SIG Sauer P226 X-Five PPC Black Skeleton

Look at the slide on this one. SIG's Mastershop machinists cut a long row of skeletonized lightening windows down both sides, dropping reciprocating mass where it matters and giving the X-Five PPC a profile you won't mistake for anything else. This is the PPC build out of Eckernförde, Germany, made for the precision pistol disciplines and finished to a level that puts it in a different room from the standard P226 line.

The single-action steel frame is the heart of it. Long slide, full dust cover with an integral accessory rail, and a beavertail that lets the hand ride high into the bore axis. The slide wears a flat black finish that turns the machining and the sharp slide cuts into the whole visual story. Up top sits an adjustable target rear paired with a post front, the setup serious PPC shooters expect.

The grips are the detail that ties it together. Aggressively checkered panels carry the SIG X-Series emblem, mounted to a frame with a hand-filling competition profile. The barrel is marked 9mm Para and the slide carries the deep XFIVE rollmark on one side with the SIG Sauer name on the other. Made in Germany is cut into the frame, as it should be.

The package arrives the way a Mastershop pistol should. It comes in the fitted SIG Sauer case with the X-Series operating manuals, the factory test target, a spare magazine, the SIG cleaning pen, and the original SIG Sauer sticker.

That's the thing about the X-Five PPC. It was never built in the numbers of a service P226, and the skeletonized Black version is a Mastershop expression rather than a catalog staple. For a shooter who wants German competition pedigree with a face that stands apart on the line, this one delivers on both counts.