This gun has the heaviest single action trigger I have encountered - ever. It's 7 pounds 13 ounces with a five pull average. The travel of the trigger is just fine.
The price is right - MSRP is 999 but it's listed at $930 where I saw it. Through online retailers some will quote you prices well under $900 so that's pretty cool.
The grip safety isn't my favorite - my grip doesn't naturally depress it all the way - if I intended this for serious use I would probably change it for one that lets my hand up under the gun a bit better. The reach to the magazine release is VERY long - reminds me of how the Cosaint gun was I reviewed a while ago.
Controls have a pretty positive play to them - not super precise like a gunsmith gun but a good production gun definitely.
We'll see how it shoots - but I'm optimistic.
So there's it happening - it was a good stage up until that point . You can actually see the issue starting as the gun hangs out of batter entering the position which forced me to rack a round out to get it back into battery - which I handled well. This sequence was paper, mini popper, mini popper activator, distant open target, bobber (didn't engage), partial (didn't engage) - so I ate 4 mikes and 2 procedurals right there. And it still was a 3.44 hit factor.
The good news so now the guns working I look forward to two days of mayhem!
Below - you can see a shock buff - it's a washer, basically that threads onto the guide rod. The theory of what a shock buff does is it alleviates some of the impact when the slide opens all the way - they're usually made out of Delrin or rubber or whatever but this one is aluminum and was supposed to be maintenance free. It kind of compresses the spring a bit more since you don't trim the spring so it makes lighter springs work more like a higher poundage ...
I got this pretty epic slow motion in the range of the Deagle going off. that gun is silly fun to shoot. The fireball is massive - I started to chrono the ammo I have for it - it's not as impressive as the fireball would suggest. It's about 1200 FPS with a 300 grain projectile. For comparison - the 6" 10mm with a 180 grain Blazer Brass was doing 180 grains at 1200 FPS.
The 10mm 1911 is pretty tame to shoot - not wildly different form a 45.
I was going to do a video on 10mm ammo and then shoot water jugs and slow motion of them popping - but then the sky opened up on me.
Just wanted to share this with you guys as an option you might not have heard of. Good quality, good execution, good designs. I don't have any sort of business relationship with them nor have interacted with them beyond giving them my credit card information. Pretty legit.
So what I can say is - and I don't mean this literally but it's directionally true - you can't put lipstick on a pig.
What I mean by that is that the baggage the gun has as a budget gun comes with it with premium parts. Part of what you're buying with a 2011 is slide/frame/barrel fitment. Slapping drop in performance parts is akin to bolting on a high flow muffler on an economy car. Even the pin striping from Autozone doesn't make it a sports car. And that was true with the Romulus - but as it is now it's way nicer - it's just not as accurate. The miller precision grip and trigger are pretty transformative in feel however - those are excellent excellent adds to a 2011. The fitment on the trigger to grip is better than my Atlas - as good as my Fowler.
If you haven't swapped ignitions on a gun before - be ready to fit the thumb safeties over again - because a new sear and hammer requires new fitment on the safeties.
I had Chuck at TexStar tune up the small parts and the trigger and everything is great on it...
So the Venom is basically the same sight without the solar panel for about half the cost. So that's got my attention and where I'm going next.
If you're into it - it's on sale right now as part of their Black Friday door busters at Optics planet https://alnk.to/74xDu6U
here's a video on the Defenser ST Enclosed