SW CSX VS P365 - Opposite Ends of the Micro Compact Segment
Updated
49 months ago
Good morning everyone, hope you’re all having a wonderful day today. Today we’re gonna be taking a look at two micro compacts that even though they share the same genre their execution is vastly different.
Full disclosure on the P365 and the SW CSX we paid full money for these handguns. We don’t have any affiliation with SIG or Smith and Wesson for this review so this will just be my personal thoughts after carrying both of these guns for some time now and, of course, shooting them quite a bit.
Starting up with the dimensions of these micro compacts, the SIG P365 is kind of, again, the progenitor of the micro compact, that sort of single stack size with double stack capacity so this is a 10+1, the Smith and Wesson is a 12+1 with the little extended mag or a 10+1 with a flush-fit magazine. The SIG itself is slightly shorter in length and width, though that is mostly because the Smith and Wesson has a beaver tail and ambidextrous controls which does make it a little bit fatter.
On the website it will tell you that the P365 is shorter than the CSX, however, the CSX with the 12-round magazine is actually shorter than the P365 with 10-round magazine with the slight extension at the bottom, and this is the magazine that 99% of people are actually gonna be carrying it with.
In 2022 there are, of course, a plethora of good micro compacts on the market, though, of course, the scope of this video is going to be limited to the P365 and the CSX. That being said, go ahead and comment down below your favorite micro compact.
We actually get into both of these guns, we’re gonna go through them the same way we did our last comparison video. We’re gonna go through the slides, through the grips, through the triggers and then, of course, their shooting dynamics.
Slides
Smith and Wesson CSX
Starting with the slide on the CSX, the slide itself is actually shorter than on the P365 so you actually get a slightly shorter sight radius as well. Both of these guns come with decent sights, decent metal sights from the factory. On the CSX you have standard metal sights. They are, of course, the 3-dot variety, white three dots. That’s my least sighting system, I would prefer a high-vis front and a blacked out rear or it has to be a 3-dot at least have a high visibility front. As it is you do have three white dots, now, you can always paint that front dot, something high-vis, something neon colored or something like that to be a little bit more attention grabbing.
That being said, the sights are serrated, which is nice, helps reduce glare. They’re very low profile and they do work, especially for a gun this small, so while the sights are decent they’re not quite ideal.
The rest of the slide is done well. Smith and Wesson, if you like their slide design you’re gonna like this. They have very nice scalloping on the front and back, of course, and on the back they kind of have these little wings on the back where it’s just exposed little ridges that help you to grip the gun a little bit better which I do, of course, like.
On the top we also have more serrations to, again, help reduce that glare, which these are very small, very low profile sights, so you want to reduce that glare as much as you can.
Overall, the machining is done very well, the aesthetics are very good. The only thing that I don’t like about the slide on this gun is it gives me a lot of slide bite, which is why if you see me shooting this gun in the intro, it’s probably with a glove on my right hand so I don’t cut myself up just because I don’t find that particularly fun.
SIG P365
Getting into the slide on the P365 starting out with the sights, this is the Nitron version so you have a front high visibility. It’s a really nice, big, green dot up front. On top of that, all three sights have tritium inserts so they will glow in the dark quite nicely and that is a very nice feature even in just low light-ish conditions you can see them glowing as you’re bringing it up to target which will help you to pick them up faster so I really haven’t used night sights that much, but after having the SIG P365 the Nitron version, the sights are quite good.
As I mention earlier, the sight radius on the SIG P365 is about .3 inches longer which isn’t that big of a deal, it’s like 5% longer I wanna say. It makes a little bit of a difference, but for me the biggest difference is having that front high-vis sights, they’re a little bit taller, a little bit more high profile, if you will, so for me they’re a little bit easier to pick up and the gun does shoot and point very well.
The rest of the slide is done quite nice, you have forward and rear serrations. Now, the slide on the P365 does ride a little bit higher than on the CSX so you don’t get any slide bite or at least I don’t with my hands and the way I grip the gun, usually with a thumbs forward grip.
On the P365 I don’t get any slide bite, though that is, of course, because there is a little bit more of an offset on the slide which will come into play when we talk about shooting dynamics.
Overall, the both slides are done very well, the main problem that I personally have is with the CSX is that it does cut up my hands when I’m shooting it so I would give the overall edge to the P365 especially with the fact that it has a little bit longer sight radius and the sights themselves are a little bit more high visibility and, of course, have the night time abilities as well.
Grips
SIG P365
Getting into the grip on the P365, the texturing itself on the grip is mediocre, so it has ok texturing kind of like this very light sand paperish feeling, it is very comfortable to carry even if it’s rubbing up against your skin, it’s not going to irritate you unless you’re doing it for a long periods of time or running or something else like that, but the texturing itself stops about 60% the way up, so, of course, as I said in all my other pistol videos, I wish they would put more texturing in more places.
