Sig Sauer P226 X Five Open - v - Standard

[Mark D]

I know that this pistol has attracted a few comments on here and today being in Crawley I had the chance to visit Crawley Surplus Store and have a look at both the standard X Five and the X Five Open.

For those that are not aware of the differences, this is what I observed upon close examination that the 'Open' has over the standard model:

.Compensator
.Adjustable Rear Sight
.Magwell
.Undercut & Taller front Sight
.X Mount (for mounting red dot )
.Larger bumper on mag

That is it, the guns are otherwise identical. There are however a few things to note:
The brass inner barrels are the same length, so the compensator adds nothing but length and weight, it is fixed by a grub screw, so should be removable. The mags take 18 rounds are interchangeable between standard and open models. The slide is machined at the back to take the adjustable rear (copy of bomar) so that it sits lower.The mag will take lead ball, I put gamo in mine and it fits The mag is a pain to load as you have to hold the follower down, as they have not fitted it with a means to lock down. The position of the rear sight means that in the hammer fully down position you cannot cock it with your thumb as its under the back of the sight,you can get round this by slight pressure on the trigger which shifts the hammer a few mm so that you can reach it with your thumb. This issue does not apply to the standard model.

The pistols are solid and appear well made with good weight and balance. The sight gap on the 'Open' model is narrow, as you would expect of 'target' sights and wider on the standard models 'combat' sights the front sight of which has a white dot, but strangely no dots on the rear.

I have not had the opportunity tonight to gas it up and test it, which I will do tomorrow and update this thread then.

The difference in price between the two models is £20 so you have to decide which will suit you best.

I got mine from these guys in Crawley:http://www.surplusstore.co.uk/catalo...oducts_id/3044

Nice friendly chaps and they will send to a RFD of your choice if you can't visit in person

[gingernut]

I have both models.
The Open is bigger and more accurate but both are excellent.IMO

[Kingplinker]

Spoke to Daniel the owner of the Surplus store in Crawley today and he said a chap from the bbs came in so they showed me the pistol .... and there was me thinking it would be a piece of tacky plastic It's a heavy beast isn't it !

atvb

Dave

[rockdrill]

[COLOR="Blue"]The position of the rear sight means that in the hammer fully down position you cannot cock it with your thumb as its under the back of the sight,you can get round this by slight pressure on the trigger which shits the hammer a few mm so that you can reach it with your thumb.

[jefL]

I wonder if you can get medication for that.

[gingernut]

I cock mine with the slide so, luckily, I have not been sh*t on yet.

[Mark D]

Well spell checker aside! I finally got round to lubing the pistol and trying it out on my 6m indoor range. Firstly the barrel will not take lead ball, so until I mod mine with a rifled barrel it was steel bb's in the mag. The slide comes off exactly as the original model by dropping the mag, cocking the hammer and pulling the slide back till the forward cut out in the slide lines up with the take down lever, pull this down and run the slide off the front of the pistol. Mine was completely absent of lube, so I suggest that you spend 5 mins lubing the slide and the trigger \ hammer mechanism before using it.What is nice about this pistol is that all the controls replicate the real steel, so you can fire off the first shoot from the hammer down position should you choose.However the normal way to shoot these is to rack the slide, drop and fill the mag and then after inserting the mag let the slide run forward which will pick up a bb and feed it into the chamber.
You are now ready to shoot. The muzzle blast is loud and the kick is forceful, something akin to a .22 colt ace for those that ever got to shoot one. The trigger is ok for a standard service type pistol the break is just not very 'clean' The adjustable rear sight is very good and after a few shoots I adjusted mine and over the next 50 or so shots the pistol performed flawlessly with no jams or drama the slide locking back as soon as the mag is empty.
It was about 2degrees in my garage and I managed to get 3 mags full out of one CO2 capsule, although the power drops off after about 2 and a half mags shot at regular single shot pace. Shoot rapid fire or double tap I think you would get through the gas quicker. I didn't have access to a chrono, but I would agree with the web that around 350 fps seems correct.
Accuracy was ok for a smooth bore bb pistol with most shoots holding about 38mm at 6m. I can't say the the comp does anything as the barrel is the same length as the standard model and without shooting them back to back to see I think it's mainly cosmetic.
In summary a nice solidly built pistol that performs well and looks the part. Now all that Cybergun need to do is make a longslide 1911 race pistol and fit it with a rifled barrel and I will be in heaven

[Rayee]

My mate had a go on mine on Saturday, he shoots clay pigeon at county level, and once out shotgunned a Canadian Olympian gold medallist.

And when he first fired the X5 - he jumped!