MY IMPRESSIONS
Springfield Armory firearms have never let me down, and the Saint Victor appears well made like all the rest. It is hefty but well balanced, with a substantial handguard. This carbine comes up with authority and points well.
My two favorite features of the Saint Victor 9mm are its B5 Systems furniture and its flat-faced trigger. Springfield Armory could have used a mil-spec collapsible stock but chose to upgrade to a B5 Systems stock. It is adjustable for five positions and has a textured butt plate and ambidextrous cheek piece. Good cheek-to-stock weld is important for accuracy and control. The B5 pistol grip is oversized and textured, and the bowed trigger guard allows fat, gloved fingers to find the trigger.
I love a good trigger on my target rifles, and this nickel boron flat-faced trigger feels great and looks sharp. The single-stage break is crisp and has no takeup. It is a bit on the heavy side at over 6 pounds but can be mastered with some practice. I have made some amazing shots out to 100 yards with this carbine. The adjustable length of pull, cheek rest, and flat trigger bring it all together.
Other nice features of the Saint Victor are the ambidextrous safety and pop-up iron sights. My other AR platform rifles have right-hand-only safeties, and the ability to engage the safety from either side is convenient.
More Features
Springfield Armory includes high-quality peep sights that fold flat on this carbine. Irons can be accurate and more rugged than a red dot sight, and these all-metal sights are tough. The rear sight is windage adjustable with felt click increments like those found on the M1A rifle. You can be sure of your adjustments with this system. The front post adjusts for elevation with a cartridge tip like a standard AR rifle.
Although this Saint Victor is chambered for a pistol cartridge, the long handguard defines the gun as a rifle. It is covered in M-LOK slots for versatile accessory attachment. The flat, anti-glare top will reduce glare and mirage when sighting with iron sights.
Under that handguard is a 16-inch Melonite barrel with a threaded muzzle capped with Springfield Armory’s muzzle drum. The front ports drive escaping gases forward to move the sound signature away from the shooter. I appreciate its functionality but love the look of it, too.
Unlike the gas-operated AR-15 rifle, the Saint Victor is a blowback action firearm. Its bolt lacks a bolt carrier and is a single heavy unit that absorbs rearward energy of the 9mm round. I attribute the carbine’s reliability to its cone-shaped breech, which enables the Saint Victor to accept many bullet styles with no failures to feed. Other carbines with flat breech faces cannot say the same.
THE MAGAZINE
The magazine is the heart of any semi-automatic carbine, submachine gun, or pistol. It must be well-made, rugged, and function on every shot. Springfield Armory knows this and wisely decided to use the well-known Colt-pattern 9mm submachine gun magazine.
The design copies the Thompson submachine gun mag. Most pistol magazines are single-feed, but the Thompson is double-feed and always has two rounds coming up in tandem. It is a reliable system. The magazine used on the Saint Victor is identical to the Thompson magazine but downsized to fit the 9mm cartridge. It holds 32 rounds and has witness holes on the left side to show remaining rounds.
My big gripe with this magazine is that it is extremely difficult to load without some sort of loading tool. These can be a thumb-breaker and very tedious. I found a simple solution and used a Craftsman screwdriver to help push the rounds into place. I can then load the needed 32 rounds into the magazine.
The LULA magazine loader by Maglula would be a good choice to make this chore more pleasurable, but I unfortunately did not have one for testing.
SPECIFICATIONS
- Weight: 7 pounds
- Length: 31.5 inches collapsed, 35 inches extended
- Barrel: 16 inches, Melonite, 1:10 twist, 1/2x28 threaded muzzle
- Trigger: 6 pounds, 11 ounces; flat-faced; nickel boron
- Safety: Ambidextrous
- Sights: Metal folding sights adjustable for windage and elevation
- Handguard: 15 inches, free-floated M-LOK
- Picatinny Rail: 6 inches
- Stock: B5 Systems, five-position adjustable
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Magazine: Three 32-round steel double-feed mags included
Range Report
For this test in Area 52, Arizona, targets were steel plates at 20 to 40 yards with many 2-liter soda jugs in between. Ammunition was Winchester bulk-box 115-grain FMJ, Winchester Defense 147-grain HP, and PMC Bronze 115-grain HP to test the Saint’s ability to shoot any style bullet.
Remember to give a fully loaded magazine a good rap when you insert it into the magazine well so it will lock into place and not drop out. The magazine adds substantial weight to the gun, but I like that. It remains stable while shooting my steel plates at 20 and 40 yards. Felt recoil is noticeable despite the weight of the gun. The blowback action is different than a gas-operated AR-15.
The empty magazine locks the bolt back as it should, and the magazine drops out quickly when released. Now reloaded with HP ammo, I take out the 2- liter soda jugs. They explode nicely and the third one blows up 20 feet into the air. HP 9mm ammo is devastating. This carbine would certainly make a good home-defense gun.
My Vortex Crossfire red dot with high mount is a good choice for the Saint Victor. With the help of the B5 cheek rest and stock, it comes up to my eye naturally. Wherever I point the red dot, a bullet is sure to follow. Final mag dumps on steel at 20 and 40 yards with assorted HP ammo showed the carbine’s ability to handle any load. Empties were ejected 10 feet to the right into one pile. Expending 96 rounds in three magazines was fast, fun, and costs less than .223 ammo.
Accuracy on paper at 25 yards showed decent grouping. Ten shots were fired from my Vortex tripod and grouped within 2x2 inches, with a single flyer that took it to 3.5 inches. This is decent accuracy for bulk ammo, and I am sure the Saint will tighten up with better ammo.
