I'm not really a pistol person. I've mostly been shooting the same handguns for a many years now, as I stopped investing emotional labor in firearms long ago. However, the market's striker-fired offerings have grown into a smorgasbord over the last five years. My USP is great, but it's time for a modern tasting, so my wife and I sampled the latest as part of a night out.
THE TEST
This test is what two normals think about six striker-fired handguns after trying them out. We shot these six guns in this order:
- CZ P10C
- Walther PPQ M2
- FN 509
- Glock 19X
- Springfield XD Mod.2
- SIG P320
Guns: Rented but decent.
Ammunition: Magtech 115gr 9x19mm.
Shots/groups: 50 rounds per gun per shooter, 10 shot groups, 600 total rounds.
Hand/eye: 2 right-handed shooters, 1 right-eye dominant, 1 left-eye dominant.
Position: Standing, two-handed, shooter's preferred stance.
Tempo: 1-2 rounds per second.
Targets: Circular targets at 10 yards.
Range: Bill's in Hudson, WI, indoor range, pistol bay 4 next to the numbnuts with the braked AR pistol.
Test limitations
This is a rubber-meets-the-road, what's-it-like-to-shoot first impressions only screening test, so:
- A second long-term comparative test between 2–3 winners would play out differently and ultimately be more informative.
- This is not a long-term ownership experience review. Nobody does these even though they should.
- No tester has familiarity with any of the tested pistols. Obviously ,extended training or ownership can make anyone proficient with (and preferential toward) any firearm.
- I did not collect and will not review any quantitative data. If you're a stat person, those reviews already exist.
- Shooting well is more about ammunition than guns, but I bought and shot range-provided ammunition. I'm not able to find the ammo each firearm likes in a test like this.
- I won't carry anything bigger than a Colt D-frame, so carryability is not part of this review.
- This test is incomplete, I'd still like to shoot:
- Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0
- Beretta APX
- HK VP9
- Steyr L9-A1 or -A2 MF
- Archon Type B
- Arex Delta
- Ruger American or Security 9
- Canik TP9
Again, this test occurred as part of a night out with the wife and was not planned in depth with an ideal, designed protocol.
THE TESTERS
My background
I started shooting in the AWB hell/C&R heaven era. Back then, I purchased nearly every type of C&R military bolt action and semiautomatic rifle imported into the United States. After I shot enough to develop opinions, I divested most C&Rs and concetrated on building parts kit guns in the early post-AWB era. 8 FALs, 12 AKs, 2 G3s, 2 M14s, and a bunch of spent surplus brass later, I'd formed more opinions and sold off more guns. It's been a long and expensive journey.
What and how I shoot
I've owned probably 25 cold war era handguns, mostly combloc, and dumped most of them after helping our state become suppresor-friendly. Even just five years ago, factory threaded barrel pistols weren't common, and the USP 9 Tactical was the best of the group I tested in 2015. Never a .40 cal guy. Shot mostly 9x18 mm, 7.62x25 mm, 9x19 mm, and .38 Special.
- 80% of my shooting consists of aimed fire from iron-sighted semiautomatic rifles at steel targets 200 to 600 yards away.
- I now shoot suppressed almost exclusively.
- As much as I adore 7.62x25 mm, I only shoot 9x19mm with any regularity now. 147 gr or heavier.
- Most pistols are tools, but great pistols are great fun.
- Basic principles shooter. Not a tactically-trained split-timing, straight-arm guy. Sights, trigger, follow through, lead on target, return, repeat.
- I rarely shoot with optics—I can still see and it's just not as fun for me.
My favorite pistols
I've been living under a rock:
Experienced with: Colt double action revolvers, Browning Hi-Power, 1911s, all combloc pistols
Familiar with: Most classic DA/SA semiautos
Unfamiliar with: Striker-fired pistols, non-Colt double action revolvers, single-action revolvers, most pocket pistols, anything under 9x18 mm
Shoot best: 1911s
Most rounds through: HK USP 9 series
Just plain like: Colt double action revolvers
Favorite pistol: Zastava M57
Relevant biases
Oh, I've got em:
- I won't buy anything that requires an immediate upgrade. If it ain't right from the factory, **** it.
