Let me start by saying that I was never on the hunt for a Shadow Systems pistol or any other "not a Glock Glock" for that matter. I had switched from shooting my Glock 17.4 as my prime time blaster to a Sig 320RX and was happy with the switch. Well I was feeling a little spend and saw this pistol on the EE back in June for less than a grand so I pulled the trigger.
The Shadow Systems M918L is a striker fired, polymer framed semi automatic pistol that is fed using a detachable, staggered column box magazine of the 9mm Glock variety. The M918L is now one of their "Legacy" pistols I believe. It features a 17 length slide with a 19 length recoil assembly on a 19 sized frame. My understanding is that it is based on the Gen3 layout using Gen3/4 compatible components but using a Gen5 barrel.
When I first received the pistol it came with everything from the factory; soft case, cable lock, 3 back straps, mag well, 2 GL9 19 mags and tools. I put the smallest or the "1911" back strap on right away. I tried out the magwell but didn't really like it so I left it off.
My first impressions were that you get quite a bit of features for your money such as the optics cut, fancy fluted barrel, crazy ass cuts and windows all over the slide, the neato magwell and some Ameriglo sights (and in my preferred arrangement, more on the sights later).
When I first went to work the slide, I found it VERY gritty, it was bone dry. The trigger press I found to be pretty good, Better than my 17, maybe on par with my 48, but different. Reset was short and tactile, nice. I oiled it up, slapped a Inforce APL on in and started doing some draws and dryfire practice. The M918L with the Inforce fits my Safariland 6378 with no issues and with out the Inforce it fits all my other Glock 17 holsters.
For my first 1000 rounds I ran this pistol with the iron sights as I had not decided on a Red Dot option yet.
My first impression of this pistol, I found it to be very flat shooting with minimal recoil and very easy to regain the sight picture for follow up shots. The sight arrangement features an Ameriglo front post with a tritium insert and a yellow ring while the rear is blacked out serrated with a square notch. Very easy to pick up and not distracting. I found the trigger to be nice as crisp and with minimal take up and a clean break. The controls are all easily reached with out breaking the grip. However I did find my self riding the slide lock, which is something I would commonly do when shooting my 17. Since shooting the piss out of my 320, I find that I have slowly moved to having a higher grip. This has migrated over to shooting the Glock platform. Another thing I noticed is that due to my high grip I keep forcing the slide to lock open mid magazine. I'll have to retrain my grip to deal with this.
I ran a LARGE assortment of mags through this pistol, about 20 including Magpul pinned and unpinned, Promag 17, ETS mags, OEM glock 17 mags, KGS 17 and 33 rounders. The only mags that caused any problems were a couple of my ETS mags, I have 5 of them and 2 have come to the end of their service life. They would fail to remain seated in the grip. Even after a forceful tap and then tugging to ensure they are seated, they would pop out after a round or two. They have since been removed from my mag rotation and found them selves in the parts bin.
More recently I added a Holosun 508t V2 to the mix and I am quite pleased with this little optic. It sits nice and low in the optic cut and has very minimal overhang. The optic cut is of the RMR pattern and the Holosun is mounted with no plates or adapters required.
Adding an optic meant I would have to find a new holster. I searched around quite a bit for a Safariland RDS holster that was under $200. I love how Safariland can tack on an extra $100 just for an optic opening. I was able to find a 7T RDS for a decent price. It fits the pistol perfectly and I am happy with it.
The Holo 508 and the APC feel like they were made for this gun and all together it feels like they are factory options. I also added on the magwell and have slowly gotten used to it.
Shooting it with the Holosun has been a very nice experience. It is fast, the follow up shots are a breeze and I am seeing 1" ragged holes out to 15 yards.
The slide has smoothed out a bit after ~1700rounds but it is still quite gritty. When I preform an administrative load and a press check, the slide can fail to fully go into battery unless I open the slide half way. Frustrating but not the end of the world and I expect this will smooth its self out after I feed it more brass.
Overall I am very happy with this pistol and find my self shooting it my than any of my other pistols.
Now for some pics... I have included some comparing the M918L to the P320 as they are very similar pistols and they are my only pistols running optics.
You will have to excuse the poor photographs.
