[Bad Boy Mike Lowrey]

Great review Dave! I have an Atlas EOS on order and I am looking to add a Hayes Cobra to the collection. After watching 1911 syndicate and testing your review, I am looking forward to getting one.

 

[2011Dave]

Update:

Back to the indoor range, this time focused on running the guns fast to see what we learn.

I also did some grouping at medium speed again, as well as wrapped up with some bullseye accuracy at slower speeds.

Oh, and this time I brought along a 3rd ported gun - the 4.5" Island Barrel dual-ported Infinity Bonehead. I thought it would be interesting to try the three different types of ports side-by-side (see pic below that highlights the different porting approaches).

Here are the quick summaries of the three guns:

Atlas Apollo: 4.6" dual slot-ports, aluminum grip with brass panels, weighs 42 ounces w SRO no mag, trigger pull of 2.0lb

Hayes Custom Cobra: 5.0" V-4 ports, aluminum grip, weighs 42 ounces w SRO no mag, trigger pull of 2.5lb

Infinity Bonehead: 4.5" Island Barrel with dual square ports, steel grip with skater tape overlay, weighs 46 ounces w SRO no mag, trigger pull of 1.75lb

Today's caveat - if I had a dollar for every time I have stated that I'm a beginner/novice shooter and not very skilled, I could purchase an Infinity pistol (hey, wait). In other words, I always give that caveat because it is what it is and that's why I train and get lessons weekly. So, take it easy on my shooting reports please...and realize you won't get everything you may want from reading about a novice's range sessions...

Okay, with that out of the way, I started running balloon shots at medium speed trying to group in the white (I still haven't measured the target centers in these balloons, but my guess is the center colored bit is 1" diameter and the entire white area is perhaps 3-4" across). From 10 yards at medium speed (for me) of perhaps 30-50 hundredths splits, I was getting comparable groups out of each of the guns, with 4 out of 5 shots in the white bit and 1 stray.

The infinity shot the softest, likely down to the overall weight and weightier front end due to the island barrel. The Apollo cycled faster than the other guns, and it also requires the most grip pressure to control. Hayes slots in-between those two guns in this regard. I did several runs of these 5-shot groups and really didn't see much noteworthy in terms of performance differentials. They feel different and get to their results differently, but the results at my level of skill were comparable.

Next I moved to quasi "bill drills" from low ready (no holster draws allowed in my indoor range). I have not practiced my draw and presentation much lately, let alone with these three guns (I do that training with my defense guns), so my dot acquisition sucked today. So I'm not going to mention my overall times, except to say they were in the high 2's and even 3's, with a best of 1.89 (with the Infinity fwiw). I was focused on the split times and running clean (and to be sure I wasn't clean all the time, I had 4's and 5's in the alpha range on most 6-shot draws, and likely averaged somewhere in the 4.5 out of 6 alpha range).

At that point, I'd only done perhaps 30 bill drills in my life cumulatively, so my skill is not there yet of course and that shows up in lack of consistency. One run I'd have some splits in the 30's, others I got some 10s! (I was doubting those to be honest, but I actually had a number of 10's, along with a healthy number of 12 to 16's. Thinking about it, it was picking up echos as it counted 8 shots sometimes, so I doubt those splits are accurate. There were runs with only 6 shots counted too.) The Infinity ran fast more often than the others. My best overall times were with that gun, and about half of my splits were sub 20 with that gun. Apollo had the next fastest runs and the next most sub 20 splits. The Hayes ran the slowest for me.

Given that it was indoors and the shot timer was picking up echos, I wouldn’t put too much weight onto the raw times I had. Honestly, I think all of these guns are as fast as you are. For me, that means 20s splits most of the time, with a few in the mid teens.

I had a hard time picking up the dot movement today. I was shooting the bill drills much faster than I have on previous range trips, and thus I just couldn't track the dot as well as I recall from those earlier trips. On those earlier trips, Apollo had muzzle rise and lightening fast return to the exact right spot. It was uncanny. Today, in this company, I gave a slight nod to Apollo on keeping the dot in front of me, but all three were very good at it. None felt other-worldly, and I attribute that to me not being used to working with a dot moving as fast as I had it going today.

