SIG Sauer P226 X-Five Black Skeleton

Pick this one up and the first thing you notice is how much steel has been carved away. The dust cover is skeletonized down to a row of open lightening cuts, and the slide carries a slotted barrel shroud that runs nearly to the muzzle. This is the X-Five Black Skeleton, one of the more aggressive builds to come out of SIG's German Mastershop, and it shows the kind of hand fitting that line is known for.

The finish is what SIG calls a distressed black, a mottled gray-black that pools into the corners and lightens across the high points of the slide. The effect looks worn in on purpose, and it plays against the deep black controls and trigger. X-FIVE sits engraved on the slide flat above the takedown lever, with the SIG Sauer name stamped low near the dust cover.

The grips are the standpout. Laminated wood in a layered gray and brown pattern, cut with diamond checkering panels and a smooth border, fitted to the wider competition frame. They fill the hand the way a target grip should. Up top you get an adjustable rear sight paired with a fiber-style front, and the beavertail runs long under a competition hammer.

This is a single-action-only gun in 9mm, built on the full competition platform with the long 5 inch barrel and the heavier slide that comes with it. The trigger breaks the way a Mastershop trigger should, short and clean. Worth noting: the extended magazine carries a thick aluminum basepad, the kind built for fast reloads on the clock.

The X-Five line was always SIG's answer to the custom 1911 race guns, and the Black Skeleton takes that idea further than most. For a shooter who wants a German-built competition pistol that looks like nothing else on the line, or a collector chasing Mastershop work, this is a hard one to walk past.