HK CC9 vs Glock 43X vs Sig P365 — Why I Switched After Building 150 Holsters

I carried a Glock 43X for about five years. It's a great gun — I'd still recommend it to anybody. But it's not what's on my belt anymore, and the way that changed is a little backwards from how these things usually go: I sold about a hundred and fifty holsters for the pistol that replaced it before I ever owned one.

Here's the whole story, and an honest comparison of the three micro-compacts most people are cross-shopping right now.

How the CC9 Ended Up on My Bench

Chuke messaged me on Instagram one day asking for an inside-the-waistband holster for an HK CC9. The gun was new enough that there were no molds available for it — not from anybody. I told him I'd see what I could do.

About a week later the mold came available. I ordered a couple in, and the first thing I noticed pulling one out of the box was that the gun felt genuinely good in the hand. Not "good for a micro-compact." Good.

I built two holsters for Chuke. He liked them enough to put them in a couple of videos on his channel, and after that my inbox got busy. I built him another one in a different color and stamp pattern, he covered that one too, and the orders kept coming. Over the next stretch I built and shipped somewhere north of a hundred and fifty Insider holsters for the CC9.

Which is a strange position to be in. I'd handled that mold hundreds of times, wet-formed leather around it over and over, and never fired the gun. At some point it started to feel like I owed HK the courtesy of actually buying one.

The Range Day

So I did, and I took it out next to my 43X. A friend of ours had a Sig P365 with him that day, so we ended up shooting all three back to back — which is the comparison most people are actually trying to make.

The CC9 won for me, and it wasn't especially close.

HK CC9 vs Glock 43X

The honest summary: the 43X is a great gun and I carried it happily for years. The CC9 just fits my hand better.

Ergonomics are the whole story here. The 43X grip is fine — it's a Glock, it works, you get used to it. The CC9 filled my hand in a way the Glock never quite did, and that showed up on the timer and in how quickly I got a consistent grip on the draw. That's subjective and I won't pretend otherwise. Your hands aren't my hands.

The other thing that pushed me at the time was capacity. The 43X shipped with 10-round magazines; the CC9 comes with a 12. When you're carrying a gun this size, two rounds is a real percentage.

The honest update: Glock announced factory 15-round Slimline magazines for the 43X and 48 in April 2026, and they started shipping in May. So the capacity argument that pushed me toward the CC9 doesn't really exist anymore — a 43X with a 15-rounder holds more than my CC9 does.

I'm still carrying the CC9. That tells you the ergonomics mattered more than the numbers did, at least for me. If you're a 43X owner reading this and wondering whether to switch, the 15-round mags are worth trying before you spend $600 on a new pistol.

What the 43X still does better: it's a Glock. Parts, holsters, magazines, aftermarket support, and armorers are everywhere. Every range has one. The CC9 is newer and the ecosystem around it is thinner. If you value that kind of ubiquity, that's a legitimate reason to stay put.

HK CC9 vs Sig P365

This one comes down to hand size, and I want to be careful here, because the P365 is a great pistol and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

I liked it. It shot well. The problem for me was the grip diameter — it's noticeably smaller around than the CC9. I've got average-size hands and my fingers wrapped too far around it, which left me feeling like I was gripping a broomstick rather than a pistol. That's not a flaw in the gun. It's a mismatch.

If you have smaller hands, that same grip is probably going to feel perfect, and you may well prefer the P365 to both of the other two. Plenty of people do, and they're not wrong.

One caveat: I haven't shot the P365 X-Macro. From handling one, the grip diameter is about the same — it's longer, so you get more purchase and more of your hand on the gun, but it's still slimmer around than the CC9. If diameter was your issue with the standard P365, the X-Macro probably doesn't solve it. If length was the issue, it might.

The Numbers, Side by Side

What I Actually Carry

The CC9, in an Insider, appendix. It's what's on me every day.

That's not a knock on the other two. If the 43X is working for you, buy the 15-round magazines and keep going — you'll have spent forty bucks instead of six hundred. If you've got smaller hands, go handle a P365 before you decide anything. The right gun is the one that fits you, and the only way to know is to put your hands on all three.

What I'd tell anybody, regardless of which one you land on: spend real money on the holster and the belt. A good pistol in a bad holster is a gun you'll stop carrying by August. I've watched it happen to a lot of people, and nine times out of ten the belt was the part they cheaped out on.

The Holster Side

I build the Insider for all three of these — the CC9, the 43X, and the P365 and X-Macro. That's actually why I feel qualified to compare them at all: I don't shoot them once and hand them back like a reviewer does. I handle these guns constantly, and I've watched what people carry and what they come back to change.

The Insider is my everyday IWB and the one more of my customers carry than anything else I make. Wet-formed to your specific pistol, Wickett & Craig leather, fully lined so it doesn't wear the finish off your slide, cut to clear a red dot, and riding on DCC Monoblock clips. The optional MODWING pulls the grip in tight if you carry appendix and don't want to print. Built right or left hand, appendix or strong side.

Starts at $299.95 — stamp patterns, color options and add-ons run up from there. Current lead time is about four months, because every one is made by hand, one at a time, in Arizona. That's the honest number, not a hopeful one.

Shop the Insider IWB Holster →

Cross-shopping HK's micro-compacts? Read our HK VP9CC write-up. You can also see Chuke's original CC9 build and video.