I Call It Tactical Cheetah

Photo from the Custom Gun Finishes Facebook Page

It all started back in November of last year. Like most other USPSA Matches that I was attending, I met up with a couple of shooting buddies that I met at a prior match. We got together to shoot the York IWLA November USPSA Match. There was a chill in the air and the layout of the club made things ever more brisk. Huddled in the shade of the forrest around us, standing a mere fifty feet from a stream, a group of about 75 shooters were going through the registration process.

As I’m standing there, talking to one of my shooting buddies, he takes his hands out of his jacket pockets and I spot them. Wrapping his hands were a pair of cheetah print gloves with the fingers cut off. You know that sort of snort that people tend to make when they see something funny but they don’t want to come right out with a belly-laugh? Well, my buddy must have picked up on it. He looked me square in the eye, a big kool-aid smile on his face, nodding his head up and down as if to say ‘oh, yeah!’, and said to me ‘I call it Tactical Cheetah’.

My snort of laughter turned to an all-out laugh and the rest of our small group had a nice chuckle at the exchange. The rest of the match was peppered with jokes, mostly how this friend of ours should be awarded some sort of style points. Despite the stages being a little boring (This match was a 4 Stage Special Classifier) we all had a good time, our fellow squad mates included.

About a month or two later, I met up with this shooting buddy outside of the range. The shooting season officially ended in Pennsylvania and we were getting together over coffee to discuss next seasons plans. As we talked, this buddy of mine made mention that he decided to have some customized cosmetic work done to his gun. With the same smile and nod, he told me that he was going to have a Glock 17 all decked out to match his Tactical Cheetah gloves.

As it turns out, he was uncomfortable with the thought of shipping off his gun to a stranger he found on the internet. Instead, he was able to find a company, somewhat local, to do the work. He drove out to the shop, met the husband and wife team, and was happy enough with the meeting to turn over his gun.

The image above is the almost-finished product (Photo was taken before the sights were installed). While I could never pull off the Tactical Cheetah look, I am impressed with the finish. I absolutely love how detailed the slide turned out through the use of Hydrographics. I think that the moment this gun comes out of the holster at our next USPSA Match, it will turn a few heads.

There is some more to this story, but I don’t want to bog down your Friday with a thousand-plus word essay. Instead, I’ll leave the rest of the story for another post (That post will probably come next week, shortly after I pick up my gun…. cliffhanger, perhaps?!)