Top of the slide.
Rear sight.
Front sight.
With the P320
And some glamour shots.
The Shadow Systems M918L is a striker fired, polymer framed semi automatic pistol that is fed using a detachable, staggered column box magazine of the 9mm Glock variety. The M918L is now one of their "Legacy" pistols I believe. It features a 17 length slide with a 19 length recoil assembly on a 19 sized frame. My understanding is that it is based on the Gen3 layout using Gen3/4 compatible components but using a Gen5 barrel.
When I first received the pistol it came with everything from the factory; soft case, cable lock, 3 back straps, mag well, 2 GL9 19 mags and tools. I put the smallest or the "1911" back strap on right away. I tried out the magwell but didn't really like it so I left it off.
My first impressions were that you get quite a bit of features for your money such as the optics cut, fancy fluted barrel, crazy ass cuts and windows all over the slide, the neato magwell and some Ameriglo sights (and in my preferred arrangement, more on the sights later).
When I first went to work the slide, I found it VERY gritty, it was bone dry. The trigger press I found to be pretty good, Better than my 17, maybe on par with my 48, but different. Reset was short and tactile, nice. I oiled it up, slapped a Inforce APL on in and started doing some draws and dryfire practice. The M918L with the Inforce fits my Safariland 6378 with no issues and with out the Inforce it fits all my other Glock 17 holsters.
For my first 1000 rounds I ran this pistol with the iron sights as I had not decided on a Red Dot option yet.
My first impression of this pistol, I found it to be very flat shooting with minimal recoil and very easy to regain the sight picture for follow up shots. The sight arrangement features an Ameriglo front post with a tritium insert and a yellow ring while the rear is blacked out serrated with a square notch. Very easy to pick up and not distracting. I found the trigger to be nice as crisp and with minimal take up and a clean break. The controls are all easily reached with out breaking the grip. However I did find my self riding the slide lock, which is something I would commonly do when shooting my 17. Since shooting the piss out of my 320, I find that I have slowly moved to having a higher grip. This has migrated over to shooting the Glock platform. Another thing I noticed is that due to my high grip I keep forcing the slide to lock open mid magazine. I'll have to retrain my grip to deal with this.
I ran a LARGE assortment of mags through this pistol, about 20 including Magpul pinned and unpinned, Promag 17, ETS mags, OEM glock 17 mags, KGS 17 and 33 rounders. The only mags that caused any problems were a couple of my ETS mags, I have 5 of them and 2 have come to the end of their service life. They would fail to remain seated in the grip. Even after a forceful tap and then tugging to ensure they are seated, they would pop out after a round or two. They have since been removed from my mag rotation and found them selves in the parts bin.
More recently I added a Holosun 508t V2 to the mix and I am quite pleased with this little optic. It sits nice and low in the optic cut and has very minimal overhang. The optic cut is of the RMR pattern and the Holosun is mounted with no plates or adapters required.
Adding an optic meant I would have to find a new holster. I searched around quite a bit for a Safariland RDS holster that was under $200. I love how Safariland can tack on an extra $100 just for an optic opening. I was able to find a 7T RDS for a decent price. It fits the pistol perfectly and I am happy with it.
The Holo 508 and the APC feel like they were made for this gun and all together it feels like they are factory options. I also added on the magwell and have slowly gotten used to it.
Shooting it with the Holosun has been a very nice experience. It is fast, the follow up shots are a breeze and I am seeing 1" ragged holes out to 15 yards.
The slide has smoothed out a bit after ~1700rounds but it is still quite gritty. When I preform an administrative load and a press check, the slide can fail to fully go into battery unless I open the slide half way. Frustrating but not the end of the world and I expect this will smooth its self out after I feed it more brass.
Overall I am very happy with this pistol and find my self shooting it my than any of my other pistols.
Now for some pics... I have included some comparing the M918L to the P320 as they are very similar pistols and they are my only pistols running optics.
You will have to excuse the poor photographs.
Top of the slide.
Rear sight.
Front sight.
With the P320
And some glamour shots.
) and you pick one up and familiarize yourself with it, you really see a lot of the truly useful features and tasteful customization that make these pistols quite well priced.
