You have a thousand options and can go anywhere from machined show pieces to the other side of the spectrum, those that are meant to be beaten, used and abused and come back for more.
Innovative Gunfighter Solutions does very aggressive slide serrations to the extreme. Not only do they go above and beyond the usual muzzle end slide serrations, but they go all the way down the slide if you want. They even do the radius of the slide as well to get the most surface area utilized in that worst case scenario. And by extreme I mean you can rack these pistols off of an oiled up beach ball while jello wrestling. Take that visual, keep it. It’s yours.
IGFS does this not to be cool or pretty but to be functional. Functional in ways most do not prepare or even train for. Don’t get me wrong they still look cool to me, even if I never need to perform a one handed rack or double feed clear with a bloody non-dominant appendage. They still look badass as hell. You can get your M&P or Glock from IGFS with a lot of different enhancements too, like grip reduction, stippling, undercuts and more. You can specify the location of, serrations you would like and how aggressive you want to go.
One of the best selling points to me is not just the actual product itself, but the turnaround time and cost is slightly quicker and costs less than many of the companies that do similar work. With that being said, let’s talk review.
The IGFS pistols we tried were a full size Smith&Wesson M&P as well as a Glock 17. During 95% of all testing the weapons both performed flawlessly. In heat, sand, water, cold they both worked amazing. That 5% though as you can see in the video, was the hurdle that is mud. That doesn’t mean that IGFS is at fault, machinery is machinery and if you clog it with enough quagmire it is bound to fail. In fact, that 5% is where IGFS’s work really shined. Hands covered in slick mud with a pistol completely coated in the sludge and we were still able to perform immediate and remedial actions. Clearing double feeds and failure to ejects left and right without sliding, slipping or losing traction on the pistol at all. See IGFS doesn’t make firearms, they modify them for worst case scenario. With the models tested there was no extra “porting” or slide cutouts. All internals are factory on both the M&P and the Glock, so take that and run with it.
There were a few things here and there on both pistols individually that stuck out to me. On the M&P for instance, I prefer to run a small grip (M&P comes with 3 sizes for those that do not know or own one.) With the stippling and grip reduction this made the small about the size of an extra small. Myself and everyone who tried or ran the pistol instantly noticed they were over reaching the trigger and getting too much of it. Pulled shots left and right. I only bring this up because if you are getting a package from IGFS on the M&P I would go a size up on the grip from what you normally run. The trigger was far better than a standard Smith & Wesson, but not better than a $189 or higher trigger job. Personally, I would run it all day as the differences between say an Apex trigger and the IGFS trigger was not a big enough difference for me to spend more.
The Glock, my only complaints are aesthetic. Glock is a very square and simple design and by adding the same style of serrations as you would see on the M&P it just looks off to me. Keep in mind the serrations are not identical to the factory M&P serrations, in fact they are much harsher. But at a glance they look similar and thus the mistaken identity. Now, I understand this pattern has most likely the optimal “grab” as serrations go and probably perform far better than straight line cuts. It just looked off, especially with the accent cuts in the side of the Glock (which I thought looked great.) Last peeve was the actual machine marks on the slide serrations. Now with a faster turnaround time and lower cost, this is an acceptable tradeoff for many. Especially with the amount of people that Cerakote these days, it is a non-issue.
Overall I was very pleased with not just the appearance but also the general functionality of the Innovative Gunfighter Solutions offerings. I ran them both pretty good with assistance from Monkey as well as some other students for full days at a training over the summer. The M&P pistol has over 500-600 Rounds through it, and the Glock has even more. The M&P was never cleaned and the Glock was only cleaned after the mud situation. Lube used was FireClean as well as Rand CLP and up until the mud not a single stovepipe, double feed or jam. If you need a pistol that can take the punishment and not let you down when things go way past sideways then I have no issues with recommending IGFS to do work on your Glock or M&P. My pistols do not live a comfortable life and these operated with flying colors.