OK, Folks. Here's my initial evaluation of the EZ Rail. The "package" your receive consists of the rail, a slide stop, and instructions. According to Woody, the rail is made of Delrin and the slide stop is forged. To install the rail you simply remove your stock slide stop pin, slip the rail over the dust cover and slide it back so that the hole on the right side of the rail aligns with the slide stop hole. Insert the replacement slide stop pin so that it mates with the rail arm on the right side and then adjust a tension screw that butts up to the front of the trigger guard. The tension screw simply snugs up the rail so that it doesn't "droop" during firing. The tension screw is "teflon" and won't mar your trigger guard. That's it. I went very slowly when installing it and it still only took me less than two minutes. I'm confident that I can do it in about 30 seconds now. I installed the rail on my Les Baer UTC which is a .38 Super with 550 rounds fired. I also mounted a Surefire X 300 light on it for the test firing. Off to the range.
I fired 25 rounds of my hand loads (124 gr. plated bullets at 1250 fps) and then 25 Atlanta Arms major power factor loads (124 gr. XTP hollow points at 1370 fps). That was enough to convince me that the EZ Rail wasn't going to budge under fire - as long as you install it correctly. That's the good news. The bad news is that 8 out of 9 times the slide failed to lock back when the magazine was empty. The one time that it worked was on the last mag. I used four different mags that had worked fine previously so they're not suspect. Having said that, I wish I had brought more ammo with me so that I could have run some more mag loads to see if the failures were simply due to "breaking in" a different slide stop. I'll probably do some more testing. Woody is aware of my test results and is putting his slide stops through a micrometer to see if something has changed in the latest batch. However, he told me to go ahead and report my results.
My thoughts on this product (yes, I'll get some pictures out next). If you're someone who only has one 1911 and it doesn't have a rail, this might be a good option for you if you can't afford another 1911 with a built-in rail. This rail should mount easily on any 5" or Commander length pistol. You could carry your pistol without the rail and light during the day and then mount the EZ Rail with a light already on it when you get home and have a workable home defense option. Many of us here aren't in that category, myself included, but there are probably quite a few 1911 owners who are. For less than $65 they can turn their un-railed pistol into a dual purpose pistol. Stay tuned.