Cabot S103 Commander

There’s no mistaking it. Everyone who’s ever driven knows the sound of a Harley alongside of you. When stopped at a light and you almost feel that distinctive, throaty “potato-potato-potato” growl, you don’t have to look to know it’s a hog. That’s seems to be the concept behind Cabot Guns’ efforts to give their ultra high end 1911s their own “auditory signature.” So when you rack the slide on a S103 Commander, it won’t sound like the slide on any other gun in the world. Press release after the jump . . .

Sarver, Pennsylvania – November 9, 2015 – Cabot Guns, the premier purveyor of state-of-the-art advancement of the 1911 platform, is proud to announce another industry first – acoustical engineering as a part of the 1911 shooting experience.

In the few short years since their founding in 2011, Cabot Guns has continually proven that they cannot shy away from innovation in any facet of the work they so passionately adore. Today, Cabot is announcing it has taken steps to secure intellectual property protection of their latest endeavor – expanding the sensory pleasure of handling the 1911 pistol.

Inspired by the “feeling” created by certain sounds, Cabot Guns introduces an auditory signature to its already unmistakable workmanship. Audiology is the study of hearing – Psychoacoustics, the study of the perception of sound. There are things in this world readily identifiable solely by their auditory presence; the vault-like heavy engagement of a Mercedes door, the tell-tale “ping” when opening a T.S. DuPont lighter, and even the “flick” when unlocking an iPhone. Each of these sounds was specifically engineered into their respective designs. Cabot Guns again breaks new ground by bringing this technology to the firearms industry with an acoustically engineered 1911.

Described as akin to the high-speed clean shutter sound of a DSLR camera, Cabot’s acoustic engineering is now a feature made manifest upon racking the slide of their S103 Commander pistol. Cabot President Rob Bianchin states “I can’t stop racking the slide,” as a smile spreads from ear to ear.

Just as photography cannot fully capture the elegantly deep shine of Cabot’s Deluxe polished finish for one’s eyes, audio recordings cannot fully replicate the psychoacoustic perceptions created by the racking of the S103 slide. While not a substitute for “the real thing,” a peek into the captured auditory bliss is available at sound.cabotgun.com. The full auditory experience of the S103 truly must be experienced first hand.

Committed to the strict control of variables, and the implementation of perfection, Cabot Guns expects to soon offer acoustical engineering options to other models of their 1911 line.

President Rob Bianchin and the Cabot Guns team take pride and obsession to levels of American can-do. From their expanding operation in the rolling hills of Sarver, Pennsylvania to their new center for excellence in the State of Indiana, Cabot takes price in the superiority of American craftsmanship to create the “ultra-premium” 1911 models for which they have become famous.

 

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82 COMMENTS

  2. “There’s no mistaking it. Everyone who’s ever driven knows the sound of a Harley alongside of you. When stopped at a light and you almost feel that distinctive, throaty “potato-potato-potato” growl, you don’t have to look to know it’s a hog. ”
    ——

    Don’t forget that they have to constantly remind you it’s a Harley by revving the engine while sitting still- fill the gas tank, drive 5 miles, fill tank again because they wasted all the gas revving it up. Maybe it’s a design flaw that HD owners need to keep the revs up because their engine will stall out or something.

    • Or when one drives through the parking lot and sets off every car alarm, and then the whole world wishes the Harley rider was dead?

    • “Maybe it’s a design flaw that HD owners need to keep the revs up because their engine will stall out or something.”

      Actually.. Harleys got fuel injection rather late in the game, and carburetors were still a factory option into the late 2000s. So yeah, a lot of HDs are running around with poorly tuned carbs and will “load up” and stall at a stop if you don’t goose the throttle now and then.

      Boring, overrated motorcycles that embrace technological advances glacially.

      • Pulling the baffles out of your mufflers doesn’t help either, unless your goal is to lose 10 horsepower, make the bike run like sh!t and make it loud as hell. But you do have to give credit to Harley’s marketing division. ‘Express your individuality by joining the herd!’

        • “‘Express your individuality by joining the herd!’”

