REPORTING FOR DUTY

It’s rare to see a company successfully reinvent itself. Rebranding, renaming, new logos, and different slogans are all little more than window dressing that companies in and outside of the firearms realm often use to get past gaffes, mistakes, and poor quality. But to see a manufacturer, especially one already known for high-quality products, make fundamental shifts in how they do business is much less common.

STI has made a name for itself over the years, producing guns based on the double-stack 2011 grip frame. The 2011 itself isn’t a new concept, with the original design patented and produced in the early 1990s. Since then, the platform has gone on to become a staple in the practical pistol competition circuit — dozens of championship wins over a period of decades have been garnered by shooters working behind the 2011 chassis.

But despite its long legacy of high-performance, the 2011 has always remained the purview of trophy shooters, with next-to-no spillage into “real world” defense or duty use. A well-built 2011 pistol can run with the best of them, but has traditionally required a little extra love to do so. The weak link in the chain has always been the double-stack magazine. Originally intended for .38 Super, 2011 mags were finicky at best. They were built with spacers in the rear, requiring hand loads to fit a specific size spec to feed properly. Even with this, the feed lips and tube geometry were rarely uniform.

The issue was so well-known that an aftermarket industry for “magazine tuning,” whether through DIY kits or custom gunsmithing, arose to service the community of 2011 owners. The cost