I didn't really have any trigger freeze episodes, which actually surprised me because in prior bill drills I have had a few hang-ups. Today, my splits were fairly even. Looking at the times I was getting, and then at the trigger pull weights of the guns, I can't help but notice the correlation of faster splits with lower trigger pull weight. Also, while the triggers are all damn fine and not really worth attempting to rank their quality of pull, if I had to rank them in terms of feel, I would rank them in the same order of my fastest split times - Infinity best trigger/fastest splits, Apollo next best/next fastest, Hayes next/next speeds. Coincidence that the bill drill splits purely correlated with the trigger weight and feel? Hmmm...

Finally, I did some bullseye shooting out to 12 yards and then 25 yards (end of the range). All three guns (and me) actually did okay with. I was able to hit the little 1cm center dot on my targets I was using fairly regularly. Once again, Infinity was most accurate and felt easiest to shoot well. Apollo and Hayes were fairly similar in results here.

Overall takeaways? I guess unsurprisingly, the Infinity was the easiest to shoot well, and the fastest and most accurate in my hands. The other two guns were very comparable, but today I came out favoring the Apollo over the Hayes. It was just a bit faster (shorter slide, perhaps too the port design and springing) and the dot returned a bit more quickly and accurately. After my first two sessions shooting the Hayes, I was beginning to think that keeping Apollo in the collection wasn't needed - it could potentially be replaced by the Hayes. After this third session, I have more mixed takeaways in that regard. I won't be kicking Apollo out just yet, I think there is much more testing to do with these two guns to see how they ultimately rank and if they are distinct enough to keep both, or purely redundant. (the other takeaway is that if one is willing to treat their Infinity firearms as guns and shoot the piss out of them and not as safe trophies, then they are serious contenders for any range role. Erebus better watch out too in that regard...)

 

[Bad Boy Mike Lowrey]

Dave, thanks for the update. I'm surprised the Cobra was slowest for you in most categories. Seems like the Infinity holds its weight. Looking forward to my test run when my Infinity Calvins Cherry, Chambers Custom CC and Rafferty Custom Lucky Devil come in soon.

 

[2011Dave]

Dave, thanks for the update. I'm surprised the Cobra was slowest for you in most categories. Seems like the Infinity holds its weight. Looking forward to my test run when my Infinity Calvins Cherry, Chambers Custom CC and Rafferty Custom Lucky Devil come in soon.

wow, we need to read that range report!

 

[John Ryder]

Great writeup.

I was close to ordering an Atlas Apollo (likely still will) but Hayes has my interest now. A few things I’m liking more on their pistols.

 

[Putput30]

Dave, thanks for the update. Have you ever considered throwing a light on the Apollo to make it flatter/softer? I’m considering throwing an x300 turbo on mine when it arrives to make it flatter while keeping that crazy slide speed up.

 

[2011Dave]

Dave, thanks for the update. Have you ever considered throwing a light on the Apollo to make it flatter/softer? I’m considering throwing an x300 turbo on mine when it arrives to make it flatter while keeping that crazy slide speed up.

I should consider that. I have a pile of x300's and some TLR-1's, but only have lights on my defense guns atm. You have reminded me to give that a try. (the hayes feels so light due to its balance that it can tolerate a light very well also, but I worry it throw the balance off - I'll try that at some point to. Between trying guns side-by-side in various drills, and trying several different types of ammo, and now considering adding lights yes/no to the testing, I'll be at the range near every day...)

 

[pbpally]

Great writeup and update!
Now throw an option'd out Priest into the mix!

 

[drD23]

View attachment 1619403

Update:

Back to the indoor range, this time focused on running the guns fast to see what we learn.

I also did some grouping at medium speed again, as well as wrapped up with some bullseye accuracy at slower speeds.

Oh, and this time I brought along a 3rd ported gun - the 4.5" Island Barrel dual-ported Infinity Bonehead. I thought it would be interesting to try the three different types of ports side-by-side (see pic below that highlights the different porting approaches).

View attachment 1619422

Here are the quick summaries of the three guns:

Atlas Apollo: 4.6" dual slot-ports, aluminum grip with brass panels, weighs 42 ounces w SRO no mag, trigger pull of 2.0lb

Hayes Custom Cobra: 5.0" V-4 ports, aluminum grip, weighs 42 ounces w SRO no mag, trigger pull of 2.5lb

Infinity Bonehead: 4.5" Island Barrel with dual square ports, steel grip with skater tape overlay, weighs 46 ounces w SRO no mag, trigger pull of 1.75lb

Today's caveat - if I had a dollar for every time I have stated that I'm a beginner/novice shooter and not very skilled, I could purchase an Infinity pistol (hey, wait). In other words, I always give that caveat because it is what it is and that's why I train and get lessons weekly. So, take it easy on my shooting reports please...and realize you won't get everything you may want from reading about a novice's range sessions...