          Now epitomized by the tattoo crowd…

          Years back I told my young female nieces that nothing says ‘skank’ quite like a tattoo…

          So far it has worked…

  3. At first I wanted to laugh at the audacity, but then I’m reminded of how I feel manipulating a Colt SA, Ruger SA, HK MP5, Ithaca pump, or Anchutz bolt action. All create warm fuzzies for me. So why not? Just as long as engineering the sound into the build doesn’t affect the reliability.

    • The difference is, the sounds those guns make are all incidental to the function of a well-designed firearm, not a cheesy tacked-on gimmick.

    • “So why not? Just as long as engineering the sound into the build doesn’t affect the reliability.”

      That seems to be the problem with Cabot’s meticulously crafted beautiful to behold tight-clearance close tolerance guns, they seem to be rather particular with their diet.

      I can fully appreciate their metalworking skills, I’m concerned they haven’t the experience to fully understand gun-making the way you would expect from a $6,000 pistol.

      For that kind of money, it should eat SAAMI-spec ammo with absolutely boring regularity, not needing to be returned to the factory for tweaking. I bet their aerospace customers expect flown hardware to work, *period*.

      • That’s the exact same as saying “For over a million bucks, my Bugatti should be able to run on anything I put in the tank, E-85 to kerosene.” If you spend $6000 on a gun, you can afford to put high quality ammo through it. If you can’t afford high quality ammo, don’t buy a $6000 gun.

        • Sure, except in TTAG’s tests their Black Diamond failed with pricey Cor-Bon Match ammo. Not cheapo Wolf steelcase stuff. So it seems that “don’t use cheap ammo” doesn’t help the Cabot’s reliability. Only two trips back to the factory seemed to do that.

    • Well based on the reviews, I would think it would be GREAT if it had an impact on reliability… I mean, when you’re at rock bottom, only place to go is up, right?

    • That’s not a flaw, that’s a feature! Then you’ll get to hear the scintillating sound again as you clear the FTF, and so will the thug who’s now about to end you.

  5. http://www.sound.cabotgun.com

    DNS error.

    Cabot is a company that definitely knows how to craft metal. Just looking at them makes me weak in the knees.

    Since their last gun that was reviewed by TTAG, I hope they paid more attention to the Gestalt of gunmaking than just carving beautiful metal…

    And if Cabot wants to impress you with the sound their quality firearm makes, it’s imperative that the web link they publish actually works.

    Appearances matters, Cabot…

  7. Ah yes, another gimmic/novelty for 1911 collectors.

    Hey, gotta stand out some how I guess. If that means integrating superfluous features into a system then knock yourself out.

  8. If it sounds like hog, then no thanks! I used to ride “Limy” machines. The ones with the sweet huuuuuuuuuuuuuum, not the, pound, pound, pound, bang, bang, bang!
    Had a shop mate come in one day, said he bought a hog! This guy didn’t weigh over 100 pounds, wringing wet!
    I told him never to ride outside the city. That when going through the Kalifornia desert one time, I counted two or three rusted hogs on their side with a skeleton underneath. Scared the hell out of him!

  9. My Springfield had a distinctive sound too. It goes bang when you pull the trigger.

  10. “Cabot President Rob Bianchin states ‘I can’t stop racking the slide.'”

    Gentlemen, we have a whole new euphemism.

    • That trigger is such a trashy anomaly on an otherwise beautiful gun. It’s like a perfect woman with a Mike Tyson-style face tattoo.

      • I agree. I’ve always found the guns absolutely gorgeous in every possible way but the stars in the trigger is like this horrible, glaring inconsistency to me that hurts to look at. Totally incongruous to the rest of the pistol as it just screams “cheap” and “Kid Rock” and “Walmart” to me. It’s cheeseball.

  14. Man, the 1911 market is over-saturated when a company has to go to those extremes to differentiate themselves from the competition.

