I recently purchased an EC Defense slide for a pretty decent deal, but I think that's partly because it wasn't optic-ready. I liked the way the slide looked, so I thought it was worth buying and having an optic cut milled into it. After doing some research, I decided to go with a company I found through Instagram called The Slide Cutter.
I ultimately went with them because they basically promise the impossible. They advertise high-quality work at some of the cheapest prices I've seen, starting at around $95 depending on the optic cut, along with an advertised eight-day turnaround time with black nitride coating. That's kind of crazy because nitride alone can add weeks, potentially even months, to turnaround times with some companies. So even if we're talking about eight business days, that's still insanely fast and was probably the biggest factor in my decision to use their service.
Overall, I'm happy with the actual work that was done. The milling works well with this Osight XE and leaves very little extra space around the optic. I went with their universal RMR cut rather than the precision fit that they also offer. The universal cut basically allows for slightly looser tolerances to account for dimensional differences between optics. I didn't choose the precision fit because that requires you to send in the exact optic you plan to use so they can mill the slide specifically around its dimensions. That gives you an extremely tight and precise fit, but it also means that if you decide to use a different optic later, even one with the same footprint, it might not fit because there can be slight dimensional differences between optics, sometimes even between examples of the same model. I like experimenting with different optics, so the universal cut made much more sense for me.
As far as the black QPQ finish goes, aside from saying that it looks black, clean, and even, I don't have much of an opinion on it yet. Time will tell how well it holds up to EDC and repeated holster use. In general, though, nitride is supposed to be a very durable finish, certainly more so than something like Cerakote, so I'm optimistic.
Now we need to talk about the turnaround time because this is where my experience wasn't nearly as positive. Again, The Slide Cutter advertises an eight-day turnaround. Their website doesn't specifically say whether that's eight calendar days or eight business days, so I went into this assuming they meant business days. Either way, that's an impressive turnaround time.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it, though. My slide took significantly longer. The Slide Cutter received my slide on July 6, and I didn't get it back until August 13. That's about 38 calendar days, which is obviously very different from the advertised eight-day turnaround. During that time, I repeatedly contacted The Slide Cutter for updates and was repeatedly given timelines that ended up being inaccurate. I heard things like next week, end of the week, a couple more days, tomorrow, and so on. Without a doubt, this was the most I've ever had to contact a business just to figure out where my stuff was, and that's tough.
It's also difficult to judge a business too harshly in a situation like this because The Slide Cutter is a smaller operation compared to a company like JagerWerks. But one thing larger companies tend to do is tell you upfront that the work is going to take a while. They underpromise and potentially overdeliver. In my case, I felt like I was repeatedly overpromised and then repeatedly underdelivered on the timeline, and that's disappointing.
Honestly, I think The Slide Cutter may have simply reached a point where they've become popular enough online that they're receiving more work than they can realistically handle within the turnaround time they're advertising. If that's the case and they can't increase production, then I think they should simply increase the advertised lead time. It's as simple as that.
If you're consistently behind, don't advertise an eight-day turnaround. Even if they advertised a turnaround time of around a month, that would still be fairly competitive compared to a lot of other companies, and I don't think many people would be turned off by it. But advertising eight days and then taking over a month is probably going to frustrate a lot more customers than simply being upfront about the actual lead time. With all that being said, I'm not going to criticize them too harshly. It's a smaller business that seems to be growing quickly online, so they're probably dealing with a lot more work than they were previously.
At the end of the day, I got my slide back, the work was completed properly, and I'm happy with the final product. I'm still willing to use their services again, and I'll very likely send this setup back to have ports added to the barrel since the slide already has this top window cut.
So while the turnaround time and communication could definitely use some improvement, when it comes to the actual work I received, I don't really have any complaints.
