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Quickie review: ATI FHX-45 Moxie - poly frame 1911

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  • Anangrypasta

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    Just wanted to post a quickie range review on this ATI FXH-45 Moxie, which is basically a 45 1911 with a poly frame.

    Initial thoughts are it is well made and fitted with no noticeable side to side slide wobble. The slide and barrel are parkerized as are some of the small parts. The finish on the slide is nice and even; the barrel and mainspring housing aren't as clean but still look good. The bushing fits tight and there's no wobble up front.

    The selling point in my mind is the poly frame. I don't have a scale, but this 45 is very lightweight. There is a steel skeleton underneath, so the slide is running on metal surfaces. Some reviews I saw online took issue with the finger goove placement. For me, the grooves aren't uncomfortable, and I find them to force your hand up the frame and help with a high, tight grip. The downside is that, with the extended ambi safety, I found myself putting it on safe by addicent pretty frequently.

    Despite being a poly frame, this actually takes standard 1911 grip panels they swap fine. ATI states it is pretty much completely parts compatible with standard 1911 bits. It does come cut for glock irons and came with a set of Gen 3 white U rear and white dot front (that were slightly wider than the frame and had some overhand lol).

    Now, the shooting. Some of y'all know that I hurt my right wrist in an accident and, as a righty, I have trouble shooting handguns. Holy frijoles does this thing have some snappy recoil! It's not particularly painful, but it cycles fast and the high bore and lots of slide moving make for a bouncy pistol that bucks straight upward like a revolver. The finger grooves and high grip position help bring it down, but the flipside is that you feel that recoil a lot more. The Moxie was too much for my damaged wrist to handle, so I switched to my left hand, which is am very out of practice with, and I'm not great with a handgun to begin with lol. That said, the decent trigger made for a good target slapper, and I could pretty easily hit plates at ~10-15 yards with it. However, that dang ambi safety. I had no gun related failures, but I did limpwrist and cause a FTF at one point. Every now and then one of my shots would be quiet, because the snappy recoil and the gun rolling around in my hand would cause the safety to engage. The detent to flip up is quite weak, and to turn it off safety is fairly tight. This was obnoxious, and will be replaced at some point.

    Overall, pretty stoked about this guy! I'll be practicing offhand shooting so I enjoy this more, and look forward to tinkering with it.
     

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    Raven

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    Just get rid of the ambi safety altogether. Plenty of single action designs that were military issue don't have external safety's, and you'd still have the grip safety
     

    Anangrypasta

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    About the same! Haven't had the chance to get the safety pulled off. The bushing spring is definitely faulty or weak. Tried pulling it off and it doesn't want to budge.
     
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