  15. This comment section is full of the most narrow-minded cynics that I’ve seen on this site in months. A private company decides to extend art to function and bring the incidental into the intentional. What this is is beauty beyond the scope and understanding of the common man. Instead of marveling at what is likely the best pistol made, you simpletons gather up your rusty bucket of expired nostalgic notions of what a 1911 is and caustically spew arm-chair critiques of a thing that is beyond your means. That pistol is made for better men than you and you resent it with all the fibers of your sad and shabby being. Mediocrity is not to be celebrated. Your grandfather’s 1911 or the one that you carried in ‘the war’ aren’t this. Those are dead relics of a time past. This is the refinement of aesthetic perfection that began with Browning. He didn’t make a perfect thing. Bell didn’t perfect the phone in the same way that Jobs didn’t invent it. There are few items that are truly made better with intention and this is one. I applaud Cabot for this. They have mastered the 1911.

    • That pistol is made for better men than you and you resent it with all the fibers of your sad and shabby being.

      I don’t resent people who can afford a Cabot. I don’t even resent people who spend $6K on one gun. I do, however, think the ones who can afford it, and spend the money on this cranky piece of crap are utter fools, however. There are better guns to spend that kind of money on.

      It’s not wealth envy that has people dumping on Cabots. It’s the fact that they are unreliable pieces of shit.

    • @ ‘Clarity’ –

      “Instead of marveling at what is likely the best pistol made, you simpletons gather up your rusty bucket of expired nostalgic notions of what a 1911 is and caustically spew arm-chair critiques of a thing that is beyond your means.”

      Take your sanctimonious elitist attitude and shove it up your PROACTIVELY DELETED.

      I’ve owned (and enjoyed) high-end audio gear that cost more than that $6,000 1911 does.

      If it’s “the best pistol made” it damn sure better be able to eat and cycle SAAMI-spec ammo without a hiccup.

      The Cabot has proven it doesn’t.

      The “the best pistol made”? FAIL.

      A ‘Tupperware’ $600 Glock is out-of-the-box more reliable than that thing.

      ‘Clarity’? That’s a joke…

    • Clare, I really hope your post is a sarcastic jab at the ridiculously overwrought language of Cabot’s silly press release. If that’s the case, you nailed it, brother.

      If you’re serious, though, you might want to read the previous chronicles of TTAG’s Cabot experience before you pronounce this pistol “perfected”. Also, reliability concerns aside, no firearm with trashy circus clown star cutouts in the trigger should be described with words like “refinement of aesthetic perfection”.

    • @steve @geoff @whoever else

      You guys were just thoroughly trolled by a master-level troll. You were trolled so hard you didn’t even realize you were being trolled. Look at the language on Cabot’s website then re-read this. You will facepalm at the fact you fell for it. Luckily I came here and told you before you were, in internetspeak, #rekt

      Thank me later

      • Based on the reliability issues that this site had with a Cabot they reviewed (had to send it back twice). I’d say the first thing to improve would be reliability, the second their return/repair process. Everyone makes a mistake, lemons occasionally occur– but to spend this kind of money, send the pistol back for repair and still not have it functioning reliably isn’t acceptable.

      • Lance, enough people have epxressed “Clairity”‘s attitude in the past, blaming our disdain for this piece of shit on anti-elitism when the actual problem is that it’s a piece of shit, that I don’t care if he/she/it is a troll, the attitude needs stomping on.

        • Stop posting! The troll feeds off your comments. The only attitude that needs stomping is your need to prove yourself to an anonymous person online. Just give up or it will be worse. This conversation will be screenshotted and posted on Reddit so that you will become a laughing stock for all to see. Clarity is a master troll. A troll that did research into the source material. You can’t beat him with conventional means. You can’t shoot him or otherwise stop him. You may think that this was a comment on a random post on a gun page, but that’s where the genius is. The troll lurks in these deep places. He will strike again if you keep arguing with yourself. He will only get stronger because he can feel your aimless frustration and need to correct others. Stop while you’re ahead. Every comment here will only further your defeat. You can’t win, Steve. You lost before you were even born.

        • Oh no! The useless hipsters and dorks on Reddit are laughing at me! How can I go on after such a humiliation?

        • @Stinkeye.
          +1.
          Reddit is the sewage lagoon of the internet. I couldn’t care less what goes on there.

  16. My CZ makes a sound that’s different from a 1911 too, but when I have my ear pro on I can’t even hear it anyways.

  17. For their price it should have its own homing radar so you cant miss. Way over my 1911 buget from a named builder.

  18. I’m guessing the distinctive sound is produced by a specially designed recoil spring that produces the high pitched whine when it’s compressed and rubs against the guide rod when the slide is racked back. Then the click sound is from a carefully designed barrel lug locking action that produces the click when the slide goes back into battery.

