Infinity 2011 review (The King)

Long write up alert. As usual, feel free to skip to the end for pictures.


SVI Infinity. As long as I can remember I have always viewed them as the King of 2011s. I remember a quote over on BEnos Forum saying something to the effect of “there are a few builders that make a gun that shoot as well as an Infinity, but none better”. There is a mystique to Infinity, the fact that you can’t just go into a store and check one out. The fact that you can’t even select a “standard” model, you have to design the gun, detail by detail, for better or worse, and then wait, seemingly forever just to enter the experience that is Infinity. And that is before we even get into the dollars and cents of it…

A few years ago I opted to buy my Atlas Erebus instead of buying an Infinity. The short wait and being several thousand dollars less certainly played into that decision, and at that time it was the right decision for me. We are fortunate these days where you can buy an off the shelf/ in stock gun from Atlas and get at least a taste of the shooting experience an Infinity provides.

On to mine.

Around the beginning of last year my wife asked me a simple enough question. She said “is there any gun that you really want or have always wanted that you don’t have?” I wanted to say no, I was pretty content with my collection and had just got on the list for my Chambers PhatWMG CC, but the fact of the matter was that there was a Grail that I was yet to procure. An Infinity. The thought became increasingly prevalent in my mind, until in late February we drove up to SVI and I designed and commissioned by build.

53 weeks later and I now have my Infinity in hand. It is a 5 inch slide with a ported island barrel, steel frame and grip with an SRO. The finish is an absolutely stunning FDE camo, created by using different levels of polish to achieve the different shades of FDE. In terms of finish, no one else in the industry is even coming close. Honestly, I can’t say enough about this finish, my pictures do it no justice and I can’t stop looking at it.

Ergonomically the pistol feels fantastic. The grips enhanced ergonomics give a hint of CZ and I don’t think anyone in the business has a higher grip beavertail than Infinity, and it is blended beautifully.

The trigger is everything I want a fast 2011 trigger to be. Sub 2lbs break and crisp. Compared to Atlas the take up is slightly heavier with the break feeling lighter “think 2 stage”, the trigger shoe is fit substantially better and the new textured trigger shoe face feels much nicer than the slippery Geppert/Atlas pieces (excluding their long flat shoe, which is too long for my fingers).

I really like the Infinity mag release. Slightly extended rearward, makes it easy to hit without adjusting my grip, while not allowing it to be overly obtrusive like some of the extended mag release buttons. It is sprung to perfection and is probably the most satisfying mag release I have ever used.

For the thumb safety, I had originally planned on going with a narrower piece until I sampled a gun at SVI. With the way they do the optic cut/wide base I found the narrow safety somewhat challenging to access with the slide overhang. Which is why I chose the wide thumb safety. It is certainly prominent but well dehorned and provides a nice, easy to access shelf for my thumb, while being easy to manipulate. I will say out of the box the thumb safety is stiff and requires quite a bit of effort, honestly more than ideal, but I think it will break in nicely, and it isn’t to the point where it is unusable.

If I was to point out a negative of the pistol it would have to be the slide stop. The lever is small, and stacked with the lack of relief cut under the paddle “see Staccato or Charyn Precision” it is not the easiest pistol to lock the slide back on. And thanks to an extra detent on the slide stop, it certainly wont be locking the slide back during fire, regardless of mags. I know it’s a competition oriented thing, but the whole slide stop experience on this gun would have to go in the L column for me.

Now, back to the good, the optic mount, I think this is the best way an SRO can be mounted on a 1911/2011. This SRO is absolutely buried and has front and rear slide support. It is awesome and no one else does it like them.

In further cool/nerdy details, Infinity’s interchangeable breachface/extractor design is an evolution for the platform. If you are into engineering it is worth reading about.

The slide to frame fit feels excellent and the way the slide interfaces with the island barrel when I rack the slide, well, uhm, it does it for me. The offset ports through the island barrel are also pretty cool, dispersing the gas in a narrow angle V. Doing this with an island barrel has the added benefits of providing a taller wall for the gas to redirect and sends the gas out without creating pressure inside the slide. IMO it is the only way to port a semi automatic without compromise.

Magazine compatibility
Infinity- I only have the 1 Infinity mag, and as expected it worked perfectly
MBX- I ran several MBX 140mm and Defender mags through the pistol, all worked perfectly
Staccato- I only have 1 Staccato Gen 2 without the over insertion basepads on it. I tried that one in the gun and it worked perfectly. The Gen 2 and 3 with over insertion basepads would not fit in the pistol due to the magwell design.

Range Report

Well, it did not disappoint when it came time send bullets down range. 200 rounds of American Eagle 147gr and Norma 124gr, zero malfunctions and it was clovering all the triple taps. The hardest thing to do with this gun is to shoot a group slowly.

When I moved over to steel the gun felt great, but I was surprised to see my times were a bit slow (compared to my XC and CC) with times in the 2.2x and 2.3x on the plate rack. As I continued to work with the gun I ran a few “run and gun” stages and this is where the pistol really felt in its element. Set plink plink go repeat. I felt like I could do this all day with this gun. The ported island barrel doesn’t provide quite as much recoil reduction as a compensator, but it is still very nice.

To finish the range session with just 12 round remaining, I decided to give the plate rack a couple more runs. This time I got quite a bit more aggressive with my grip and cracked off a 2.13. 6 rounds left and I saw the 4 leaf clover glowing on the slide (might have just been the sun…) On the last plate rack of the day I set a new personal best with a 2.06. “That is .21 faster than the best I managed with my Erebus”.

In conclusion the gun is everything it is advertised to be, the pinnacle of its respective class. I am incredibly impressed with this pistol and it has exceeded all of my “admittedly lofty” expectations.

To quote 1911Syndicate “Infinity is God”.