Sig P365-AXG Legion Semi-Automatic Pistol Review

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The Sig P365-AXG Legion Is One Stainless Steel Beauty

I opened the case on the new Sig P365-AXG Legion pistol I’d been sent for review and discovered that Sig Sauer had pretty well tricked out the firearm. It sported a Romeo-X red dot mounted on the rear of the slide and a Foxtrot2R light attached to the under-barrel accessory rail.

Now, neither of these units is standard with the pistol. They cost extra. But, not wanting to be ungrateful, I decided to shoot the P365-AXG Legion as outfitted.

Damned glad I did, too. The Romeo-X was a fine addition, getting the best out of an already very accurate pistol, while the Foxtrot2R light made for some fun nighttime shooting. That light certainly has self-defense/tactical uses, too.

Accuracy

At my outdoor range, I shot the P365-AXG Legion at 10 yards from a rest and at five and seven yards offhand, using a variety of range and self-defense 9MM ammunitions. The pistol’s accuracy was impressive.

I started at 10 yards and zeroed the Romeo-X. My very first group, shot with range ammunition, came in just over one inch wide but was clustered an inch to the right. A small wrench (provided) to the controls shifted my bullet strikes to the correct spot.

At 10 yards, my very best five-shot groups were a pair at .90 inches and one at just .70 inches. These were shot with Sig’s Elite Defense 9MM loaded with a 115-grain V-Crown bullet.

Shooting offhand at five yards, I pegged two groups of 1.2 inches with Hornady’s Critical Defense rounds and a 1.0-inch group using Sig’s range ammo.  

The P365-AXG Legion matched up well with Winchester’s USA Ready 9MM, scoring groups of .70- and 1.0-inches at seven yards.

I shot larger groups, of course. Those were because I’d pulled a shot due to sloppy finger placement of the trigger or just generally losing concentration. But the P365-AXG Legion itself? One dead-on accurate pistol. 

Feature-Rich Firearm

Stainless steel is the P365-AXG Legion foundation: frame, barrel, slide, all stainless. Which not only promises durability and rust prevention but also provides a nice weight and balance in hand. The pistol’s custom G10 Grips were cut from aluminum and firmly contacted my hand throughout shooting.

The slide featured an optics-ready cut, easily accessed by removing a couple of screws from the rear plate. Not into optics? The pistol comes standard with Sig’s XRay3 Day/Night Sights, which pops well.

An interesting feature is the pistol’s two-port integrated expansion chamber designed for recoil mitigation. Several newer semi-automatics have cuts or ports at the end of the slide and barrel to siphon off gases. This helps to push down the end of the barrel somewhat. Same idea here.

What Sig added, though, was the expansion chamber, a space under the ports wider than the bore. According to Sig, while actual recoil reduction is ammunition-dependent, some of the 9MM brands Sig used in its testing saw up to a 25-percent reduction in recoil. 

Style Meets Substance

The pistol’s striker-fired trigger averaged two pounds, and two ounces of pull. The trigger had nearly three-tenths of an inch of take-up before engaging the striker mechanism. From here, the pull was even, the wide-faced trigger making the operation fairly smooth.

The P365-AXG Legion also featured an extended slide stop and ambi-mag release, plus a beveled mag well for easier magazine insertion.

This is a classy-looking pistol, with Sig’s signature Legion Gray finish on the slide and frame, set off by a muted black finish on the grips.

The Sig is sold with three 17-round magazines for a 17+1 ammo capacity in what is still a pretty compact unit. 
The P365-AXG Legion is expensive. A Sig dealer can’t offer this pistol for any less than $1,199. That’s the MAP or Minimum Advertised Price required by Sig. (The gunmaker no longer assigns a suggested retail price for its firearms). A person could buy 2.5 poly-framed 9MMs for that money. So, for the equivalent of 2.5 less expensive guns, what can you expect?

A handgun crafted from stainless steel should see many thousands of rounds of use. An extremely accurate pistol. And a very handsome firearm that feels better in hand than any poly-framed semi-auto I’ve ever used.

That’s the Sig P365-AXG Legion.

Specifications: Sig 365-AXG Legion Semi-Automatic Pistol

• ACTION: Semi-Auto, Striker Fired
• CHAMBERING: 9MM
• SLIDE: Stainless Steel
• FRAME: Stainless Steel
• BARREL: Steel
• BARREL LENGTH: 3.1″
• MAGAZINES: 3, 17-Round 
• SIGHTS: XRAY3 Day/Night Sights
• TRIGGER: Flat Faced
• HEIGHT: 5.2″
• WIDTH: 1.4″
• LENGTH: 6.6″
• WEIGHT: 26 oz, w/Magazine
• MAP: $1,199

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