You get a lot of very slick plastic so if you are carrying this and doing something out in the hot weather per se and it gets wet or sweaty or whatnot, it is becomes very, very slick. Other than the texturing the rest of the grip is just fine, it does have a mild undercut on the trigger guard to allow you to get as much real estate on the gun is possible, though, again, when I’m shooting it or carrying it I like to have the little extension on there to allow me to get a full grip on the gun.
The controls on the gun are just fine, they’re all in the right spots. I don’t have particularly large hands, but I can reach all the controls just fine. The magazine release is low profile, the magazines drop free and quite nicely. The slide stop and slide release is in the right spot for you to hit without breaking your grip which is quite nice. It’s not too high profile that it’s going to get in the way, but it’s also not small, so you’re not going to miss it when you want to use it if you like to reload that way versus just slingshotting the gun.
You have a takedown lever. If you’ve used a SIG takedown lever before this is going to be very familiar to you. You also a forward accessory rail, which will accept any sort of proprietary SIG attachment methods, I believe the Streamlight TLR 7A is the best sub-compact marked light on the market currently though I could be wrong about that as I don’t have much experience with those lights, but if you were gonna be carrying a gun 100% of the time 365 days a year like the P365 implies, having an accessory rail is very important.
Smith and Wesson CSX
Getting into the grip on the Smith and Wesson, you’re gonna have the same issues that you have on the P365. So, you do have interchangeable back straps and the CSX, of course, is an aluminum frame versus a polymer frame.
With that aluminum frame it is an ounce and a half heavier with the 12-round magazine versus the 10-round magazine on the P365, so whether or not that’s worth it to you personally. They’re both sub 20-ounce guns and, of course, once you load them up they’re gonna be considerably heavier than that anyways and they both carry very, very nicely.
I have the larger back strap on this one currently. They also have a smaller back strap that has less texturing on it. I prefer more texturing. The texturing on the CSX is more aggressive, it’s not overly aggressive and it’s not as aggressive as it could be or as I prefer, though, again, I do like more texturing, more aggressive texturing in more places. I do find it to be a little bit better with the 12-round magazine, I actually have a tiny bit of extra room at the bottom.
The grip itself does have a good undercut as well. They did a good job with the grip, it is an aluminum grip though, again, I would like to see more texturing on it. That being said, for some reason the aluminum itself feels a little bit more grippy than just the slick polymer does. I’m not sure if that’s just a finish thing or if there is actually a little bit more of a grain on the aluminum, making the bare aluminum a little bit more grippy than the bare polymer on the P365.Overall, the grip texturing is, again, decent though, again, I wish it was in more places.
The controls on the CSX are mostly ambidextrous so the magazine release can be swapped from either side. The magazine release is slightly further away, so for my hands, I kind of have to slightly break my grip to be able to hit it, not a big deal, most people probably aren’t counting their 1RMR’s on micro compact so it is something that should be noted for some people.
On the CSX it does, of course, come with a safety, so you have ambidextrous thumb safeties that are very easy to defeat whether as you’re drawing it out from concealment or however you are using it, it is very easy to actuate and then go directly to fire, and it is very nice, tactile positive, it has good texturing on the levers themselves and is, of course, ambidextrous, so if you’re a left-handed shooter it’s gonna be very easy for you.
Your slide stop and slide release is also ambidextrous, gives you a good amount of purchase and, again, the only reason the CSX is wider than the P365 is you have those ambidextrous controls sticking out just a little bit. Personally, I’m fairly ambivalent to ambidextrous controls, I am a right-handed shooter so I generally don’t need them. Unfortunately, on the CSX they did not machine in an accessory rail even though they do have space to do it.
So, when it comes to grips the CSX does a pretty decent job and has ambidextrous controls the way around. I have to give it to the 365 for the accessory rail meaning that I can carry this gun in more situations which does make it a more usable handgun.
Triggers
Smith and Wesson CSX
Getting into the trigger we’ll start with the CSX, this trigger should have been better from the factory and I do wish that they improved this trigger in the future if they bring out a Gen 2 with some nice improvements. So, basically this is a single-action, hammer-fired trigger versus a striker-fired trigger.
That is going to be very similar to like a 1911 or some other high quality guns that you’re thinking, wow, that must have a great trigger. The trigger itself is definitely a self-defense style trigger, something that should have a little bit more weight and be a little bit harder to get off, not necessarily harder to get off but you need to be deliberate when breaking the shot.
The trigger weight itself is at around 6 pounds so you have a little bit of take-up which is normal for most guns. You have a little bit of take-up and you hit a pretty hard wall and then you have a brake at about say 6, 6.5 pounds. The brake itself is actually pretty good and I did not really have much trouble hitting targets up 50, 60, 70 yards, a reduced size targets even with this, you know, micro compact style of gun.