Okay, with that out of the way, I started running balloon shots at medium speed trying to group in the white (I still haven't measured the target centers in these balloons, but my guess is the center colored bit is 1" diameter and the entire white area is perhaps 3-4" across). From 10 yards at medium speed (for me) of perhaps 30-50 hundredths splits, I was getting comparable groups out of each of the guns, with 4 out of 5 shots in the white bit and 1 stray.

The infinity shot the softest, likely down to the overall weight and weightier front end due to the island barrel. The Apollo cycled faster than the other guns, and it also requires the most grip pressure to control. Hayes slots in-between those two guns in this regard. I did several runs of these 5-shot groups and really didn't see much noteworthy in terms of performance differentials. They feel different and get to their results differently, but the results at my level of skill were comparable.

Next I moved to quasi "bill drills" from low ready (no holster draws allowed in my indoor range). I have not practiced my draw and presentation much lately, let alone with these three guns (I do that training with my defense guns), so my dot acquisition sucked today. So I'm not going to mention my overall times, except to say they were in the high 2's and even 3's, with a best of 1.89 (with the Infinity fwiw). I was focused on the split times and running clean (and to be sure I wasn't clean all the time, I had 4's and 5's in the alpha range on most 6-shot draws, and likely averaged somewhere in the 4.5 out of 6 alpha range).

At that point, I'd only done perhaps 30 bill drills in my life cumulatively, so my skill is not there yet of course and that shows up in lack of consistency. One run I'd have some splits in the 30's, others I got some 10s! (I was doubting those to be honest, but I actually had a number of 10's, along with a healthy number of 12 to 16's. Thinking about it, it was picking up echos as it counted 8 shots sometimes, so I doubt those splits are accurate. There were runs with only 6 shots counted too.) The Infinity ran fast more often than the others. My best overall times were with that gun, and about half of my splits were sub 20 with that gun. Apollo had the next fastest runs and the next most sub 20 splits. The Hayes ran the slowest for me.

Given that it was indoors and the shot timer was picking up echos, I wouldn’t put too much weight onto the raw times I had. Honestly, I think all of these guns are as fast as you are. For me, that means 20s splits most of the time, with a few in the mid teens.

I had a hard time picking up the dot movement today. I was shooting the bill drills much faster than I have on previous range trips, and thus I just couldn't track the dot as well as I recall from those earlier trips. On those earlier trips, Apollo had muzzle rise and lightening fast return to the exact right spot. It was uncanny. Today, in this company, I gave a slight nod to Apollo on keeping the dot in front of me, but all three were very good at it. None felt other-worldly, and I attribute that to me not being used to working with a dot moving as fast as I had it going today.

I didn't really have any trigger freeze episodes, which actually surprised me because in prior bill drills I have had a few hang-ups. Today, my splits were fairly even. Looking at the times I was getting, and then at the trigger pull weights of the guns, I can't help but notice the correlation of faster splits with lower trigger pull weight. Also, while the triggers are all damn fine and not really worth attempting to rank their quality of pull, if I had to rank them in terms of feel, I would rank them in the same order of my fastest split times - Infinity best trigger/fastest splits, Apollo next best/next fastest, Hayes next/next speeds. Coincidence that the bill drill splits purely correlated with the trigger weight and feel? Hmmm...

Finally, I did some bullseye shooting out to 12 yards and then 25 yards (end of the range). All three guns (and me) actually did okay with. I was able to hit the little 1cm center dot on my targets I was using fairly regularly. Once again, Infinity was most accurate and felt easiest to shoot well. Apollo and Hayes were fairly similar in results here.

Overall takeaways? I guess unsurprisingly, the Infinity was the easiest to shoot well, and the fastest and most accurate in my hands. The other two guns were very comparable, but today I came out favoring the Apollo over the Hayes. It was just a bit faster (shorter slide, perhaps too the port design and springing) and the dot returned a bit more quickly and accurately. After my first two sessions shooting the Hayes, I was beginning to think that keeping Apollo in the collection wasn't needed - it could potentially be replaced by the Hayes. After this third session, I have more mixed takeaways in that regard. I won't be kicking Apollo out just yet, I think there is much more testing to do with these two guns to see how they ultimately rank and if they are distinct enough to keep both, or purely redundant. (the other takeaway is that if one is willing to treat their Infinity firearms as guns and shoot the piss out of them and not as safe trophies, then they are serious contenders for any range role. Erebus better watch out too in that regard...)
View attachment 1619404

great write up Dave, I remain stuck between these 3 and look forward to more updates!

