Black Magic and Ballistics – The Feels

There are lots of things I hate hearing when people start offering advice on how to choose a gun. Chief among them is the universal suggestion to buy the one that ‘feels’ the best. A gun that feels good might not exactly be good. 

It could be unreliable, but feel great in the hand. It could be completely wrong for the task at hand. A SIG P226 feels great in the hand, but doesn’t quite feel so good in the waistband after 12 hours. How a gun feels shouldn’t be the main reason you purchase one firearm over another. There are too many objective factors to consider outside of how it feels. 

Advertisement — Continue Reading Below

Still, sometimes you find a gun that feels right. More than feeling right, you somehow perform better with a specific gun. Finding out why seems difficult, if not impossible, to understand. Finding this type of gun is rare. Sometimes it barely makes sense compared to similar firearms. 

Me and the Masada Slim Elite 

For example, the Masada Slim Elite appears to be just another polymer frame, striker-fired, compact pistol in a crowded market. It’s a gun I wouldn’t have looked at twice at a gun store. It’s nothing against the gun, but my interest in plastic fantastics isn’t exactly pinging high on the have-to-have-it meter. 

I don’t collect compact, polymer-frame, striker-fired pistols. Ultimately, I find them to be boring. That’s not a bad thing, but I have a SIG P365 and a Glock 43X, and they do what I need them to do. Then, at the Athlon Outdoors Rendezvous in 2025, I fired the Masada Slim Elite. 

Advertisement — Continue Reading Below

I shot it at 15, then 25 yards. Then, for fun, I placed the red dot that sat across the top at a target at 100 yards and let it rip. Instead of seeing my round hit the dirt, I heard a ding. I hit a man-sized target at 100 yards, and then I did it again, and again, and again. This was man-sized steel, and I was hitting at least 75% of the time. 

With the P365 or the Glock 43X, I might see something like 50% of shots at 100 yards, but it wouldn’t be consistent. Why did I just shoot this gun so much better? The trigger wasn’t all that different, the gun’s size wasn’t all that different, the barrel wasn’t made from accuracy-inducing meteorite, so why did I perform so well with it? 

Advertisement — Continue Reading Below

Finding The Feels 

I got home and immediately purchased my own Masada Slim Elite. My objective was to see whether I just got lucky or whether the Masada Slim Elite was different. My intention isn’t to hover around the Masada Slim Elite, but to focus on the phenomenon of why one gun of a rather unremarkable genre of guns performed so well for me. 

If we were judging the gun based solely on how it feels in my hand, we wouldn’t have made it far. The gun doesn’t ‘feel’ good or better than my other options. In fact, the grip design feels a little odd. The P365 is an oval-like grip, the G43X is more like a 2×2 board, but the Masada is flat-sided, almost rectilinear, with a pronounced hump at the rear of the grip. 

Advertisement — Continue Reading Below

I shot the Masada Slim Elite a lot, chasing that high. I experienced the same excellent performance I had at the Athlon Event. I could hit targets at long range, control the gun exceptionally well, and it just worked. 

I can perform pretty well with the SIG P365 and Glock 43X, but in every drill and accuracy test, I did a bit better with the Masada. We started by talking about the feel of a gun. The gun didn’t seem to feel bad, but I don’t think it feels any better than any other similar-sized compact firearm. 

Yet, I kept up a high degree of performance. Why? Why does it work better than other guns in my hands? Keep in mind that from a practical defensive perspective, the differences are minute. A fraction of a second isn’t going to get you killed in the streets. 

Advertisement — Continue Reading Below

This might be a bit of navel-gazing, but I have a need to know why. 

The Why – In Theory 

I have a theory, with no real way to prove it, but since I don’t believe in magic, it has to tie back to something objective. My theory is two-fold. 

First, feel does matter to an extent. When I say feel, I don’t mean it in a nebulous manner. Feel ties to the gun’s ergonomics, but on a more individual level. I doubt you’ll find any two hands that are identical in size. Finger length varies, palm length and width vary, knuckles are different sizes, etc. 

Advertisement — Continue Reading Below

Guns are built to fit most people pretty well these days. You have to be on one extreme or another in hand size and shape to find a poor fit with a 9mm handgun. What I think happened with the Masada Slim Elite and me is that the gun just so happens to fit my hand a hair better than the competition. We are talking about small differences that add up to greater overall performance. 

The length from the backstrap to the trigger, the grip width, the trigger guard undercut, and the grip angle just happened to be better tuned for my hand than other guns. These are small differences overall, but they might have a notable effect. 

Advertisement — Continue Reading Below

Maybe the grip fills my hand just right, so there is less opportunity for my grip to impede my shot. If I had some Tailor’s tools and gauges, I could take some measurements to figure things out between my hand and the gun. The Masada Slim Elite is a little thicker than the G43X and P365, and my hands are larger than normal, and that’s the best evidence I have. 

The Other Part 

The second part of my theory relates to the mechanical function of the gun. This one is even harder to prove than ergonomics. Perhaps, at some level, some guns are just tuned better for individual shooters. Let’s call it mechanical synchronization. 

The slide moves at the right speed for the right length of time for my eyes to consistently track the dot. The trigger breaks without my trigger finger imparting excess pressure on the firearm and my grip. The recoil impulse matches my mental expectation of recoil, and I can mitigate it just right. 

Advertisement — Continue Reading Below

Maybe the trigger pull is the right weight, and it has the right length of pull for me to match my cadence of fire just perfectly. Not too soon, not too early, just right, like a good bowl of porridge. 

Crazy Pills

I feel a bit like I’m taking crazy pills, but why does a standard compact pistol handle so much better than other standard compact pistols? This isn’t comparing a custom 2011 to a Glock. It’s comparing like with like, but one seems to work better for me. 

I’m not the only person to experience this phenomenon. Some folks just shoot a particular firearm better than another, but why seems to be up in the air. 

I think this has the greatest effect on less-talented shooters. A talented, trained shooter can pick up a P365, a G43X, or a Masada Slim and shoot them all at a high level. I’ve seen guys grab a snub-nose, DAO revolver, and hit targets at 100 yards consistently. 

For less-talented shooters, the advantage offered by the feels seems to matter. With that in mind, I hope I can train past the feels and shoot every little, polymer-frame, striker-fired pistol with the same skill I can shoot the Masada Slim Elite. 

It’s more than what feels good in the hand; it’s more of a performance-based fit.