The gun shown here has been cussed and discussed as much as any other early this year. Internet experts have decried the gun with much of the venom spewed before a single gun even made it to retailers.

I can understand some of the puzzlement as to elements of the piece, but I can’t understand the outright distain – especially since only a few people had ever handled the gun. None of them came out particularly hating the piece.

As you figured, from the photo above, the gun is the Glock 19X. Essentially a G17 lower with a G19 upper, the gun was the other candidate in a two-gun field to answer the supposed need for a military “modular handgun system.”

The proposal called for a grip adaptable frame on a full-size (17 round) and compact size (15 round) service pistol. The companies could submit one of each or could fabricate one gun to meet both needs.

At least two companies submitted a one-gun solution. One was FN, with their FN 509. I handled a sample earlier this year and was taken by the (subjective) feel of the piece. Glock did the same thing, marrying the full-size Glock 9mm lower with the shorter, so-called compact barrel and slide.

While meeting contract requirements, armchair experts (correctly) pointed out that smart money was to have the full-size G17 upper over a Glock 19 lower; the hardest part of the gun to hide is the part you grip with your hand. The problem is that this gun was meant to cover primarily the needs of people wearing uniforms, arriving with air and naval power, armor and artillery.

Just guessing here, but I think hiding the pistol wasn’t foremost in their minds.

Glock was trying to meet a standard. By all accounts they did. The reason the contract didn’t go their way was allegedly the per-unit costs.

This is not the first pistol to ever come out of a factory this way. The first was an off-shoot of a couple of other military pistol trials, one successfully completed and awarded, which led to a standard issue sidearm for 75 years. The other was shut down with no change in guns.

You likely guessed that the first was the US Pistol, Caliber 45, Model 1911, 1911A1 and variants. The second was a nearly identical gun, later called the Commander – it had an aluminum frame of nearly identical dimensions to the Government Model but a shorter barrel and slide. When Uncle Sam declined, the Commander sold commercially in its original 9mm, in .45 and in 38 Super.

Some years later, the gun was sold with a steel frame, nearly matching the Government Model in weight and height, but shorter, “commander” length barrel and slide. We were all told what a stupid idea it was.

The problem is that the so-called Combat Commander, which took Government Model magazines, handled better than its predecessor; you could accurately shoot powerful ammo faster with it than the original. As it sat in the hand, the Combat Commander was clearly the winner.

I noticed the FN 509 was a real winner in that sense too.

Now the X-Ray. Opening the box, I saw what everyone saw. The tan finish, FDE polymer frame, the pair of G17 magazines with Glock +2 base pads, all in FDE – along with the standard Glock 17 magazine in the dark earth coloring.

There are Glock night sights atop the slide; I would select some other sights if I had to change sights – but I don’t. The Glock night sights will do just fine until the tritium stops glowing.

The trigger is “Gen5-ish” – an improvement over the standard Gen4 equipment. A Glock Marksman barrel is in the slide. Other Gen5 touches include the bilateral slide stop and no finger grooves on the frame.

The front of the toe of the frame has a protruding lip. It prevents seating a standard Glock 17 Gen5 magazine (with the extended floorplate). Standard pre-Gen5 magazine floorplates fit fine as do Magpul magazines and Glock magazines with Vickers base pads.

The heel of the frame has the lanyard loop. I’ve never needed a lanyard to keep my pistol in place, as it was said, in a rough sea, but I don’t have a problem with the attachment point being present.

There was a question raised about shredding a magazine out in the event of a feedway stoppage. I loaded with dummy ammo and tried – so there was no swelled case in the chamber, limiting the test. Using the sides of the standard 17 floorplate, the magazine was easily removed.

The G19X was taken to the range on the best shooting day of the year so far -- 16 degrees -- and it shot fine.

How does the gun shoot? I took it to the range on one of the best weather days so far this year. It’d gotten all the way up to 16 degrees Fahrenheit, 86% relative humidity. I loaded up with the second – and last box – of NovX ARX ammo I had. I got a feedway stoppage on round #1.

This was surprising. I was able to quickly restore order and get to shooting. I shot all of that bit of NovX and some Winchester USA Forged steel case ammo. No other stoppages were noted in this short, frigid test.

I used a Birchwood Casey “Dirty Bird” BC27, a 12” x 18” rendition of the NRA B-27 police silhouette, at ten yards. The first rounds I shot, not having cleaned or lubed the new gun, I shot one-handed. I swapped hands and shot one-handed again, then shot some two-handed strings of fire. I noted the typical “hits left of aim” I find with Glock pistols – and, increasingly, other guns I shoot.

I’m thinking it’s the way I see the sights, not the guns. It happens with either hand, so that’s of little help.

I found the rounds were clustering inside an inch and a half excluding a shooter-induced flier, predictably down and left. Going to work on the fifty yard steel IPSC silhouette, I was surprised to miss the first two rounds.

Realizing I was sliding off to the left, I simply held near the right edge of the target and hammered the steel until my fingers got numb.

It shoots like a Glock.

Shooting one-handed, either hand, with two hands, at ten and fifty yards, the Glock 19X shoots like a Glock. A new Glock with their Marksman barrel.

I’d worn the Gen5 G19 I’d been using as my primary carry gun in the Bianchi Suppression IWB holster I’ve been wearing for years. Happily, I found the Gen5 fit that holster with no modification to the holster needed. I placed the X-Ray into the holster and found that the longer G17 frame fit up close to my body.

That was good news.

The Glock 19X has a unique feel in handling and shooting from any other Glock. Will it be the “Combat Commander” of the Glock line? Time will tell.

The execution of the Gen5 Series has been superior to the previous – and very good – Gen4 and Gen3 lines. The X-Ray seems to have had even more attention to detail in fabrication, finish and assembly. I’m looking to try it out with other lines of ammunition at various distances and on various courses of fire.

It’s sure off to a good start.

- - Rich Grassi