- I avoid modifying guns away from their original design. After building 20+ parts kit guns, my fiddling days are over.
- I find modularity extremely overrated. Get it right and not any righter.
- Mag and accessory compatibility don't concern me. One idiot civilian does not a supply chain make.
- I revile noncomparative reviews. These are about ad clicks and product launch sponsorships. I'm still stupid enough to read them.
- I despise laws that limit freedom of choice, particularly trade barriers like the 1989 ban and especially the Imported Vehicle Safety Compliance Act. Consequently, I'm prejudiced against US-built variants of foreign weapons.
- My graduate research found that a small amount of training and adjustment improved users' performance with tools far more than large amounts of excellent design.
- The internet is usually wrong about guns, especially when it comes to Actually Shooting Them.
- Brand affinity: Colt, Knight's Armament, Steyr, SAN, Radom
- Brand hate: Ruger, Ruger, Ruger, Taurus, Springfield Armory, Century
My wife's experience and favorite pistols
She likes shooting but isn't super into it:
Experienced with: Really nothing
Familiar with: All combloc pistols, 1911s, Browning Hi-Powers, HK USPs and Beretta 92s
Unfamiliar with: All other pistols
Shoot best: 1911s
Most rounds through: HK USP 9 series
Just plain like: CZ 82
Favorite pistol: Zastava M57
RESULTS
We ranked a pistol's characteristics with one of three values: excellent, adequate, or crap. If there's nothing noteworthy about a specific aspect of the pistol I won't waste words discussing it. When evaluating these handguns, we found the best and worst pistols were obvious, with the middle ground a bit muddier. Our ranking, from worst to best:
6. Walther PPQ M2
Just the name "Walther" connotes quality, that waving banner logo wafting history and legend at you. I've shot and enjoyed P88s so I had a pleasant (but distant) preconception while loading mags for this pistol. I was wrong.
When you pick the PPQ M2 up it's meaty—imagine squeezing a Iowa pork chop coated in dog toy. Your thumb rests curiously on the magazine release. Dry fire it and behold its glorious trigger. Mag in, slide release down, align the front sight in the overly-wide notch, squeeze that trigger nice and slow and it breaks with single-action crispness. It's all good.
Until it goes off.
Look at the PPQ's profile and picture it like a wheel rotating around the trigger. Every time you fire, it pushes the top of your hand and pulls the bottom. While all pistols do this, somehow this one does it more, amplifying the recoil impulse. If we'd just shot this pistol, I doubt I'd have found its recoil so noteworthy, but against the competition it's like shooting an aikido wristlock. Alignment and aim take a little effort to settle back into, but ultimately bullets end up where you intend.
Sights: crap (worst)
Sight acquisition: adequate
Trigger: excellent
Return to target: adequate
Recoil impulse: crap (worst)
Accuracy: adequate
Ergonomics: crap (worst)
Handling and manipulation: adequate
Slide release: excellent
Mag release: crap
Magazine: adequate
Function: excellent
The knife in this gunfight. Recognizably outclassed, you work shooting this pistol compared to the others. Probably great when it launched, today it's a stunning trigger pining for a redesigned frame.
My verdict: Chew pistol by Kong.
Wife's verdict: "James Bond in the #MeToo era."
5. Springfield XD Mod.2
Normally, inanimate objects possess unique characteristics, personality traits your senses write to your brain's experience database. However, even just a few hours later, remembering Springfield XD Mod.2 pistol is like recalling a year-old dream.
Similar to the way video game designers work tirelessly to accurately represent a firearm virtually, this gun's designers worked the same problem in the other direction: making a real handgun as removed and virtual as possible. Press R and you can load its magazine quickly and without fuss, load and manipulate it unmemorably, and find the sight picture unremarkably. Click the left mouse button and the XD makes the requisite sound and movement, then places a bullet hole reasonably close to where you expect. It falls back into a natural-ish place, ready to repeat until ammo runs to zero.
