Ruger RXM Custom Frame Stippling

I’ve owned the Ruger RXM for a couple of months now, and overall, it’s fine. I’ve made some changes that made me enjoy it more than stock, but I’ve brought it back to basically its stock form aside from the trigger to talk about possibly my biggest complaint with this gun out of the box, and that is the lower, particularly the grip texture, or lack thereof.

If you didn’t know, Ruger partnered with Magpul to bring the RXM to market, and Magpul was in charge of the polymer lower. Magpul, of course, makes a lot of polymer products, and their AR grips are widely used. When people ask me about the RXM grip, I often tell them that the texture is a lot like any Magpul AR grip. There are little raised straight lines sprinkled across the lower that make up the texture itself.

On an AR grip, I’ve never had a complaint with this because on an AR, you have the luxury of distributing recoil across more contact points and surface area. With a handgun like the RXM, all of the recoil goes directly into your hands, and to me, this grip texture is very minimal and ends up becoming slippery after some shooting once my hands start to get clammy. On one of my first range trips with this gun, I literally had to stop live firing and just practice drawing with it because I could not get a good purchase on the grip.

Because of this, I knew that I wanted to replace the lower, which can be easily done because the RXM has a removable fire control insert, which is the serialized portion and can be transferred to a different lower. I actually have the Icarus Precision aluminum lower backordered, but I have no idea when that’s going to arrive, so the next best thing is to just stipple the polymer lower that I already have.

Now, this isn’t going to be a full tutorial on how to stipple or anything super in-depth. I’m just going to talk about what I’ve done. If you’re interested in learning how to stipple, there are plenty of tutorials on YouTube.

To start, I knew that for this frame I wanted some deep inset borders. This would really help define the stippling and make it stand out. I’m started with a Dremel and a small round carving bit. I’m used this to make my way around the border that’s already there. To keep things simple, I didn’t add any new areas of stippling to the frame, just working within the predetermined sections.

Next, I moved on to sanding. This is a step that I feel is very project-based. From my experience, sanding is really just there to give you a flat, even surface to work on. If you have areas that sit too high, it’s going to make stippling harder because you’ll have excess material to burn through. Sometimes there can be so much extra material that you’ll notice thick blobs of melted polymer once you stipple over those areas. Because the RXM lower features such minimal raised texture, I experimented with sanding with just one area to start with.

Next, I stippled with a small round tip. I used this to work my way around the various borders. This is something I’d recommend if you’re using a tip for your main texture that’s difficult to consistently bring right up against the edge of the border. Having this first stippled border helps hide the edges of your main texture pattern.

Once the border is complete, I moved on to the tip that I’ll be using for the main texture. After some experimentation on the side, I decided on a small Phillips head tip. Ultimately, you can use whatever tip you want, depending on the pattern you’re going for.

I went with this tip in a random pattern, and ultimately, it creates something similar to a Polymer80, SCT, or Shadow Systems frame, just a bit more aggressive. A lot of that depends on how you lay out your pattern and how aggressive your pressure is while stippling.

Now that the stippling is complete, I went back and polished up the deep borders just to aesthetically clean them up a bit. This brings back a little shine to the carved-out area and helps make it pop a little more. This can, and probably should, have been done right after cutting the borders in the first place, but it is what it is.

And there you have it, a custom stipple job on the factory Ruger RXM lower. Really, there’s no question about it. This stippling adds a tremendous amount of grip to the lower, and it’s honestly a night-and-day difference. I have no doubts that I’ll be able to hold onto this gun much more confidently during extended live fire.

I hope this helped you if you’re thinking about attempting this project yourself. But if you don’t want to do the actual stippling and still want something similar, hit me up. I can offer this type of service on a new lower and get it done for you for a fee.

Email me and we can work something out: Hai@HaiHoangTran.com

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I Made my own DIY Concealed Carry Athletic Wear Bottoms

Because I basically live in athletic clothing, I have a lot of interest in being able to conceal carry well with that type of apparel. So I often search for whatever new approach companies are offering for this. I guess it’s because of this interest that I’m often advertised stuff from the company Arrowhead Tactical, which makes athletic clothing designed specifically for concealed carry. You can do your own research, as they have various offerings. I just want to focus on the idea of their bottoms. 

