Rost Martin RM1C 9mm: First Look & Technical Specifications
Dallas, Texas-based Rost Martin is a new name on the firearms market, but its inaugural pistol doesn't feel like a first outing.
Teased earlier this month before its planned debut at SHOT Show in Las Vegas, the company's RM1C pistol in a nutshell is a 9mm polymer-framed striker-fired handgun that uses a double-stack magazine. Big deal, right? Nothing that hasn't been on the market since at least the early 1980s.
About that.
Rost Martin sent Guns.com a production model RM1C and initial evaluation shows promise. Let’s get into it.
Update: Long-Term Testing Complete
Since this initial look, we put the Rost Martin RM1C through its paces. After 18 months and 1,500 rounds, we have the final verdict on reliability, accuracy, and wear.
Compact-sized, the RM1C has a 4-inch hammer-forged barrel that gives it a 7.1-inch overall length. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Width is a very narrow 1.1-inches over the grip while height, with the standard flush-fit magazine, is 5 inches.
This compares well with the Glock 19 (the author's well-used suppressor host seen to the right), against the RM1C to the left.
As well as the S&W M&P9 Compact M2.0, although it should be noted the RM1C has a much slimmer grip while keeping the same magazine capacity.
Being only slightly larger than the SIG P356 XMacro, the RM1C has a very similar grip geometry.
And is just slightly longer than the Springfield Armory Hellcat Pro.
It ships with two magazines, a 15-shot flush fit, and a 17-round extended mag.
They are steel mags made by Mec-Gar and branded with the RM logo, but the company advises that the RM1C accepts standard CZ P10 mags. For reference, the weight is 21.1 ounces, unloaded, with the 15-round magazine inserted.
The mag well is gently flared, and we found the magazine to drop free when the release is pressed. Note the scallop to the base pad to help strip the mag out if needed.
We found the "walkout" weight of the RM1C, stoked with 15+1 rounds of Federal's 135-grain Hydra Shok Deep personal defense rounds, to hit the scales at 27.9 ounces.
Looking under the hood, the RM1C is simple and field strips without tools in the same way that any Glock owner would find familiar – with the big difference that you don't have to pull the trigger to release the striker to take the slide from the frame. Note that the guide rod is steel.
The slide and barrel have drawing/part numbers altogether different from the serial on the frame. That and the absolute lack of any sort of import markings point to domestic production.
The sights are steel – not plastic – and are dovetailed into the slide. They include a front white dot and a serrated blacked-out rear. If you don't like them, they use a common pattern, that of the Springfield XD. Note the non-glare top slide serrations, like what you see on old S&W "Wondernines."
Optics ready, the RM1C ships with an RMR plate while others are available. Not a bad choice as that single plate opens it up not only to the Trijicon RMR/SRO but also the Leupold DeltaPoint Pro, Holosun's 407C, 507C, 508T, 509T, and EPS; as well as the Swampfox Kingslayer and Justice series.
The RM1C features the company's understated Responsive Grip Texturing, or RGT, which is a proprietary graduated laser stippling and is included on the front, back, and sides of the grip as well as two memory points above the trigger guard. For folks who complain when confronted with seriously aggressive texture, the RGT should hit just right.
The RM1C ships with three easily interchangeable rear inserts to allow the user to semi-customize the grip.
The squared-off trigger guard has a high undercut which, combined with the deep intake at the rear of the grip, allows use of the RM1C by those with smaller hands. In early testing, we had a 4' 10" female shooter who had no issue shooting the pistol and she could actuate the mag release with her thumb without breaking her grip.
Surface controls on the left side of the pistol include a slide catch and push button magazine release, and we found both to work well.
The controls are mirrored on the right side of the RM1C, making the gun ambidextrous. That's nice, as most pistols on the market will only offer a reversible mag release (that is a PITA to swap around) rather than go the full ambi route. This is good news for southpaws – at least one in 10 gun owners – as well as anyone who trains to use their carry/defense pistol with their "off" hand should they need to, which should be the other nine out of 10.
The RM1C also accepts most popular pistol lights due to its full three-slot Picatinny accessory rail. Note the forward slide serrations as well.
At launch, Rost Martin tells us that holsters will be available from several well-known manufacturers including ANR Design, Blackpoint Tactical, CrossBreed, DeSantis, and We The People. We found that it fit a custom G19 IWB holster we had almost perfectly. You aren't going to have a hard time finding holsters for this one.
In addition to the loaded chamber indicator on the top of the slide, there is a striker-cocked indicator in the end plate to the rear of the slide.
The trigger in our initial testing is smooth for a factory striker-fired pistol. While billed at 5 pounds, when tested right out of the box we found it to break closer to 6 across an average of 10 pulls. Meanwhile, the trigger pull, which only travels 0.375 inches to a clean break and short reset, feels clean. It is better than a factory Glock trigger for sure.
Observe:
Rost Martin has paid a lot of attention to detail, which is noticeable in little things like the fitment and clean lines of the pistol along with simple rollmarks.
This is also shown in the manual. While normally a gun manual isn't anything to write about, the 42-page full-color manual sent with the RM1C is well made. You can tell somebody spent time on it.
So how does it shoot?
We've only had it for a week so just have a few boxes down the pipe thus far, but we've got no malfunctions to report. Stay tuned for a full review as we push up the round count, mount an optic, and check for accuracy. We'll also meet up with the Rost Martin crew at SHOT Show to get some insight into the gun's development and production.
But before we leave, we should point out that the optics-ready and easily supportable American-made Rost Martin RM1C, which is available in three colors, has an MSRP of $459.