 

[Bad Boy Mike Lowrey]

wow, we need to read that range report!

I will absolutely give my review once all the pistols have arrived, and I get them to the range.

 

[2011Dave]

Dave, thanks for the update. Have you ever considered throwing a light on the Apollo to make it flatter/softer? I’m considering throwing an x300 turbo on mine when it arrives to make it flatter while keeping that crazy slide speed up.

thanks to your suggestion I just put an x300 on the Hayes Cobra and a TLR1 on the Apollo (I have a thing for flush mounted lights, so that's why they each got that size). Taking 600+ rounds and 4 pistols to the outdoor range tomorrow...

 

[Putput30]

thanks to your suggestion I just put an x300 on the Hayes Cobra and a TLR1 on the Apollo (I have a thing for flush mounted lights, so that's why they each got that size). Taking 600+ rounds and 4 pistols to the outdoor range tomorrow...

View attachment 1620641

A man of the people 🙌🏼. Curious to see how this affects balance and shooting performance.

 

[drD23]

look forward to the range report!

 

[2011Dave]

Range Report Time...

Today was a lesson/reminder that its the Indian, not the arrow…

While most of us accept this old saying as a truism, I’ve also learned over the last several months that its not entirely true, all the time (few things are). For example, anyone that has shot an Erebus early in their journey from total novice shooter, has experienced the large step up in their shooting just by having one heck of an arrow.

So what changed today? Well, I brought four guns to the range that are each so very good, that distilling out differences in the guns requires a significantly better Indian. Usually, when I bring out several guns, I can see better results with one over another. With these four guns, they are all so good, that the differences are small. Very small. These guns are just so capable. And only in the hands of a better shooter than me will the minute differences truly come out (well, I suspect they also can with a lot more training/experience with them than the couple of range sessions I've had thus far)

Today we had these four guns:

Atlas Erebus – 4.6” barrel, with a comp bringing the oal to 5.3”, 43 oz with brass grip panels, 2lb trigger

Atlas Apollo – 4.6” ported bull barrel, with light and brass grip panels 46 oz, 2lb trigger

Hayes Cobra – 5.0” ported bull barrel, with light 47 oz, 2.5lb trigger

Infinity Zooties 5.4” ported island barrel, steel grip, 51 ounces, 1.8lb trigger

(I brought along 31 mags loaded with over 600 rounds of 124 grain fmj ammo with a power factor of 130.)

At the Range

Today was focused on speed drills and dynamic drills with transitions. It was raining off and on so I didn’t set up a bunch of cardboard targets, instead I had to make do with the pre-set-out 6-plate racks and bill drill plate.

All the guns ran flawlessly, no malfunctions. The ammo is faily soft, and doesn’t drive the slide particularly fast, this was noticeable on the longer guns, especially the Infinity.

Speed (splits and trigger)

My splits, keep in mind I’m a beginner, ranged from 17 to 27, with an average of 22. I did not see any difference between the guns. I got similar splits and similar spreads with each of the four guns. I expected the Apollo to run the fastest, but I was just as fast with the long slide Infinity. In fact, the only surprise was that I had a few trigger freezes running the Erebus. I didn’t really have any notable freezes with the other guns.

Which brings me to the triggers. These guns all have fantastic triggers. Dry firing them (and live firing) they all have great feel, clear but easy-to-break walls, and reset nicely. I can ride the reset as much or as little as I want. To be sure, I am not an experienced trigger slapper. I was happy that I didn’t get any freezes with the other 3 guns, and I didn’t find any particular reason for the 3 freezes I had with Erebus. In prior range days, Erebus shot as quickly as the Apollo, so I know it was me and not the gun.

Felt recoil, softness and flatness

The guns do feel fairly different in their recoil impulse and felt recoil.

As you would expect, the long and heavy infinity has very, very little recoil impulse. What recoil there is can only be described as muted. The order from there is similarly as you would expect; Erebus was next softest, followed by the 5” Hayes and finally the Apollo.

