Review of the SIG MCX Armorer Training Course

Back in July of 2016, I took the SIG P320 Armorer Course offered up by the SIG Sauer Academy.  It was a really great class that, as a pretty non-mechanical and non-do-it-yourself sort of guy, gave me the confidence that I needed to do more on my own with the SIG P320 platform.  I ended up doing PELT trigger replacements on three of my P320’s, and more recently a Grayguns Competition trigger replacement on my X-Five.  So when I noticed that another SIG Sauer Academy Armorer course for the MCX platform would be tought at the same local location at which I took my P320 Class, I signed up.  I probobly would have prefered to take the MPX Armorer course as I run that platform more often than I do my MCX (if only because there are more competition opportunities available using my MPX in PCC).  But, there are similarities between the MCX and the MPX platforms, as well as similarities with the MCX and the broader AR-15 platform.  So I saw the potential for a much broader application of the material I would learn.   It’s also hard to pass up a SIG Academy Armorer class that’s only about an hour away from my home at Vance Outdoors near Columbus, Ohio:

While there were many positives about the class, and I did pick up some helpful tips, overall the class was less helpful to me than the previous P320 class I took.  The instructor was excellent and did make the class enjoyable.  However, this class was the last one he’d taught that week, and his departing flight was booked earlier than expected.  So much of the material we went through in an abreviated manner.  There were some things that were in the course description on the SIG Academy website as covered topics which didn’t get addressed unfortunately.  “Sights: installation, adjustment” is one of the bulleted topics listed as being part of the class, but we never discussed sights.  Neither did we do much with magazines which is also part of the course description as an item for discussion.  Granted, the instructor may have deemed magazine disassembly and cleaning as a non-priority for the limited time we had.  But when it comes to cleaning and maintenance, I always like to see how the “professionals” do it to see if what I’m doing is correct or can be improved.  The instructor did say he cleans his magazines every time he cleans his rifle (which is about every 1000 rounds).  That gave me something to think about since I typically clean magazines once a year.

Each student was provided a technical/maintenance manual on the MCX.  Unfortunately, we really didn’t reference the manual at all during the course of the class.  While I wasn’t expecting the instructor to read the manual to the class, it would have been nice to refer to the manual from time to time, if for no other reason to get a sense of where to find things in the manual.  The manual itself is in a binder and nearly 200 pages in length.  We were told the manual goes into far greater detail on many topics than we’d ever need, which didn’t make sense to me.  Why didn’t the manual dovetail better with the material we learned in class?  I’m a visual person and require a visual reference when I do work in this manner.  It would have been great for me if we would have turned in the manual related to a given dissasembly/assembly proceedure when we performed it.  Instead, the instructor would have us gather around a table, and watch him perform a given proceedure, then we were sent back to our seat to do it ourselves.  That style of learning simply doesn’t work well for me.  The instructor of our P320 Armor class had GREAT photos he took himself and put up on a projector which really helped me see what things were supposed to look like while I performed that task.

We also spent time learning how to do things which I’ll never do on my MCX.  For instance, quite a bit of time was spent demonstrating how to remove and replace the ejector and ejector spring from the bolt assembly (a special vice/jig is required to perform this particular service).  Let me tell you…it’s a pain.  And it’s something I’m just not likely to ever, ever do on my MCX as a part of its regular cleaning and maintenance.  I’ll buy a new bolt long before it would be incumbent upon me to remove the ejector and ejector spring from the bolt.  I would have much rather spent more time discussing other topics related to general maintenance and cleaning.

So far I’ve mainly discussed the shortcomings of the class, but I don’t want to give the impression that the class was necessarily bad, or not worth the price of admission.  Becasue the class was valuable, even if I found it to be less so than the P320 Armorer course I’ve previously taken.  The instructor (Paul Braun) had great platform skills and was very patient and knowledgable.  I think that the combination of his early flight departure combined with what explained as a relatively new course and curriculum with the SIG Academy were the culprits.  I did get my SIG MCX Armorer’s Certification (good for 3 years) as I did in the P320 Armorer class I took, but I’ll be the first to admit I’m no armorer.  SIG lists these classes on their website as being “entry level” classes.  I take them to have a better understanding of how my equipement runs, and to better maintain my equipment.  And for that, both classes were valuable.