It’s finally here!¹ I got my open gun out to the range over the last weekend, and it is AWESOME. I’m super happy with it.

First, a brief review of the characteristics I decided to go with after picking Lone Star Innovations (LSI) as my smith. In no particular order:

• 5 inch overall length (i.e. including threads) bull barrel
• Titanium compensator of recent design
• V6 barrel ports
• Steel grip with aggressive texture
• Leupold Deltapoint Pro red dot sight
• Caliber: .38 Supercomp

In terms of build choices, a lot of this is “get what the pros using, but trying to keep this not ridiculously expensive”². Most of the top guys are using “middy” (having a threaded barrel with 5″ overall length) guns, so I got a “middy gun”. That’s a reasonable balance between barrel length and compactness. A bunch of top guys seem to be using some flavor of V-porting, so I got some V-porting. Plus, I think V-porting is super cool. Steel grip is all the rage now, so I went that direction. Plus, those have better shaping, since that’s where the R&D is going. And I went .38 SC because that’s what the top guys shoot, plus it’s a bit easier to reload and it gives more gas for the comp and all those ports. For the record, the one thing I didn’t opt for that the top guys have is a tungsten-sleeved barrel. This is heavier than a bull barrel, but adds to the cost substantially, because tungsten is a bitch to machine. The costs were what made me reconsider that on this build. Maybe on a future build.

For finish I went with black overall with TiN (Gold) on the barrel and small parts, plus red on the trigger shoe. I also chose an SVI medium flat trigger shoe. I prefer flat triggers, and medium seems about right for my hand size/finger length. Colors were chosen because they look cool and I like them.

The steel grip is LSI’s Outlaw Grip, which is brand new. It’s wonderfully machined, with an aggressive texture and plenty of undercutting. It’s super comfortable in the hand and avoids the “blocky 2×4” feel that most 2011 guns seem to have. The end result of all of my choices is a heavy gun, weighing in at 56 oz. Which is just what I want. The grip fits my hand wonderfully, and I tend to like aggressive textures.

Let’s also talk trigger pull. On Fishbreath’s scale, it has a pull weight of just over 2.5 lbs. But you’d swear it’s lighter because it’s so perfectly smooth and crisp. This trigger is fantastic and I love it.

And on to the shooting. I got some major power factor .38 SC from Big Country Tactical³ and some nice 171.25 mm MBX magazines. Locked and loaded, I went to the range and started blasting away. And I do mean blasting: V6 ports plus a big modern comp yields a loud, loud gun. But gas redirection and all that mass also means that the gun just kind of sits there. Recoil felt like some sort of wimpy .32 or something, not hot .38.

Of course, this also meant that I had to concentrate on getting a good strong grip, because you really don’t need one. When I got a good grip, the dot really didn’t move very much. Even with a weak grip, the dot tracked straight up and down. It was super stable and predictable.

I ended up burning through the 90 rounds I brought super quick. This gun is a joy to shoot. I’m really looking forward to getting some quality match time in with it.