Since the last range session, someone suggested I add a light to the Apollo and I also added one to the Hayes. Unsurprisingly it did make the Apollo have less muzzle rise under recoil, while actually making the gun feel more solid and improving the balance a bit forward, since I run the brass grip panels my Apollo was actually a bit too rearward biased. The Hayes still had its impeccable balance even with the x300 attached, although it didn’t feel as light and maneuverable as it did before.

With the above felt recoil ranking laid out, keep in mind these are all fairly heavy, long, ported or comp’d guns running 130 power factor ammo. Said simply, they are all soft and flat. So we are talking merely degrees here.

Dot return speed and accuracy

Plate racks (ours is a 6 plate horizontal run of 6” plates) highlight both overall speed, but also red dot return speed, and accuracy of the return. I ran a bunch of sets of plates, and I was not having my best day. Actually, it was my worst day yet in terms of running clean and fast. That bad news aside, I actually had similar times and misses with all of the guns. I didn’t run any one of them better than another.

The usual learning was there for me – grip pressure is paramount. The stronger grip I can get, the more accurate I can be and thus can move on to the next plate and improve my speed. I also suspect that having too many guns is a factor in my poor shooting today. When I started running plate racks a couple of months ago, I only had Apollo and Erebus with me and ran them both fairly well. Now that I’m changing guns every mag, my performance fell off. Next time I will try to get back to only one gun and work on getting better with that gun, rather than attempting to compare and contrast a set of guns.

Moving on to Bill Drills, I find that I can get the best sense of the dot movement and return when shooting these drills. I can really see the dot jumping around (or not) on this drill. Today, there was a clear pecking order here. And it wasn’t the same as the felt recoil ranking might imply it would be. The Atlas guns are superior at this. Apollo continues to be the best gun I have shot for the speed and accuracy of the dot return. The dot goes straight up and comes back to the right spot on its own. Its magical. There is something to the engineering in my opinion based on my observations of Apollo and several other 2011s. The design of the ports, the overall formula of barrel length, slide weight, grip capabilities, springing and tuning and likely more, contribute to a fantastic dot return.

Erebus is next best for fast/accurate dot return. Then the Infinity and Hayes had a relatively speaking helter skelter dot – jumping all over. I’ve written this before here, but it really does stand out when you shoot other guns – even of this quality – just how great Apollo is when it comes to the dot return speed/accuracy.

Summary

Today, I shot all four of these guns similarly. While the recoil impulses are a bit different, the triggers are very similar, and the accuracy of all of these guns is well beyond the demands of the drills I ran. So, in my hands today, these guns were fairly, unremarkably different from one another in shooting outcomes (speed, accuracy).

The Apollo feels a bit jumpier than the others, but then that same impulse is behind its very fast and accurate dot return that enables faster drill times.

For bullseye shooting at medium speed, its fairly clear the long, heavy Infinity is hard to top, and Erebus is, well, Erebus.

The Hayes is simply a fantastic, very well balanced, comfortable and capable 2011. Its isn’t out of place in this company, despite coming in at a meaningfully lower price. I would be confident running it for matches provided I trained with it alone for a good amount of time (same as any of the others really, although Erebus is so forgiving that its an easy gun to grab and go so to speak).

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

 

[Putput30]

Range Report Time...

View attachment 1621142

Today was a lesson/reminder that its the Indian, not the arrow…

While most of us accept this old saying as a truism, I’ve also learned over the last several months that its not entirely true, all the time (few things are). For example, anyone that has shot an Erebus early in their journey from total novice shooter, has experienced the large step up in their shooting just by having one heck of an arrow.

So what changed today? Well, I brought four guns to the range that are each so very good, that distilling out differences in the guns requires a significantly better Indian. Usually, when I bring out several guns, I can see better results with one over another. With these four guns, they are all so good, that the differences are small. Very small. These guns are just so capable. And only in the hands of a better shooter than me will the minute differences truly come out (well, I suspect they also can with a lot more training/experience with them than the couple of range sessions I've had thus far)

Today we had these four guns:

Atlas Erebus – 4.6” barrel, with a comp bringing the oal to 5.3”, 43 oz with brass grip panels, 2lb trigger

Atlas Apollo – 4.6” ported bull barrel, with light and brass grip panels 46 oz, 2lb trigger

Hayes Cobra – 5.0” ported bull barrel, with light 47 oz, 2.5lb trigger

Infinity Zooties 5.4” ported island barrel, steel grip, 51 ounces, 1.8lb trigger

View attachment 1621141

(I brought along 31 mags loaded with over 600 rounds of 124 grain fmj ammo with a power factor of 130.)

