I’ve had the Atlas Apollo for a few months, and shot it several times head-to-head with Erebus. (and shared the results here:https://www.1911addicts.com/posts/3418752/). While I’ve accumulated a number of comp’d guns and more recently some ported island barrels, until this week Apollo remained my only regular bull barrel with ports. That changed when Modern Warriors surprised me with a Hayes Custom Cobra ported bull barrel in stock the other day…
I’ve now shot the Hayes a couple of times, and a couple of range buddies have similarly been able to shoot the Hayes along side several of my other guns. Yesterday four of us spent several hundred rounds shooting the Apollo and Hayes Cobra back-to-back (and compared to Erebus and a 4.5” and 5.4” Infinity ported sight tracker). We did some light competitive shooting and had a great time.
However, specifically leading to this post, we all had enough shots with the Apollo and Cobra to gather a few comparative thoughts. First, as there often is, a large caveat here…this was all paper hole punching. My experience with Apollo has taught me that these ported guns are meant for speed - red dot return speed, fast transitions and accuracy in dynamic type drills. We did a bit of speed work in the indoor range yesterday, but clearly we could not run plates or shoot USPSA type scenarios. I will find some time to get the two ported guns out together for some of that in the next couple of weeks...
Okay, so what did paper-hole-punching and initial-general takes on the two guns show us?
Here goes…
The guns
Apollo is a 4.6 inch dual slot port bull barrel, with aluminum grips (supplemented by brass inserts on both sides on my gun) and a full length dust cover. Hayes Cobra is a 5.0 inch “V4” ported bull barrel, with an aluminum grip and a full length dust cover. They both weigh 42 ounces as configured yesterday with an SRO, but no mag inserted.
Fit, finish and build quality
Atlas guns, while clearly going for a simple robo-gun aesthetic, are certainly nice looking in their own way. They have great DLC finishes and upper-end fit and finish (blending, lock-up, frame/slide fitment, etc). This Apollo is a solid build and is par for the course of that high Atlas standard.
The Hayes, otoh, is a beauty. This is a good-looking gun with polished flats that evoke hard chrome (if anyone knows what the silver finish is, please post). The fit and finish are first rate. Its picking nits to call one of these guns better than the other on this factor, but I will say the Hayes seems to be a bit more solid in the slide/frame fitment. Its rock solid and doesn’t move. Its up there with Chambers CC and AX Dark Fighter and Infinity Zooties in tight, rock-solid frame to slide fit among my collection. Slight Advantage Hayes
Controls and Trigger
Let’s keep this simple. I’d call it all a tie. They both have Atlas medium flat triggers. The Hayes trigger uses Atlas parts and feels just like the Atlas. Crisp and, well, you likely know all about Atlas triggers. The Hayes is 2.5lb whereas the Apollo comes in at 2lb, but that 0.5lb delta is surprisingly imperceptible in practice. Great triggers on both guns. The safeties are similarly similar. And so it goes. Tie
Grip
The Atlas Alpha is – imho – while not the most comfortable grip, it is the most business like and flexible and therefore the go-to if I have to shoot a match. The texture is aggressive but not overly so. I run it with the left step and right swell grips and it fits my hands very well. The Hayes (I have the aluminum aggressive grip offering) is very aggressive indeed, drawing comments from the other 3 shooters that it was too aggressive for them (to be sure they are all plastic/striker gun owners/shooters, so I’d wager they haven’t held a full aggressive metal grip before yesterday). The grip ergos are comfortable, but not flexible and purpose built for maximum grip in competition like the Atlas Alpha grip system. Advantage Atlas
How do they shoot?
Right up front, I’ll say this was very surprising to me. The Hayes is far softer. As in noticeably softer. I have to digress for a minute to cover the other guns present for the session – Erebus, and a pair of all-steel Infinity ported sight trackers. Those 3 guns are about as soft of 9mm pistols as any existent. And so, these two ported bull barrel pistols stood apart from those in their muzzle rise and recoil impulse. This is the difficult part for the other shooters to grasp yesterday. I should have brought along a Staccato P to compare, because they all found the Apollo downright blaster worthy.
And, it was jumpy relatively speaking yesterday. So context matters. I have shot the Apollo in all sorts of mixed company and its recoil impulse is not particularly strong and its muzzle rise isn’t that much. But in this company yesterday it felt like a dessert eagle 44.
That leaves the Hayes. This part is the really surprising part to me. The Hayes was noticeably softer and flatter than the Apollo. The extra 4/10th of an inch seems, perhaps together with the port design, to result in a much easier recoil impulse.
In addition to myself, I had the best shooter of the group run bullseye targets with all five of the guns present and we noted/measured the groups. Erebus and the 5.4” Infinity consistently posted the smallest groups. The 4.5” Infinity was next. The final tier was the Apollo and Hayes…and…the Apollo finished last in the group of 5, posting the largest groups. In the few months I’ve had Apollo and Erebus together, I have consistently shot tighter groups on paper with the Erebus. That isn’t surprising. Whereas, Apollo runs plates as fast, or faster, than Erebus.
I would say the Hayes Cobra was halfway between the Apollo and the Erebus. Its got a bunch less recoil and can group tighter at middling speeds than Apollo, but cannot stay on target as well as Erebus. To wrap on this shooting dynamic write-up, I’ll repeat a caveat I have written many times when I post my shooting results. That is, my belief is that better shooters, with stronger grips, will control Apollo better than I (and my friends yesterday) and thus benefit from its speed to a higher degree, without sacrificing accuracy.
Put simply, the Hayes was more accurate and easier to shoot well for the four shooters present yesterday. Advantage Hayes
Price
Before attempting to net this all out, we gotta talk price. Apollo is $6925 in Silver PVD with a hard case, and $6525 in DLC with a hard case. Hayes Custom is $5149 with a hard case. That’s between $1376 and $1776, or 27% to 34% more. (Hayes has a lead time of ~8 months these days, Atlas says 16 months for an Apollo if you go direct.) Advantage Hayes
The Choice
I love the Apollo. It was my first Atlas, and among my first high-end guns, and one that really turned me on to dynamic drills and match type shooting. I thought of Hayes as more of a “collectible” piece – if I gave it any thought before owning it. I clearly was thinking wrongly about Hayes. Ben is a competitive shooter and his business has grown from that passion. The Cobra is a work of art, but its highly, highly functional. Atlas – imho – is top of the heap for performance guns. And…this early take says that the Hayes Cobra just knocked Atlas’ newest gun off the pedestal. Winner Hayes Custom
