Micro-compact 9 mm pistols are really popular right now, and have been popular for several years. Typically, they're polymer-frame and striker-fired. In 2022, Smith & Wesson took a little bit of a different tack with that design concept with the original CSX. Well, now, Smith & Wesson has upgraded that platform with what it calls its E-Series.
The E in that stands for "enhanced." And there are definitely some enhancements here that we want to talk about. First off, what we're looking at here on the table is a CSX that is sized pretty much like the original one. It has a 3.1 inch barrel, and the grip frame is the same size. It has the 12-round slightly extended magazine inserted here.So we'll just go ahead and pull that out. It's worth noting that with the E-Series, Smith & Wesson also introduced another model that has a slightly longer barrel. That is a 3.6 inch barrel. This is the 3.1 inch. Right off the bat, one of the things you'll see here is there is a cover plate here.
That covers a milled slot sized for all Shield RMSc and Holosun 507K red dot optics. And that was something that wasn't on the first iteration of this gun. Now you can put a red dot sight on it. One of the other things that Smith & Wesson did is they went ahead and just cleaned up the trigger a little bit.
The original CSX didn't have a bad trigger, but it wasn't a great trigger. And considering that there's kind of a lot of M1911-style sort of controls and ergonomics and all sorts of things happening here, people were expecting a more of a clean, crisp M1911-style trigger. And so with the E Series, that particular feature has been enhanced. But, one of the biggest things that they've done with the new E-Series CSX is they've actually increased the capacity, and the way that they've done that is by making this gun more modular than it was. The E-Series have the same size frame aluminum alloy frame as the original CSX, but what Smith & Wesson has gone ahead and done is they have added some interchangeable grip panels, these backstrap panels here, that have a slightly lengthened funnel or magazine well there that accommodate slightly longer magazines. So all of these different magazines work with the same size firearm here. So you can adjust this gun to take whichever size magazine you want. And it comes with corresponding grip sleeves as well here.
So without this insert installed, this 15-round magazine will insert and just meet up with that backstrap just like that. And now without this insert installed, that 17-round magazine just sticks out a little bit, but that insert installed onto the backstrap there is what makes that a pretty seamless package, in terms of controls. The CSX, as I've said before, is very M1911 style. Of course, you have your external hammer there. It's a nice little beavertail that protects the web of your hand. It has a bilateral thumb safety. It has a bilateral slide stop lever on either side. It has a single-sided push button magazine release in the traditional location for right-handed shooters.
But Smith & Wesson does include another push button magazine release that you can swap out if you want that to be a left-handed configuration. So it's a pretty cool little package. There's a lot going for it. There's a lot we liked about the original that you still see on here. Really, a nice, modular package from Smith & Wesson with a lot of really nice welcome updates.