After some research, the concealed carry aspect of their bottoms largely has to do with an internal belt loop system that allows you to wear a belt on the inside of the waistband. Arrowhead has its own proprietary belt to do this, but you can probably get away with other belts. Of course, there are some other features and benefits to the Arrowhead bottoms, but personally, I’m just not in the market to buy $70 shorts or $100 sweat pants, before any sales are applied. Especially considering that I’d need multiple for use throughout the week.

After some thought, I told myself that I can just sew on belt loops to the bottoms that I already own and be basically in the same position, while not blowing any money. So, I did just that.

Of course, doing this is dependent on having a sewing machine, which I already have. Again, the goal is to add belt loops to some bottoms. For this, you can approach this project in various ways, but after some experimentation, I’ve found that what works best for me is to use a stretchy elastic band that I already own. I actually went to the store, bought fabric, and made my own belt loops, which can give you very good results depending on what fabric you use and your sewing abilities, but personally, the elastic band works well for me because it’s pre-made, so I don’t have to do any extra sewing, and the elastic does help to fit different-sized belts. 

Again, the elastic band is premade made and all I had to do was cut it down to size. After some trial and error, I found that a 2.5-inch strip works best for my application. You can definitely make it a few 1/16 of an inch shorter, but the more perfectly sized you make it, it’s just going to be harder to get a belt in and out, especially considering that many edc belts are going to have areas of different thicknesses. To me, leaving some extra space makes the whole system more convenient to use. 

Once you have your loop strips cut out, it’s just a matter of actually sewing them in place. I went with a zigzag stitch with a very short stitch length. There certainly are other ways to tack a belt loop in place, but I did it this way with the loop flat, simply to make this process as easy and as fast as possible, because I wasn’t sure if this was something that I would even like. If you’re serious about this, you can certainly research belt loop stitching for yourself. 

If you look at some normal bottoms, they’ll usually have 5 belt loops. Two in front and three distributed across the back. For this project, I did a little more customization in terms of where to put the belt loops based on how the bottoms were already laid out and made. I wouldn’t say that my position is traditional, so I’m not going to give any recommendations here. 

During the sewing process, even though I had the belt loops precut to length, it doesn’t hurt to stop and double-check the size to make sure that the loops will actually fit your belt. I knew that I was going to base the loops around my Aegitech belt, so I made sure that I was able to easily get the belt in and out. 

Once you get all 5 belt loops sewn in place, you’re done. Just clean up any loose threads and try the bottoms out with your belt and gun setup. 

I’ve experimented with this process a few times now with external belt loops like you’d get with traditional bottoms and with internal belt loops as you’d get with the Arrowhead Tactical bottoms that sparked this whole project. The internal belt loops are going to be better looking in my opinion because you’ll likely be adding material that doesn’t match your original bottoms. So having them inside hides the mismatching material. However, from my experience, the internal belt loops are a bit more finicky to deal with because that’s just not what we're used to, and also because our belts are just not made to be used that way. So it just takes a bit more time to set everything up. But again, it does look good and not unsightly if your shirt gets lifted up. 

In terms of the idea and project itself. It allworks. The belt loops absolutely function as they should and allow me to conceal carry in any bottoms. But is it worth doing, or is it any better than some of the other products that I’ve shown, like the Leisure Carry Clip-On Belt system, or the Phlster Enigma, or any other system? Well, that really depends on how you carry. I think there’s a time and place for the various systems, and I will continue to rotate through them. I haven’t found the perfect system for me yet. 

However, I think that if you own and know how to use a sewing machine, this is certainly the cheapest approach to concealed carrying in any sort of bottoms. You just need 5 belt loops, the belt you already own, and you’re golden. Super simple project that I can definitely recommend if this is what you want to do. 