Sights: adequate
Sight acquisition: adequate
Trigger: adequate
Return to target: adequate
Recoil impulse: adequate
Accuracy: adequate
Ergonomics: adequate
Handling and manipulation: adequate
Slide release: adequate
Mag release: adequate
Magazine: adequate
Function: excellent
Flawlessness is far less important than having strengths. While it doesn't suck, this forgettable handgun had only one noteworthy attraction: very comfortable trigger reach.
My verdict: Costco should sell it under the Kirkland Arms brand.
Wife's verdict: "I swear we only shot 5 pistols."
4. Glock 19X
The Apple of firearms, Glock's ecosystem gravity draws a wide audience but keeps perspectives narrow and polar. Consult any medium for handgun information and prepare for Clockwork Orange-level programming: "buy a Glock" agitprop hammers your brain relentlessly, reflecting Glock's clear successes, owners' reflexive purchase justification, diehards' norm enforcement, and the pitfalls of modern search/surveillance/echo chamber marketing. I had no Glock experience so I had to rent the hallowed 19X.
Aside from being Ceracoated with Austrian calf dung, the 19X gave the most positive handling impression of all six pistols prior to shooting. Magazines were light, loaded easily, and locked in and out of the gun positively. We both immediately noted it had the most manipulable slide and slide release of the group. It's got an odd grip, though it's not counterproductively strange like the Walther.
Disappointingly, the 19X's shooting impression doesn't match its handling impression. Granted, good shooting without a bunch of weapon-specific practice requires excellent ammunition, great sights, and kick-ass trigger. We had none of those with the 19X. Interestingly, while the Glock had the softest recoil impulse of the group, the way this pistol interacted with both our bodies during recoil returned our alignment more inconsistently than any other pistol, noticeably impairing target reacquisition for both of us. Furthermore, the G19X's mediocre trigger conspires with its lame sights to produce comparatively middling groups.
Sights: crap
Sight acquisition: crap (worst)
Trigger: adequate
Return to target: crap (worst)
Recoil impulse: excellent (best)
Accuracy: adequate
Ergonomics: adequate
Handling and manipulation: excellent (best)
Slide release: excellent (best)
Mag release: excellent
Magazine: excellent (best)
Function: excellent
While I deeply appreciate refined, incremental engineering (Porsche owner), Glock builds Glocks for Glock people, which is apparently not me. Although my core complaints can be addressed with aftermarket accessories, buying a Glock to immediately de-Glock it plucks my autism.
My verdict: Glock Perfection. Handgun Adequacy.
Wife's verdict: "Rappers and cops must love neon tan."
3. SIG P320
The military chose this one, eh? Time to discover if their justification is self-evident.
On paper, the P320 definitely wins the spec battle. Striker fired? Check. Modular frame? Check. Optics ready? Check. FDE? Check and double check!
In hand, everything's as-expected. Nothing about the P320 feels magical or superior although there's something alluring here—it's probably what picking up a 1911 felt like in 1912. The P320 does posess the heretical high bore axis that so offends Glock acolytes, but being a USP owner, that feels plenty normal to me.
The P320 loads and makes ready with no drama, shoots accurately, and gets back on target nicely. Strangely, despite it having my favorite trigger break, I had to concentrate harder to shoot this pistol well, probably due to some combination of the trigger shape, trigger reach, and grip shape. The SIG should have a great trigger given its, um, touchy reputation.
Sights: excellent
Sight acquisition: adequate
Trigger: excellent (best)
Return to target: excellent
Recoil impulse: adequate
Accuracy: excellent
Ergonomics: excellent
Handling and manipulation: adequate
Slide release: adequate
Mag release: excellent
Magazine: adequate
Function: excellent
The first gun on this list that I'd buy and shoot long term. However, the P320's modularity and SIG's misapplied agile approach to engineering and production don't really appeal. Notably, while I thought the P320 was clearly better shooting than the 19X, my wife slightly preferred the Glock to the SIG, our only ranking difference.
My verdict: Great, but accessories should a include stick-on SIG tattoo, Punisher skull patch, 5FDP album download code, vape juice, and pic-mountable Bartocci beard.
