![laser pistol new vegas laser pistol new vegas](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/0B2HKAHTWoc/maxresdefault.jpg)
Though finished black, the barrel is made of stainless steel. As the slide reciprocates, the unlocked barrel tilts up at the muzzle. I’m not sure how many open-top slides are failing out there, but I’m also not a materials engineer time will tell if this was a worthy trade-off. Kimber was concerned that by removing material for the optic cut - yes, the R7 Mako is red-dot ready - the slide assembly may lose some long-term durability. The slide design, with its smaller port, offers greater rigidity than open-top pistols, but a pessimistic response would be that there is less room for ejecting spent cases. The bottom of the barrel has the more common cam-type lugs borrowed from the Browning Hi-Power and used by virtually every striker-fired pistol on the market. Unlike the familiar barrel-hood-to-slide lockup, the R7 Mako’s barrel has a lug on the top-rear of the assembly that locks into a corresponding recess notched into the slide. This means that the pistol has an ejection “port” rather than an open-top design.
![laser pistol new vegas laser pistol new vegas](https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/130/images/65757/65757-1539158826-1089766090.png)
The first and most glaring difference is that the R7 Mako uses what Kimber calls a “shrouded slide” design. The R7 Mako also has a number of deviations from what we’re used to seeing on micro pistols. The pistol’s namesake, the mako shark, is named for the Maori “Mako Mako,” or “maneater.” If you consider the mini red-dot lens frame as a fin and its front slide serrations as gills, Kimber’s little pistol really does have a sleek, shark-like look to it. The ejection port increases slide rigidity, which is allegedly weakened with deep optic cuts on some modified pistols. (Mark Fingar photos) More like an AR-15 than a modern pistol, the R7 Mako features an ejection port rather than an open-top slide design. More like an AR-15 than a modern pistol, the R7 Mako features an ejection port rather than an open-top slide design. While it’s fair to say that some consumer fads are worth ignoring (i.e., social media challenges, seltzer water, at-home DNA tests, the Instant Pot) the micro-compact pistol is transcending trends and becoming omnipresent. However, none of Kimber’s existing products checked all of the boxes, and that’s why we now have the R7 Mako. Kimber already has several handguns that come close to the micro-compact in size, including the Micro-9 ($706 to $1,155), the Evo SP ($638 to $965), and the venerable Officer’s Model 1911s, known as “Ultra Carry” models ($931-$1,828) in the lineup.