At the Range

Today was focused on speed drills and dynamic drills with transitions. It was raining off and on so I didn’t set up a bunch of cardboard targets, instead I had to make do with the pre-set-out 6-plate racks and bill drill plate.

All the guns ran flawlessly, no malfunctions. The ammo is faily soft, and doesn’t drive the slide particularly fast, this was noticeable on the longer guns, especially the Infinity.

Speed (splits and trigger)

My splits, keep in mind I’m a beginner, ranged from 17 to 27, with an average of 22. I did not see any difference between the guns. I got similar splits and similar spreads with each of the four guns. I expected the Apollo to run the fastest, but I was just as fast with the long slide Infinity. In fact, the only surprise was that I had a few trigger freezes running the Erebus. I didn’t really have any notable freezes with the other guns.

Which brings me to the triggers. These guns all have fantastic triggers. Dry firing them (and live firing) they all have great feel, clear but easy-to-break walls, and reset nicely. I can ride the reset as much or as little as I want. To be sure, I am not an experienced trigger slapper. I was happy that I didn’t get any freezes with the other 3 guns, and I didn’t find any particular reason for the 3 freezes I had with Erebus. In prior range days, its shot as quickly as the Apollo, so I know it was me and not the gun.

Felt recoil, softness and flatness

The guns do feel fairly different in their recoil impulse and felt recoil.

As you would expect, the long and heavy infinity has very, very little recoil impulse. What recoil there is can only be described as muted. The order from there is similarly as you would expect; Erebus was next softest, followed by the 5” Hayes and finally the Apollo.

Since the last range session, someone suggested I add a light to the Apollo and I also added one to the Hayes. Unsurprisingly it did make the Apollo have less muzzle rise under recoil, while actually making the gun feel more solid and improving the balance a bit forward, since I run the brass grip panels my Apollo was actually a bit too rearward biased. The Hayes still had its impeccable balance even with the x300 attached, although it didn’t feel as light and maneuverable as it did before.

With the above felt recoil ranking laid out, keep in mind these are all fairly heavy, long, ported or comp’d guns running 130 power factor ammo. Said simply, they are all soft and flat. So we are talking merely degrees here.

Dot return speed and accuracy

Plate racks (ours is a 6 plate horizontal run of 6” plates) highlight both overall speed, but also red dot return speed, and accuracy of the return. I ran a bunch of sets of plates, and I was not having my best day. Actually, it was my worst day yet in terms of running clean and fast. That bad news aside, I actually had similar times and misses with all of the guns. I didn’t run any one of them better than another.

The usual learning was there for me – grip pressure is paramount. The stronger grip I can get, the more accurate I can be and thus can move on to the next plate and improve my speed. I also suspect that having too many guns is a factor in my poor shooting today. When I started running plate racks a couple of months ago, I only had Apollo and Erebus with me and ran them both fairly well. Now that I’m changing guns every mag, my performance fell off. Next time I will try to get back to only one gun and work on getting better with that gun, rather than attempting to compare and contrast a set of guns.

Moving on to Bill Drills, I find that I can get the best sense of the dot movement and return when shooting these drills. I can really see the dot jumping around (or not) on this drill. Today, there was a clear pecking order here. And it wasn’t the same as the felt recoil ranking might imply it would be. The Atlas guns are superior at this. Apollo continues to be the best gun I have shot for the speed and accuracy of the dot return. The dot goes straight up and comes back to the right spot on its own. Its magical. There is something to the engineering in my opinion based on my observations of Apollo and several other 2011s. The design of the ports, the overall formula of barrel length, slide weight, grip capabilities, springing and tuning and likely more, contribute to a fantastic dot return.

Erebus is next best for fast/accurate dot return. Then the Infinity and Hayes had a relatively speaking helter skelter dot – jumping all over. I’ve written this before here, but it really does stand out when you shoot other guns – even of this quality – next to Apollo when it comes to the dot return speed/accuracy.

Summary

Today, I shot all four of these guns similarly. While the recoil impulses are a bit different, the triggers are very similar, and the accuracy of all of these guns is well beyond the demands of the drills I ran. So, in my hands today, these guns were fairly, unremarkably different from one another in shooting outcomes (speed, accuracy).

The Apollo feels a bit jumpier than the others, but then that same impulse is behind its very fast and accurate dot return that enables faster drill times.

