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Customized Creationz

September 23, 2013

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These guys know how to take the ordinary run-of-the-mill gun and turn it into an out-of-this-world one-of-kind blaster.

Customize, upgrade, tweak! Its what we do… Whether it’s our car, motorcycle or firearms, we can’t just leave it STOCK… (Insert manly grumble)… If you’re like me, you can’t leave your piece looking like every other stock gun out there, its got to be unique and of course run like a champ and eat whatever you feed it. Enter Customized Creationz! These guys know how to take the ordinary run-of-the-mill gun and turn it into an out-of-this-world one-of-kind blaster.

Todd McKechnie, owner, operator and mastermind behind the creations that come out of his shop has been creating masterpieces for decades for A-list celebs and everyday Joes like myself. It takes a lot talent and dedication to turn out this kind of work and it shows, just spend a few moments browsing some of their killer designs on their website.

“We don’t just tinker around here, our shop floor is running several state of the art CNC 4 AXIS mills and CNC lathes”, McKechnie said.

McKechnie takes his work seriously and it shows, his work can be seen all over the world and has been featured in movies, ordered by celebs, written about, talked about and ran by some of the firearms industries brightest.

Not being able to leave any gun bone stock, but not wanting to be the Ginny Pig, I cornered one of my gun-toting buddies into letting me send his Stock Smith & Wesson M&P 40 to Todd for a little TLC. Leary, he said okay. So I popped the slide off and sent it with only one note that said “Here is an M&P slide, do what you want with it.” If only my buddy knew.

I knew it would be a few weeks before the slide was finished, so I decided to surprise my buddy with a little extra something and mailed the frame off to EPP (Enhanced Precision Products for some custom frame stippling. EPP did the full-meal-deal on the frame, which includes:

360 degree frame stipple

Undercut and polished trigger guard

Retextured bottom front portion of trigger guard

Retexture left and right front frame flats

Magazine well bevel

After a few weeks the frame rolled in from EPP and sat on the workbench while awaiting the return of its better half for final mating. Since we don’t want to have any missed opportunity for more upgrades, I threw in Apex Tactical’s new poly trigger for good measure. Truly one of the best functional upgrades you can do to any M&P. I could go into detail, but that is another review.

In the meantime, Todd was busy over at Customized Creationz cutting, chopping and doing what he does best. As with any good custom shop, there was some waiting and some more waiting, a little crying and after 11-weeks, the wait was over. I got a call from Todd saying the slide was on its way. Remember, we had no idea what was going to come back which made the wait all that much harder.

Two days later an inconspicuous white box showed up on the doorstep and low-and-be-hold it was from Customized Creationz. I opened the box like a kid on Christmas morning, tearing and ripping until a glimmering slide appeared. Holy Crap! This is SICK. I immediately ran into my office to show the wife. With excitement I said look at this honey…it is ART! She glanced over her shoulder and said, “oh cool” and went back to work. Thanks sweetheart!

Todd took what was ordinary and gave it a personality by adding fish scales to rear deck and sharks tooth lightening ports to the front. He finished it off with a very sexy brushed nickel. I could hardly wait to get it back together to see what the combo would look like. I mated the slide with the lower and sat back in awe. Finally after fondling it for an hour, I hit the studio for some beauty shots. When I was done photographing the gun, it dawned on me that this was not my gun! Oh no, I had sent the wrong gun… Why or why didn’t I send my own gun? Oh well, at least the wait is only 11-weeks!