Victory First V43 & ATEi’s 10mm Roland Special

With all the talk of the Glock 48, Victory First’s V43 slide isn’t getting the attention it really deserves. Matt Jacques saw potential in the Glock 43 and decided that he was going to make his vision of a long slide a reality with the help of Doug Holloway of ATEi. With Holloway’s machining prowess and Jacques’s vision, the Victory First V43 was born.

If you are curious about Matt Jacques’ background, we interviewed him a while back for Issue 15, check out a preview of the interview here. You need to know little more about Holloway beyond he is the father of the aftermarket slide serrations designed to aid in single hand manipulation and has been milling red dot pockets into slides for the better part of a decade.

The Victory First V43  sports a 4.33-inch long barrel, almost an extra inch over the factory 43’s 3.39-inch barrel. This allowed Jacques to stretch the slide to 6.89-inches in an effort to make the pistol more comfortable to carry as well as increase the velocity of the projectile. Oh yeah, if you are one of those that demands a long sight radius, you get that too.

The V43’s slide features forward and rear slide serrations that are in the shape of the Victory First logo offering a surprising level of grip without eating your hands alive.

Victory first intends on offering a swept back nose like seen on the top slide or a more traditional “factory” look like the bottom slide.

Like the long slide Glock 34 size guns, the V43 has a hole that allows you to access the front sight screw through the slide for replacement.

Victory First is taking care of getting the bar stock to a rough slide without serrations, so how does the inside of the slide look? As impeccable as you could possibly want, which is no surprise given Jacques' eye for detail.

Since ATEi is machining the slide serrations, top serrations, and optics cut, it shouldn’t be surprising that the finished product is nothing short of impressive. While we didn’t break out a jewelers loupe on the show floor, machining marks were hard as heck to spot.

Curious if there are holster options? Yep, Jacques has that covered too. There will be a Raven Concealment Perun available for V43 guns as well as this excellent AIWB option. When we asked Jacques about the holster we were told that Raven Concealment had a hand in its design.

So how does the pistol feel when you have it in a quality holster? We can answer that because Jacques insisted that we stuff one of his V43 slides with a Glock 43 frame into our pants. The extra length absolutely is more comfortable than a stock length 43 and conceals better to boot. No matter if we stood, sat, or bent over, the pistol didn’t jab our sensitive bits and stayed plastered against our body.

Sadly we don’t have pricing handy for any of the Victory First stuff. We were told that the V43 slide will be competitively priced though. Find more information on the Victory First website.

ATEi’s 10mm Roland Special

One of the things that ATEi has become rather well known for is their involvement in the Roland Special’s birth. One of the more distinctive features of the Roland is its KKM 4-Port Compensator. Now if you know how comps work you are well aware of the fact that the hotter the ammo, the more efficient the compensator is. Run some nice +p 9mm and the gun somehow shoots flatter than with standard pressure, so what happens when you run one on a 10mm? We have been told that it results in one of the most controllable semi-auto hand cannons in existence by its owner Jon Wright.

ATEi gave the large frame Glock the same treatment he does to most of the guns he mills, enhanced forward and rear serrations, their excellent top serrations, and ATEi’s RMR Pro Cut.

The grip on the pistol was reduced and stippled by Great Lakes Custom Works, the preferred stipple shop of ATEi. The end result is a large frame pistol that doesn’t feel much larger than a Glock 17, if at all.

A KKM barrel is a must since the 4-port comp uses a non-standard thread pitch.

One of the small details that jumped out as soon as we held the pistol was Great Lakes Custom Work‘s near invisible undercut. After handling a metric ton of custom Glock frames, very few have mastered the art of a good undercut like Great Lakes has.

The quality of work on the frame is even more apparent when you look at the grip reduction from the bottom. If We didn’t know better we would say that looks dang near factory.

You will need to contact ATEi for a quote on building your own 10mm Roland or you can use the “Build a Glock Tool” on the ATEi website HERE.