    • Assuming it does go back into battery. Of course, if you’re just playing with it (the pistol. Get your mind out of the gutter), you’re probably not trying to feed any rounds.

    • “a specially designed recoil spring that produces the high pitched whine when it’s compressed and rubs against the guide rod when the slide is racked back.”

      My Glock came from the factory with that feature.

  19. Sadly, they still haven’t figured out how to make a trigger that isn’t fugly or slide serrations that don’t look like someone screwed up with the mill.

  20. Let’s see.

    Unable/unwilling to engineer actual functionality, they try for yet more bling, this time of an auditory type.

    Shameless frauds.

  21. I first heard about Cabot here on TTAG. They look like very sharp, worth the $, conscientiously produced firearms. I hope they go “bang” for all their buyers. But (admittedly not being a 1911 guy) i read the post out of some interest from the previous TTAG cites about Cabot. I have to say that thieir marketing pitch (above) needs to be pared-down a little. It’s one thing to build a classy world-class firearm that’s so great, that the engineering staff [with a proverbial gun to their heads] could only eek out room for improvment in the way the slide ‘racking’ sounds. It’s yet another to say it too many times in your ad and (maybe) make the reader say to themselves (despite the cummulative greatness) “is that all you got”.

    • Given that the review Cabot here had to be sent back TWICE just to get them to make it function properly, I wonder what the blazing hell your definition of excellence is.

  22. So they are engineering in a feature that encourages you to essentially play with your firearm, marketing it as something they themselves play with needlessly. Don’t get me wrong. I love the sounds various firearms make when their actions are actuated. It truly is a thing of beauty. I don’t think I have ever sought out a firearm solely for the purpose of racking the action for no reason other than to rack the action then putting it away again.

    What happened to handling every firearm as if it were loaded? I can understand striving to engineer perfection but the purpose of this seems to be a direct violation of one of the core tenants that POTG live by. Hell, it’s exactly the picture that the Bloomberg mom’s club has been trying to paint all along. An OFWG sitting around stroking his gun over and over with a big grin on his face. It’s all well and good to pursue engineering perfection and make note of how it impacts all of the senses but a little more care in marketing may be prudent here. Guns are fun but they are not toys. There should be a purpose for picking one up other than simply to handle it (education, cleaning, shooting).

    • Ah horseshite. As long as you’ve cleared the weapon, and don’t go pointing it at people it is perfectly fine to enjoy handling a firearm. Are you telling me that if your buddy showed up with one of these things you wouldn’t immediately want to handle it? Feel the heft of it, the smoothness (or lack there of) of the moving parts? Even, God forbid, the feel of the trigger pull? In my world virtually everything is a toy, it’s just that some require very careful use because otherwise you might do some serious damage. The best example I can thin of are off road vehicles. Are those not toys either?

      • Horseshit comparison. I’m pretty sure most people would agree that admiring your friends new piece and taking a moment to familiarize yourself with it is different than repeatedly going back to the same gun just to rack the slide a bunch of times.

    • Next will be product placement in a thug gang Hollywood blockbuster, or Arnold’s toy in a future Terminator flick.

  25. If they really want to improve on the firearm, they should start with the trigger. The price they charge is too much to have a trigger, with “stars”, that looks like it was made as a gimmick.

  26. Let’s say you were going to spend $1000 on a 1911, and you had to choose between one that worked every single time but looked like all the rest, or one which looked and sounded just like that Cabot when unloaded, but reliably failed to function when loaded. I don’t think anybody would choose the Cabot, even at one-sixth its current price.

    • Bingo.

      And yet some clowns here (one of them likely a troll to be sure) are scolding us for dumping on “classy.”

  27. It would be AWESOME if they could give it the sound of a cash register completing a sale.

    “Cha-Ching!!!”
    “Cha-Ching!!!”
    “Cha-Ching!!!”

  28. I thought another firearms manufacturer had already cornered the market on the sound of the slide racking. Hi-Point.

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