For bullseye shooting at medium speed, its fairly clear the long, heavy Infinity is hard to top, and Erebus is, well, Erebus.

The Hayes just feels like a fantastic, very well balanced, comfortable and capable 2011. Its isn’t out of place in this company, despite coming in meaningfully lower priced. I would be confident running it for matches provided I trained with it alone for a good amount of time (same as any of the others really, although Erebus is so forgiving that its an easy gun to grab and go so to speak).

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Thanks Dave! Are you going to keep the light on the Apollo?

 

[drD23]

Thanks Dave! I appreciate these reports very much. It sounds like these all stack up quite similarly. I’ll go back to staring at photos of Apollo vs Hayes and trying to decide on one based on aesthetic's 🤣

 

[2011Dave]

Thanks Dave! Are you going to keep the light on the Apollo?

I think so. The gun does feel heavier and more solid in the hand (the light adds 10% to the weight and its all forward biased of course). If I had a stronger grip I likely would not.

 

[2011Dave]

Thanks Dave! I appreciate these reports very much. It sounds like these all stack up quite similarly. I’ll go back to staring at photos of Apollo vs Hayes and trying to decide on one based on aesthetic's 🤣

I'd also consider what role you have planned for the gun and what other guns you have around it...

If you want an "all rounder" and don't have a full government length gun, the Hayes is hard to beat.

If you have a number of other guns and want one gun to rule steel plate challenges and other speed oriented events, the Apollo might be the cheat code to winning there...

If you have always wanted an Atlas and are only going to get one, then Apollo is a great play.

If you value owning something a bit more exclusive, then the Hayes is going to be significantly more rare than an Atlas.

The quality of both guns is there, the triggers are the same, the build quality is similar (and very high). They are both great guns.

The value play is the Hayes as its ~30% lower priced than the Apollo.

Put simply, there is no disappointing answer between these two guns imho...

 

[avn2011]

Range Report Time...

View attachment 1621142

Today was a lesson/reminder that its the Indian, not the arrow…

While most of us accept this old saying as a truism, I’ve also learned over the last several months that its not entirely true, all the time (few things are). For example, anyone that has shot an Erebus early in their journey from total novice shooter, has experienced the large step up in their shooting just by having one heck of an arrow.

So what changed today? Well, I brought four guns to the range that are each so very good, that distilling out differences in the guns requires a significantly better Indian. Usually, when I bring out several guns, I can see better results with one over another. With these four guns, they are all so good, that the differences are small. Very small. These guns are just so capable. And only in the hands of a better shooter than me will the minute differences truly come out (well, I suspect they also can with a lot more training/experience with them than the couple of range sessions I've had thus far)

Today we had these four guns:

Atlas Erebus – 4.6” barrel, with a comp bringing the oal to 5.3”, 43 oz with brass grip panels, 2lb trigger

Atlas Apollo – 4.6” ported bull barrel, with light and brass grip panels 46 oz, 2lb trigger

Hayes Cobra – 5.0” ported bull barrel, with light 47 oz, 2.5lb trigger

Infinity Zooties 5.4” ported island barrel, steel grip, 51 ounces, 1.8lb trigger

View attachment 1621141

(I brought along 31 mags loaded with over 600 rounds of 124 grain fmj ammo with a power factor of 130.)

At the Range

Today was focused on speed drills and dynamic drills with transitions. It was raining off and on so I didn’t set up a bunch of cardboard targets, instead I had to make do with the pre-set-out 6-plate racks and bill drill plate.

All the guns ran flawlessly, no malfunctions. The ammo is faily soft, and doesn’t drive the slide particularly fast, this was noticeable on the longer guns, especially the Infinity.

Speed (splits and trigger)

My splits, keep in mind I’m a beginner, ranged from 17 to 27, with an average of 22. I did not see any difference between the guns. I got similar splits and similar spreads with each of the four guns. I expected the Apollo to run the fastest, but I was just as fast with the long slide Infinity. In fact, the only surprise was that I had a few trigger freezes running the Erebus. I didn’t really have any notable freezes with the other guns.

Which brings me to the triggers. These guns all have fantastic triggers. Dry firing them (and live firing) they all have great feel, clear but easy-to-break walls, and reset nicely. I can ride the reset as much or as little as I want. To be sure, I am not an experienced trigger slapper. I was happy that I didn’t get any freezes with the other 3 guns, and I didn’t find any particular reason for the 3 freezes I had with Erebus. In prior range days, Erebus shot as quickly as the Apollo, so I know it was me and not the gun.

