Testing the Mantis TitanX Laser Training Pistol
The Mantis TitanX Laser Pistol
The Mantis TitanX Laser Pistol
I’ve been using the Mantis Blackbeard laser system for a few years and love it. I only have the standard version, without the motion feedback sensor, but have never felt that to be a disadvantage for the type of training I use it for. Stationary target shooting is excellent for beginners to learn fundamentals, but at a certain point one needs to train for more dynamic scenarios. I don’t really use the camera-based training system much anymore, to be perfectly honest. I simply select items around the house as my targets and use the laser dot for visual feedback.
The Blackbeard has been an invaluable training tool for me for practicing things like clearing rooms and shooting on the move. To practice, I just scurry around the house from room-to-room, picking things like light switches, lamps and pictures on the other side of the room as my “targets”. With the battery pack replacing the magazine, even magazine changes can be incorporated into training. It’s a well thought out system that works in most AR-15 platforms regardless of caliber.
Practicing this with a pistol in a similar manner has been much more tedious due to having to continuously rack the slide with the common laser solutions. If y want to incorporate mag changes, then the slide stop needs to be held down so the empty magazine doesn’t activate it when racking. Not ideal as it introduces a repeated motion that you really don’t want to do in a real reload. Enter the Mantis TitanX to solve these issues.
When Mantis offered me a TitanX to evaluate free of charge, I jumped at the chance. I’ve wanted this type of training tool for a while now. However, no affordable laser solutions were available that felt and handled like a common production pistol. I received the medium size version of the TitanX that is similar in size that proportions to a Glock 45. I say similar because it isn’t identical. There are some differences in geometry, notably the ejection port shape and the front of the trigger guard. More on that later!
The TitanX is a stand-alone laser pistol, colored orange to distinguish it as a training tool, that is capable of mounting a red dot sight and pistol mounted light. It has weighted dummy magazines that let you practice magazine changes as well, without the need to hold the slide stop down. This also gives the TitanX a more realistic feel when handling it. The magazine release is reversible like the one on a real Glock pistol. The optics cut is designed to accept optics with RMR and Sheild RMS/RMSc footprints. Like the Blackbeard, TitanX has screws to let you adjust the laser to match your point-of-impact at the same distance your sight is zeroed at. The pistol has an internal battery that recharges thru a USB-C port on the side of the slide.
Custom TitanX 3D Printed SPP Adapter Plate
I had a cheap red dot with a Delta Point Pro footprint laying around that wasn’t being used on anything. So, I whipped-up an adapter plate for it which I 3D printed. Since there isn’t any recoil, I didn’t see this being an issue. Mantis has the drawing of the optics cutout in their manual, so designing an adapter plate was quick and easy.
I sighted in my TitanX and tried it with the Mantis phone app. All of the great training routines with motion sensor feedback and motion tacking worked as expected. I’m not going to go into detail about these as they will be covered by the majority of other reviews out there, and this is not how I use this type of training tool personally.
Phone app auto-detecting multiple smart targets
Once I was satisfied with my zero, I began running through my routine of traversing the house, clearing corners and rooms, and engaging hostile light switches and candles on the move. However, now I was able to practice without having to rack the slide before each and every shot. This is invaluable to me! Not only could I practice moving across flat rooms more efficiently, I could practice shooting on the move while going up and down the stars and over clutter and obstacles in the room. Yes, I did those things before with the good old “laser bullet”, but not having to rack the slide each time made the number of shots I could take go up exponentially. Multiple shots could be taken quickly, pulling the trigger at a realistic tempo. I’ve grown to love Blackbeard for this capability.
What I can say about the trigger that it’s Glock-ish. It has a similar pull and reset to a factory trigger, however the best way I can describe it is that it feels like the trigger parts that are moving against each other are plastic. It isn’t bad, but it also isn’t great. It’s adequate for practical defensive shooting.
I tried this laser in both daylight and at night. The light rail can take any of the illumination options that will fit on a Glock. You can turn off all your lights and train using a visible pistol mounted light or with various IR options. The laser is clearly visible in all indoor lighting conditions, but it isn’t too bright to be used with night vision optics. I routinely train in the dark with my PVS-14 using both the Blackbeard and pistols with “laser bullets”. This definitely up’d that game. If you own a night vision device, you need to train with it regularly. Doing things with limited peripheral vision (and lack of depth perception with a monocular like the PVS-14) takes some getting used to. The TitanX is another tool in your arsenal that can help you become more proficient at this.
After using the TitanX for several weeks, I can say that I really like it. There are however some areas that could be improved upon. The sights are fixed, molded in permanently and completely black. I’m unfortunately getting to the age where I need something in the front sight just to be able to see it. Sure, you can just paint a dot on it, but it would be nice if the front sight could be switched out with standard Glock sights. Many Glock owners probably have factory sights or other inexpensive sights just sitting around in a drawer.
As mentioned above, the ejection port is not cut to match a standard Glock ejection port. Some holsters use the ejection port cutout as a retention feature and don’t have any adjustments for putting additional tension/friction on the pistol. While the TitanX will fit in these holsters, the laser pistol will not be kept in by anything other than gravity. This limits some training scenarios that involve moving ways that could dump it out of the holster. This could be something as simple as going prone.
Not a Glock Style Ejector Port Cutout
Due to the space the threaded inserts for the red dot take up, you cannot have every screw pattern for every red dot sight. The RMR is by far the most popular choice of red dots for serious applications, so it makes sense to design for that sight. However, many people won’t spring for an RMR that’s just being used on a laser pistol and many inexpensive sights use the Delta Point Pro footprint. The sight cutout is just a hair too small to fit a DPP. It’s totally possible to have a cutout that can be sued for both, as can be seen on the new Gen6 Glock MOS system. As it stands, if you want to use a red dot with a DPP footprint, you need to either use a custom adapter plate that raises the red dot to the top of the slide or trim the corners on the optic cutout by a tiny amount to fit a thinner RMR to DPP conversion plate. The easiest solutions if probably for Mantis would be to just add threaded inserts to the cover plate so the DPP can just be mounted on top of it.
In spite of these minor complaints, I believe the TitanX to be a great training tool for the money. It gives you a laser pistol in the footprint of the world’s most popular pistol at a reasonable price, with features that make it attractive to both beginners and more advanced shooters wanting to do training safely in the comfort of their own home.