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Building a Platform for the Titan Fitness Squat Max MD

I’ve been using my Titan Fitness Squat Max MD for about a month and am constantly reminded that I’m a bit too short for it as I keep bottoming out when hitting parallel. I bought a different belt that’s slightly shorter, but it turns out that only helps until I reach over 300lbs, and the belt material stretches a bit, making me bottom out again. So, the only real answer is to build a platform that raises me up a bit, giving me the clearance that I need.

Obviously, there are a lot of ways to approach this project. What I’m going to show you is what I feel is one of the easier approaches. That being said, I did do a couple of optional steps to make my platform look and perform better. Not every step that I’m about to show is necessary, and I’ll let you know that when we get there. Also, I personally already owned a lot of the materials to get this project done so your mileage will vary. I’ll do my best to include as many reference products as possible for you below. With that said, let’s get started.

Probably the most obvious approach to building a platform is to use wood. For my project, I decided to go with a non-pressure-treated 4”x4” for the internal structure. This is because right off the bat, a 4”x4” would give you a 3.5” lift right out the gate. You just cut it to size, stand on it, and you’re done. Not much else needed. With most other wood sizes, you’re probably going to have to do some sort of stacking, which just takes more effort.

I originally planned on cutting two pieces of 4”x4”, sticking them side by side, and calling it a day. That would give me a 7” wide platform to stand on, and that would be perfectly functional, but a little bit ugly in my opinion. I ultimately decided to wrap the platform, completely covering the 4”x4”, so I also picked up a 4’ x8’ sheet of plywood. For this, I went with the thinnest sheet that my Lowe’s had, and it was 5mm thick. With my platform, the plywood is purely for aesthetics. It’s just to cover up the 4x4, which is what’s giving me the structural rigidity. So spending money on thicker plywood would just be a complete waste of money in my opinion. Pro tip, if you don’t have the means to rip a full sheet of plywood or just too lazy to do it like me, some hardware stores sell smaller pre-cut sheets but at a higher cost per square footage, and some hardware stores have large saws that will be able to cut the wood down for you. But just be careful with this, as some of the workers are not proficient with the saw and can make inaccurate cuts. I say this because this happened with my project. The guy cut a little bit too short. I didn’t double-check at the store and had to make adjustments to everything at home.

At this point, I want to talk about the platform size. This will ultimately depend on you and what you want. I would recommend that you stand on the Squat Max in your normal squatting stance and measure your foot from side to side. Remember, your feet are going to be angled a bit, so account for that. I personally gave myself some extra space and decided to cut my 4”x4” to 9.5”. I had 4 of these side to side, which gave me a length of 14”. So my internal structure was 9.5”x14”.

To attach these blocks together, I just used some wood glue between the sides and clamped everything together to dry. You can reinforce them even more by nailing or screwing them together but I didn’t think this was necessary considering that they’d be locked in place once I get the plywood on.

Next, it was time to cut the plywood down to size. Again, there are a few ways to approach this. I went the easiest route and decided to just butt the ends to each other. I would say that cutting the plywood down was the hardest part of this project for me because it’s 5mm thick. That doesn’t translate perfectly to the imperial fraction system that we normally use when dealing with wood. 5mm is just over 3/16” of an inch. So what I’m getting at is unless you’re extremely anal about measuring and cutting, there’s going to be some descrepencies when you go to assemble. Especially, if you have a 4”x4” that’s not perfectly straight like I did. Just know that and be prepared for some gaps. If you don’t care, then no problem. If you do care, then there are ways to fill the gaps. But in saying that, I cut 4 pieces of 14”x10”, 4 pieces of 10”x4”, and 4 pieces of 14”x4”.

Once I got all the plywood cut, it was time to assemble the plywood box around the 4”x4” internal structure. To hold the plywood in place, I used brad nails. I would recommend that you add some wood glue here to make an even more sturdy structure. I didn’t because I was in a rush to get this project done and didn’t want to sit around waiting for the glue to dry.