The trigger break, I would say, is fine, although, again, when you’re talking about a manual safety with a single-action, hammer-fired gun, most of the time you’re thinking of a much better trigger. So, again, pulling the trigger you have a little bit of take-up, you hit a very hard wall and there’s a very slight rolling break, 6, 6.5 pounds, it’s actually not bad.
The bad part of the trigger is that the reset has a false reset in it so you will feel a little click and then you’ll try and pull again and you’ll get nothing because the trigger has not actually reset so you have a little click and then you come all the way off and it’s not forced whatsoever so like on a Glock trigger or like an AR mil-spec trigger, if you start to release pressure it will already push your finger forward. This does not do that.
You pull the trigger, go to reset it, you get a false reset click and if you just try to fire again nothing’s gonna happen because the trigger has not reset. You have to go all the way forward, which still isn’t very far, but it’s the softest, weakest reset that you’ll probably ever feel on a handgun and it’s fairly unfortunate, so sometimes when I’m shooting this gun I will basically get it to the point where I have thought, I’ve reset the gun and then I’m actually, I haven’t reset the gun yet so I just keep pulling and pulling and keep harder and harder and the gun won’t go off because the trigger hasn’t actually reset.
Personally, while the brake is actually fine, on a manual safety gun I would like to see the trigger pull at around 5, 5.5 pounds and for them to fix the reset, hopefully make it a little bit more forced, a little bit more tactile audible and remove that false reset feeling that you get when you start to reset the trigger.
SIG P365
Moving on to the SIG P365, this also does not have a particularly good trigger so you have a lot of take-up which is normal for a striker-fired handgun and then you have a gritty, the trigger moves but it doesn’t brake and then it moves again and then it brakes eventually at the very, very back. There’s not much overtravel and the reset is not too bad, it’s a little long but it’s not too bad.
The dry fire dynamics of this trigger feel bad, it’s like a very spongy, weak, wet fart and it brakes at about 5.5, 6 pounds, so it’s not particularly light either though it is lighter than the CSX. So, it’s nowhere near as crisp. The reset is definitely more forced, more tactile, more audible and, of course, it doesn’t have a false reset either.
The trigger dynamics do leave a lot to be desired on the 365 though I would still say overall it is better than the CSX. So, both triggers do leave a lot to be desired and I do think that they can improve both, but I would like Smith and Wesson to drastically improve the CSX trigger either in a Gen 2 or in an inline improvement because I really, really hate that false reset and I think it could be a little bit more positive and tactile of a reset and maybe a pound lighter since it does, again, have a manual safety.
Shooting Dynamics
SIG P365
Getting into shooting dynamics on the SIG P365, even though the trigger is, as I’ve stated, pretty mediocre, it’s actually very easy to point and shoot and hit whatever you’re aiming at. A combination of the trigger is a little bit lighter that the CSX. The sight radius is a little bit longer and the sights themselves are a little bit better with that kind of high visibility front sight.
Personally I’m actually pleasantly surprised with how easy it is to shoot. That being said, the recoil on it, it is a way snappier than the CSX, so when I’m actually shooting these two guns, even though the CSX definitely has a little bit less recoil, I do find the 365 more accurate and more confidence-inspiring. A combination of a little bit lighter trigger, better iron sights, longer sight radius, that sort of things means that I’m more accurate and more consistent with 365 versus the CSX.
So, if I had to go out and buy one of these guns today it would definitely be the P365 just because in my hands and the way that I shoot it does feel good and it is very easy to hit shots quickly and accurately and the CSX, it’s really sad to say, but it does definitely need a gen 2, they need to improve the trigger, maybe improve the texture a little bit. Just a few things here and there and I think the CSX could be a great handgun. As it stands I don’t think It is quite worth the price that they’re asking for it and I think, again, it needs some improvements.
It does have a lot of potential, I do like it, hope they don’t just cancel the CSX because it doesn’t sell quite as well as they thought it would. I do hope that they continue to work on it, bring in some meaningful improvements like they did with the P365 because, again, you have a million different versions of the P365 and hopefully the CSX does well enough because I would like to see a version of the CSX with much better trigger, fix the reset and an accessory rail and I think that would be a very compelling option in the micro compact genre. Hopefully, they’re able to keep the price in a reasonable area on it, but as it currently stands the P365 or 365 XL or any other variant of the 365 is probably the way to go, at least for my money.
For different reasons, for different hands, if you shoot the CSX and you just really like it then this might be your jam. It does have some features some people do like to see, manual safeties on their gun, so for some people that’s gonna be their jam.
But, with all that out of the way guys, let me know what do you guys think of these two handguns and I’m sure a plethora of other micro compacts in the comment section down below. I believe soon we will have the PSA Dagger in for review so that will be coming though, again, that’s more of a compact, you know, Glock 19 size gun if you will though.
