silicosys4
Member
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2012
- Messages
- 3,691
I've thought for a while that a red dot capable "competition" pistol would make a fun range toy if someone isn't necessarily going to compete but wants to have fun shooting steel fast.
Problem for me is since I am 100% a recreational shooter and accumulator of firearms, a high dollar competition pistol doesn't make much sense so I've never spent the money on one.
Why buy one $1200 pistol when 2 $600 pistols will bring me just as much joy and can fill 2 different niches in my collection rather than just one?
Well, I was looking at online auctions one evening and found a Sig 320 X5 (not legion) with no bids, ending in a few hours with a starting bid at $450.
Long time seller with good feedback,
At that price I didn't see how I could go wrong.
Took it out to the range for the first time for a function test and put about 300 cast reloads through it, mid level 124gr. truncated cone cast lead over a moderate charge of unique.
I have found if a 9mm is going to choke on my cast reloads, it will be with the truncated cone more than a rn cast bullet.
Of the 300, 299 fed, fired, extracted, and ejected fine. I had one round fail to fully go into battery but only required a light tap on the back of the slide to seat. This was late in the day and by then the gun was pretty filthy with lube/powder residue sludge.
Accuracy was acceptable. All i had were steel targets so I was not shooting for groups, but the pistol shot to point of aim and consistently knocked targets over at reasonable ranges.
Is it faster than my other duty size 9mm's? I can tell it has the potential to be, even of I'm not capable yet.
As far as being transformed into John Wick...Lol, no.
The gun needs a few things before I personally will be able to shoot it anywhere remotely as fast as all the various youtube guys, let alone a professional competitor.
Things I like:
It feels good, for a high capacity gun. It's comfortable and has good grip.
I have small hands and a large grip leads to control issues for me, so a "competition" gun has to have either a small grip or the option of a small grip. As it came, the x5 has a "medium" grip size and it's workable. When I order the TXG tungsten frame I'll get a small, but the medium isn't too big to be workable for me.
So far its reliable with truncated cone cast reloads, which is saying something since only about half of my 9mms are. The rest require a RN cast bullet to run.
The iron sights are excellent. I will probably try mounting a red dot on it at some point, but if I don't like the red dot, the iron sights are very good and need no upgrade.
Things I don't like:
The trigger has a lot of take-up and breaks heavily although fairly crisply at about 5lbs with a lot of over travel and a long reset.
Its good compared to other striker fired pistols I've used and owned, but that's like saying a minivan is good around a racetrack compared to a box truck.
I have felt the X5 Legion trigger which is supposedly improved over the original X5,
Which it was, but still not as good as even a mediocre 1911 trigger.
The X5 is a "bouncy" pistol, an assessment I've heard from other reviews. With the high bore axis and the top heavy, polymer frame design, the standard x5 does not stay flat on target for fast strings and transitions like I was hoping it would.
I'm sure the legion txg frame would help to solve that issue, but for $250 (including mag well) I might just find something cheap and heavy to hang off the front rail of the x5 frame instead.
A new trigger and a txg tungsten frame with magwell would do a lot for this gun and eventually I'll probably get them.
But this gun out the box is most assuredly not something like a $7k TTI Pit viper that can make even an amateur look good,
But for 7% of the price, it gets you a lot closer than you'd think and with another $300 for the txg frame and a new trigger, I think it will get me close enough that any difference will be more on me and not the gun.
Problem for me is since I am 100% a recreational shooter and accumulator of firearms, a high dollar competition pistol doesn't make much sense so I've never spent the money on one.
Why buy one $1200 pistol when 2 $600 pistols will bring me just as much joy and can fill 2 different niches in my collection rather than just one?
Well, I was looking at online auctions one evening and found a Sig 320 X5 (not legion) with no bids, ending in a few hours with a starting bid at $450.
Long time seller with good feedback,
At that price I didn't see how I could go wrong.
Took it out to the range for the first time for a function test and put about 300 cast reloads through it, mid level 124gr. truncated cone cast lead over a moderate charge of unique.
I have found if a 9mm is going to choke on my cast reloads, it will be with the truncated cone more than a rn cast bullet.
Of the 300, 299 fed, fired, extracted, and ejected fine. I had one round fail to fully go into battery but only required a light tap on the back of the slide to seat. This was late in the day and by then the gun was pretty filthy with lube/powder residue sludge.
Accuracy was acceptable. All i had were steel targets so I was not shooting for groups, but the pistol shot to point of aim and consistently knocked targets over at reasonable ranges.
Is it faster than my other duty size 9mm's? I can tell it has the potential to be, even of I'm not capable yet.
As far as being transformed into John Wick...Lol, no.
The gun needs a few things before I personally will be able to shoot it anywhere remotely as fast as all the various youtube guys, let alone a professional competitor.
Things I like:
It feels good, for a high capacity gun. It's comfortable and has good grip.
I have small hands and a large grip leads to control issues for me, so a "competition" gun has to have either a small grip or the option of a small grip. As it came, the x5 has a "medium" grip size and it's workable. When I order the TXG tungsten frame I'll get a small, but the medium isn't too big to be workable for me.
So far its reliable with truncated cone cast reloads, which is saying something since only about half of my 9mms are. The rest require a RN cast bullet to run.
The iron sights are excellent. I will probably try mounting a red dot on it at some point, but if I don't like the red dot, the iron sights are very good and need no upgrade.
Things I don't like:
The trigger has a lot of take-up and breaks heavily although fairly crisply at about 5lbs with a lot of over travel and a long reset.
Its good compared to other striker fired pistols I've used and owned, but that's like saying a minivan is good around a racetrack compared to a box truck.
I have felt the X5 Legion trigger which is supposedly improved over the original X5,
Which it was, but still not as good as even a mediocre 1911 trigger.
The X5 is a "bouncy" pistol, an assessment I've heard from other reviews. With the high bore axis and the top heavy, polymer frame design, the standard x5 does not stay flat on target for fast strings and transitions like I was hoping it would.
I'm sure the legion txg frame would help to solve that issue, but for $250 (including mag well) I might just find something cheap and heavy to hang off the front rail of the x5 frame instead.
A new trigger and a txg tungsten frame with magwell would do a lot for this gun and eventually I'll probably get them.
But this gun out the box is most assuredly not something like a $7k TTI Pit viper that can make even an amateur look good,
But for 7% of the price, it gets you a lot closer than you'd think and with another $300 for the txg frame and a new trigger, I think it will get me close enough that any difference will be more on me and not the gun.
