At the Big Reno Gunshow this weekend while i was walking around i noticed this thing. First thing i noticed was the fit and finish. Rather good for $619. My best friend had been looking for a railed 1911 so i gave it a good once over before i called him. He went down to the show on Saturday, and we shot it today on Sunday.

Pre shooting impressions:

Pro's:
Nice even parkerization over all of the surfaces

Slide and frame fit was tighter than my Kimber, along with the extractor in the rear of the slide.

Slide travels back very smoothly. Barrel bushing is not as tight as my Kimber, but still very good.

Trigger had some creep, but broke around 5 pounds. Trigger fit the frame very well, no vertical or horizontal movement.

The frontstrap and mainspring housing are checkered very nicely. I guess either 20 or 25 LPI. This gives you a great purchase on the gun itself. The magwell was also blended very nicely to the frame.

The sites are pretty good. I am not sure what the cut of the front site was, but it had a nice white dot. The rear was a Bomar cut with an LPA adjustable site. I am not a big fan of adjustable sites, but these gave a nice site picture.

The pistol comes with a nice extended slide stop that was very easy to manipulate

Cons:

The thumb safety was not very positive to engage. If you do not ride thumb over safety, it seems it would be VERY easy to engage during shooting. Also, the corner of the thumb safety is very square and wants to bite into your hand. More on this later.

The grip safety was fitted OK, but definitely could be better. It does not have as much travel as my Kimber, and could definitely chew into the hand after a long day of shooting.


At the Range:

For ammo we used some of my reloads that work well in my Kimber. It is a Berrys Bullets 230gr Plated RN on top of 4.8gr of Bullseye using mixed brass and CCI 300 LP Primers.

I broke out all the mags that i had. The gun came with one Mec Gar 8 round magazine. From my selection i brought out Chip McCormick 8s, Wilson 47D and ETMs, Ed Brown 8 pack, and a Kimber 8 round mag. All of the magazines seated in the gun well, with full mags requiring a slap to get in with the slide in battery.

The pistol went through the first 3 magazines with no issues. When it got to the Ed Brown the slide would fail to return to battery all the way. A quick tap of the butt of the pistol and the slide went into battery. This is the newest magazine i had, so at first we attributed it to spring tension. The CMK mag worked great, other than failing to lock the slide back (it is over 10 years old, and is a beater range mag). For the most part the pistol ran great, with the occasional failure to return to battery. After playing with it some more, it felt as if the recoil spring is weak. For a reference i brought out my Kimber where i run ISMI 16lb springs. The stock spring in the ATI feels about 14. After 150 rounds the gun had mainly smoothed out, so I decided to put the recoil spring from my Kimber in the ATI. This cured all of the problems. It ate the other 400 rounds we put through it with no hiccups whatsoever.

As for accuracy, the pistol shot low and to the left. 3 clicks on the rear site brought it to center. Unfortunately, i left my screwdriver set in my truck at my friends house, and we did not have the proper screwdriver to adjust elevation (did not want to bugger up the screw). After the adjustment the pistol was shooting about 1-2 inches low. Once we had the trigger down we were printing one hole (about a 3 inch hole) from 5-10 yards. Accuracy wise it shoots about as good as my Kimber, but i have way more trigger time with the Kimber.

Now we get to the biggest gripe, the thumb safety. This is an ambi safety, and it does not feel positive at all. That is a quick fix, with a new plunger and spring being ordered soon. Next weekend Paul is bringing it over and we are going to do what i did with my Kimber. Take God's Gunsmithing Tool (Dremel), and re radius the rear of the thumb safety. Paul had a pretty good blister going at the end of the session that was causing him to flinch, as did I.

After putting the 16 pound spring in, the thing ran like a champ. We ran the gun pretty wet since it was new, but by the end of the session it was nice and smooth. Speaking of that, it started seeping out quite a bit of red grease from all the joints once the thing got hot (preservative)

Overall i am VERY impressed with this gun. I have been in the market for a railed 1911, and i think i may be picking one of these up in the near future, pending that in the long term this thing keeps running like it is. That being said here is what i would change out immediately given my experience:

Safety and slidestop plunger and spring, recontour or replace (with a single side) the thumb safety. In the future i would possibly go with a different fitted beavertail.

For the price, it is definitely a good buy and a good performer.

When Paul comes over next weekend I will take pictures of it stripped down to the bare frame, with pictures of it vs my Kimber for reference. I will update this thread with pictures once this happens.

There isn't very much information on this pistol out, so feel free to ask me any questions that you have.

Erick Z

nice writeup.



let us know how it goes with the changes

Sweet vid

love the soundtrack  



 

Nice write up.  Interesting piece...I wonder if it is cast vs. forged steel.  Wish it came with a Novak rear sight rather than the Bomar.

Considering the price point, I would be surprised if it was forged. I'm sure it's manufactured the same as the other PI guns, which are still a good deal.