Wife's verdict: "It's fine but something's douchey about this gun." (Said from zero exposure to gun marketing!)
2. CZ P10C
Now we're back in my wheelhouse. I've had CZ 52s, 82s, and 75s, but hadn't shot any post-Iron Curtain CZ offerings until the P10C. The P10C harkens back to those designs in that there's not much truly excellent about it but it's conscript-easy to aim and shoot well.
The CZ's much-celebrated trigger presents a Mosin-Nagant-like "Surprise, comrade! Bang!" quality highly conducive to accurate shooting, but a little alarming. Like all Eastern bloc guns, there's a glaring hope-you-don't-notice-it flaw in the P10C's atrocious magazine release, which requires considerable force to dislodge and doesn't truly let go of its spent force. Its short, sickle-handle grip's intense stippling helps your shaking hand grasp it tight through your dead comrade's blood while you return fire at the decadent West. Don't mind the mag thing, you'll be cut down by Hellfire shrapnel before you need to reload.
If CZs still sold at second-world prices (2–3 pairs of U.S. denim) these would fly off the back of every truck and go missing from every inventory check.
Sights: adequate
Sight acquisition: excellent
Trigger: excellent
Return to target: excellent
Recoil impulse: adequate
Accuracy: excellent
Ergonomics: excellent
Handling and manipulation: adequate
Slide release: adequate
Mag release: crap (worst)
Magazine: adequate
Function: excellent
Foreign look and feel, crazy easy, but sparky and a little bit cheap. Like everything one might mail order from Eastern Europe.
My verdict: Yes! Ow! Yes!
Wife's verdict: "Communist ancestry is a good thing...if you're a weapon."
1. FN 509
Right away this gun doesn't impress at all. Nor does it impress later when you manipulate it, load it, look at it, dry fire it, aim it, research it, or think about it. Initially, I thought 509 would compete with the XD 2.0 and 19X for the dullness stakes.
You don't choose the 509 so much as you pull it from the background temporarily. FN markets the 509 languidly, targeting the tactical impulse buyer expecting 509s to sit unfired in HK aspirants' gun safes for eternity. Maybe there's some nod-and-handshake deal between FN marketing and FN customer service: we won't sell, you won't get calls, we still get paid from the .gov work.
You don't ready 509 so much as you wake it from slumber. It's controls and handling aren't remarkable, and loading and charging the 509 just...meets expectations. I guarantee this gun can't sell itself at the gun counter. Your only clue that it might be worth shooting is its suspiciously excellent sights.
The 509's zen dawns when it's just you, the front sight, and the trigger. Although we obtained our best first-shot accuracy with the 509, its one weird trick was repeat accuracy. The 509's sights, trigger, recoil impulse, and frame geometry combine to return the pistol back to exactly where you broke the previous shot. Not only did I shoot this better than the rest, my wife shot by far her best 10-round groups with the 509.
Sights: excellent (best)
Sight acquisition: excellent (best)
Trigger: excellent
Return to target: excellent (best)
Recoil impulse: excellent
Accuracy: excellent (best)
Ergonomics: excellent (best)
Handling and manipulation: adequate
Slide release: adequate
Mag release: adequate
Magazine: adequate
Function: excellent
When hooked up to either of us, the 509 stunned me with 1911-like sights/trigger/brain/body systems integration. FN captured the realistic essence of what most fighting pistols should excel at: being effortlessly shot well by someone with familiarity but irregular or expired practice.
My verdict: Did the Army actually shoot the 509?
Wife's verdict: "Why don't we own this? I thought you were obsessed with this gun shit!"
CONCLUSIONS
I didn't walk into this with any major expectations or a horse in the striker race. My arsenal is quite antiquated as stated previously, so my general thoughts are old news to M4C:
- Striker pistol triggers are as good or better than many DA/SA guns in single action.
- Although they have unique characters, none of these triggers differed significantly from the other.
- Testing pistols makes for a fun date night.
- I'll keep my USPs, but it's time to reap what 20 years has sown.
Oh no, I'm buying a gun!
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