There's an old saying you may have heard before.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Apparently nobody told Glock.
The real steel Glock 19x is exactly what you get if you tell one of the best firearms manufacturers in the world to redesign one of the most widely utilized service pistols in military and law enforcement. It was already the closest thing to a perfect duty firearm in existence, but in order to take aim at the likes of the SIG M17, Glock would need to re-invent the wheel and somehow make it even better.
If you follow firearms development in the industry, you likely know that Glock did not win the contract for the Army's new pistol, it still went to SIG, but was it because the pistol was inferior? More importantly, does the airsoft version of the Glock 19x suffer the same fate? Let's take a deeper look, and see if this pistol is worth your time, money, and holster space.
The first change you notice upon opening the box (which is subtly tan colored as well) is the new coat of paint on the outside. Instead of the traditional solid black of almost every Glock you've ever seen, this pistol is covered in a tan hue. Designed for a military doing most of it's warfighting in the desert, this makes sense. The pistol still holds the same smooth finish that manages to catch the light without being overly reflective.
The differences don't stop there. The grip now lacks the finger grooves common place on older models of Glock pistol. Whether or not this matters to you will depend on if you found previous iterations of the Glock uncomfortable due to their "ergonomic" grooves. As someone who had no issue with the original G19, but did struggle with G17 pistols (which this gun shares a frame size with) I found the lack of grooves a fantastic design choice. The checkering on the grip makes sure you can still maintain positive control of your pistol even when your hands are sweaty, and feels a lot like the texture on PTS's enhanced polymer products, which is a huge positive, even if the design choice is largely coincidental.The bottom of the frame features a lanyard loop as well for pistol retention.
The most striking variance from any other model of Glock pistol is the proprotions. This pistol is a hybride of the G17 and G19 pistols, using the larger grip of the G17, and the shorter slide length of the G19 pistol. This gives you a smaller presentation when deployed, but does allow the shooter to have a full sized grip for maximum control. It takes some getting used to, but it's a perfectly fine looking pistol, especially with a flashlight mounted to the existing picatinny rail. Sights are the standard Glock style, and get the job done, though fibers would have been a nice touch.
While the Glock 19 was originally a green-gas only pistol when Elite Force released it last year, the new Glock 19x is something a little different. It ships with a Green gas magazine, but is capable of taking the CO2 magazines for it's bigger brother, the Glock 17 CO2 pistol.
This gives you a slightly higher FPS, and better felt recoil, but most importantly, it gives you versatility. Now you can utilize the pistol regardless of weather conditions with a simple change of a magazine. The internal components are very similar to that of the CO2 powered Glock blowback pistols manufactured by VFC, who is the OEM for this gun as well.
We received fairly consistent FPS results, averaging 310 FPS on CO2, and 300 FPS on green gas out of this gun. This lines up with readings on the other Glock models I have handled in the past. The shooting experience is sublime. The trigger is crisp and snappy, with a defined wall as you'd expect from this style of pistol. Much like the real thing, you don't notice the trigger safety unless you look for it, exactly as it should be. This gun also had a phenomenal hop up, allowing a shooter to engage targets past 100 feet with a sidearm with ease, as long as your skill was high enough. The gun certainly is not the limiting factor in that equation.
Gas efficiency was to be expected. roughly a magazine and a half out of one fill. We may have been spoiled by the Baba Yaga's insane efficiency, but honestly this is more than sufficient. You won't realistically load more BB's without also loading more gas anyway, so as long as you can cycle a magazine's worth of ammo without issue, it's good enough for us here.
As with all of our reviews, we have one last question to answer. Is it worth your money?
This gun shares a place with another Elite Force product we've reviewed, the 416A5. It's a pretty great addition to your arsenal. If you lean towards the Glock in any way, the G19x is a pristine choice to buff your load out with a new pistol.
It sits at $174.95 on Airsoft GI, and with it's ability to move from CO2 to Green Gas, and handle the elements with ease combined with great performance, aesthetics and ergonomics, this gun is a sure fire shoe-in for the "must buy" club.
If you'd like to snag your own, check it out HERE.