer grip and aluminum undercarriage it still weighs 25.5 oz. unloaded. That’s right at a quarter pound more recoil-dampening weight than a Gen5 GLOCK 19 with the same 15+1 payload of 9mm Luger rounds. The Prodigy Compact’s 1911 heritage gives it a low bore axis for less muzzle rise, and its 1911 trigger offers both short pull and quick trigger return for follow-up shots.
Everyone on the test team liked the subtle but effective stippling. I particularly appreciated they gave the same treatment to the front of the trigger guard and carried it down below the bottom front edge. Obviously, it facilitates the grasp some shooters like with the index finger of the support hand wrapped around the front of the trigger guard, but it also appeals to those of us who prefer to wedge that finger under the front of the guard, camming the muzzle upward.
One reason the 1911 is still with us, and why the 2011 is a hot seller, is the manual safety. For the properly trained and habituated user, it’s a defensive feature, not a bug. Countless good people who’ve had their guns snatched by felons are still alive today because the criminal didn’t realize it had a manual safety or couldn’t find the thumb lever, buying the legitimate user time to rectify the situation and regain control. By the way, the ambi levers on our test Prodigy Compact were a little stiff to “on-safe” at first but quickly wore in.
With an MSRP of $1,549, the Springfield Armory Compact is about half the price of comparable boutique guns in this category. The original Prodigy has been a best-seller and made a lot of friends. I predict the same will be the case with the Prodigy Compact.