Again, because I was working with some imperfect wood, there’s going to be some gaps. You can skip this step, but if you care like me, you can fill in the gaps. This can be done with wood filler or, in my case, spackle because I have a bunch lying around. This particular product that I’m using goes on pink and dries white. Not the best look, but it didn’t matter to me because I plan to paint my platform black to match the color scheme of my home gym.

Next, I’m going to glue some anti-slip padding to the top and bottom of my platform. For this, I’m using some toolbox liner that I already had lying around. This padding is going to help keep the platform in place and prevent the wood from possibly scratching up the Squat Max. This is another optional step, but I personally really appreciate having this liner on the platform.

And that’s my entire process for building a platform for the Squat Max. I can’t tell you how much of a game-changer this is for me. I can squat so low now, way below parallel, without bottoming out even when using some of the longer belts that I own. I think if you’re under 6’ tall, this is definitely a worthwhile project.

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Titan Fitness Squat Max MD Simple Upgrades

I’ve been enjoying my Titan Fitness Squat Max MD but quickly ran into a few problems. Problems that I’ve found some quick and simple fixes for.

First off, the entire system is metal-on-metal contact. So when you use it, there’s a lot of clanking and excessive noise. I haven’t found a fix for the handles and safety scissors, but one thing that I’ve done to minimize noise in general is by adding some padding on top of the safety bars. I just used some self-adhesive mats that I keep around for random projects. With this, I cut a strip and stuck it to the top of the safety bars. Again, it’s self-adhesive, so it’s pretty straightforward. But in doing this, I essentially eliminated the noise of racking the loading pin.

My next problem with the Squat Max is the amount of movement the loading pin has when it moves up and down the guide rod. This is in place to allow a more natural squat pattern, but in my opinion, there’s too much slop and this results in the possibility of your plates catching the lip of the oval cutout. Funny thing is, the inventor of the Squat Max, Brian Hennessy, saw me say this in my original Squat Max video and he mentioned that that shouldn’t be possible. But when you watch the promo video with him talking about the Squat Max on Titan’s channel, you can clearly see the model clipping his plates on the lip of the Squat Max on the very first rep. So, it’s very much possible. In my case and because I use rubber-coated plates, every time I hit the lip, it tears a chunk off of my plates, and I really don’t like that. To combat this, I’ve done two things. First, is by changing how I position myself on the Squat Max. If you haven’t noticed, when you squat, you naturally sit back and your body naturally shifts back a bit. It’s this shifting back motion that allows the plates to get caught under the lip of the oval cutout. So if you move a bit forward on the platform, you gain a bit of clearance. Then on top of this, I’ve added an edge guard to the lip of the cutout. This adds a softer and more rounded edge to the lip in case I do happen to hit it.

Finally, and likely the biggest upgrade that I’ve made is in picking up a new belt and the one that works for me is the Spud Inc Pillow Belt Squat Belt. I’ve made a dedicated video HERE comparing this belt and the Titan belt that the Squat Max comes with so check that out if you’re interested. But in short, the Pillow belt is going to offer more comfort as the materials it’s made of are softer, more flexible, and offer more effective padding. The Pillow belt is also about 2 inches shorter than the Titan belt. In my case, this allows me to hit parallel on a squat without hitting the bottom of the Squat Max. That alone makes it a worthwhile upgrade for me, but that’s not going to be applicable to everyone.

If you don’t pick up a new belt, something else that I can recommend is to pick up a new carabiner. My Titan belt started to fray after the very first use and this is because the carabiner that came with the belt is a bit sharp around the edges. Brian Hennessy, the inventor of the Squat Max, saw my original video where I mentioned this problem and sent a replacement carabiner that he sells on his website. For sure, his carabiner is of much higher quality, and the fit and finish are much better. There are no sharp edges, so hopefully this won’t rip up my new Pillow belt.

For now, these minor upgrades haven’t necessarily solved all of my minor complaints with the Squat Max, but they’ve certainly minimized them. What I’ve shown you are simple little tweaks that don’t take much effort and don’t cost too much, so I can definitely recommend them to any Squat Max owner.

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