Felt recoil, softness and flatness

The guns do feel fairly different in their recoil impulse and felt recoil.

As you would expect, the long and heavy infinity has very, very little recoil impulse. What recoil there is can only be described as muted. The order from there is similarly as you would expect; Erebus was next softest, followed by the 5” Hayes and finally the Apollo.

Since the last range session, someone suggested I add a light to the Apollo and I also added one to the Hayes. Unsurprisingly it did make the Apollo have less muzzle rise under recoil, while actually making the gun feel more solid and improving the balance a bit forward, since I run the brass grip panels my Apollo was actually a bit too rearward biased. The Hayes still had its impeccable balance even with the x300 attached, although it didn’t feel as light and maneuverable as it did before.

With the above felt recoil ranking laid out, keep in mind these are all fairly heavy, long, ported or comp’d guns running 130 power factor ammo. Said simply, they are all soft and flat. So we are talking merely degrees here.

Dot return speed and accuracy

Plate racks (ours is a 6 plate horizontal run of 6” plates) highlight both overall speed, but also red dot return speed, and accuracy of the return. I ran a bunch of sets of plates, and I was not having my best day. Actually, it was my worst day yet in terms of running clean and fast. That bad news aside, I actually had similar times and misses with all of the guns. I didn’t run any one of them better than another.

The usual learning was there for me – grip pressure is paramount. The stronger grip I can get, the more accurate I can be and thus can move on to the next plate and improve my speed. I also suspect that having too many guns is a factor in my poor shooting today. When I started running plate racks a couple of months ago, I only had Apollo and Erebus with me and ran them both fairly well. Now that I’m changing guns every mag, my performance fell off. Next time I will try to get back to only one gun and work on getting better with that gun, rather than attempting to compare and contrast a set of guns.

Moving on to Bill Drills, I find that I can get the best sense of the dot movement and return when shooting these drills. I can really see the dot jumping around (or not) on this drill. Today, there was a clear pecking order here. And it wasn’t the same as the felt recoil ranking might imply it would be. The Atlas guns are superior at this. Apollo continues to be the best gun I have shot for the speed and accuracy of the dot return. The dot goes straight up and comes back to the right spot on its own. Its magical. There is something to the engineering in my opinion based on my observations of Apollo and several other 2011s. The design of the ports, the overall formula of barrel length, slide weight, grip capabilities, springing and tuning and likely more, contribute to a fantastic dot return.

Erebus is next best for fast/accurate dot return. Then the Infinity and Hayes had a relatively speaking helter skelter dot – jumping all over. I’ve written this before here, but it really does stand out when you shoot other guns – even of this quality – just how great Apollo is when it comes to the dot return speed/accuracy.

Summary

Today, I shot all four of these guns similarly. While the recoil impulses are a bit different, the triggers are very similar, and the accuracy of all of these guns is well beyond the demands of the drills I ran. So, in my hands today, these guns were fairly, unremarkably different from one another in shooting outcomes (speed, accuracy).

The Apollo feels a bit jumpier than the others, but then that same impulse is behind its very fast and accurate dot return that enables faster drill times.

For bullseye shooting at medium speed, its fairly clear the long, heavy Infinity is hard to top, and Erebus is, well, Erebus.

The Hayes is simply a fantastic, very well balanced, comfortable and capable 2011. Its isn’t out of place in this company, despite coming in at a meaningfully lower price. I would be confident running it for matches provided I trained with it alone for a good amount of time (same as any of the others really, although Erebus is so forgiving that its an easy gun to grab and go so to speak).

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

solid as always! are you using exclusively atlas mags in all of them??

 

[2011Dave]

solid as always! are you using exclusively atlas mags in all of them??

I’m starting to use only Atlas Premium 140mm or 170mm because the 126 don’t seat in some of the guns. So, I just order a dozen and a half from the GunMag warehouse sale I posted in the bargain hunter forum.

I still also have 6 of the 20-round staccato mags where I had to replace the nice OEM metal basepads with cheap plastic ones in order for them to seat in the infinity magwells. So those are fine and usable.

I still have a dozen 126mm that work in some of my guns and did bring a few yesterday since I’m waiting on some of the GMW atlas mags to arrive. I’ll likely include those if I sell any guns down the road.