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Field Ethos
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By Ron Dan
We love our expensive guns at FE. Higher cost doesn’t always mean a better product, but it does for the products we pick. When you spend $5k+ on a Nighthawk, you can rest assured knowing you’re getting more than your money’s worth out of that purchase. However, that same gun is probably not going to be the first gun I lend out to a buddy who just landed in town.
For a while we’ve been talking about perfect glovebox guns. These are the guns you keep in your car just in case you forgot to grab your carry gun, or your buddy just landed and he needs a loaner while he’s in town. One of my favorites for this is the Taurus GX2. It’s a great gun that is both reliable and ergonomic. At a street price of $200, it’s the least expensive of the options we recommend for a glovebox gun.
I recently put together the next tier of gun for my glovebox series at a price point of $400. I wanted an option that would be up to full modern standard with a red dot. The gun had to be reliable, accurate, and a legitimate carry gun that I could carry comfortably in everyday clothes. My first choice for this was the Taurus GX4 Carry T.O.R.O. I’ve been recommending the standard GX4 for years when someone wanted a micro-compact option at a reasonable price. The Carry version is the next step up in size and competes with the XL version of its most popular competitor. At a street price of $250 for the gun, this is a value that blows everything else away in the category.
Taurus GX4 Carry T.O.R.O. & SIG Romero-MDC Combo
To top off the gun with a suitable red dot, I needed something with the K-footprint, which is pre-cut on the T.O.R.O., and I needed a dot that I could trust for the abuse of training and daily carry. My standard choice for the K-footprint is the Sig Romeo-X Enclosed Compact, but at a price point over $400, this was out of my budget for this particular build. I got one of the new Sig Romeo-MDC dots. These are all-aluminum housings with a robust geometry and practical features like a top-loading battery and easy, tactile brightness adjustments. You can find these for under $150, and it’s a ton of optic for the money.
The GX4 Carry with the Romeo-MDC performed beautifully for both reliability and accuracy. With the gun being so thin, it’s going to spend some time in my training and carry rotation before transitioning over to a dedicated glovebox role. Fifteen years ago, you couldn’t get a reliable carry gun with an optic for less than $1,500. Today, I can put that together for almost a quarter of the price.
Price: Street pricing on the GX4 is around $250, and street pricing on the Romeo-MDC is around $150
Pros: Even if you are on the fence about red dots, this is such an inexpensive combo that will give you a good feel with very little money invested.
Cons: The dot on the Romeo-MDC isn’t the cleanest for my eyes but is still very practical for defensive applications. The trigger on the GX4 gives me irritation after high round counts but still allows for great accuracy.
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