Limcat Custom

Johnny Lim builds the guns Open-division champions point at steel — titanium compensators, steel grips, and a wildcat's silhouette cut into the slide.

THE MAKER

Limcat Custom, in Sparks, Nevada, is the life's work of Johnny Lim — a shop with exactly one subject: the competition 2011. No carry line, no heritage models, no hunting guns. Open and Limited division race pistols, built in small numbers for shooters whose Sundays are scored in seconds and points. The family is in it now — Johnny's son Julian works alongside him — and the wildcat logo on the slide, mid-pounce, is the shop's whole personality in one drawing.

In the race-gun world, reputation is measured by whose holsters your guns ride in. Limcat's answer is documented all the way to the auction block: when Morphy Auctions catalogued a RazorCat, it described Limcat pistols as world-championship-winning race guns campaigned by top competitors including Emanuel Bragg, Eric Grauffel and JJ Racaza.

THE MACHINE

The flagship is the RazorCat, the shop's Open-division gun: a steel grip for heft, a titanium compensator — titanium because a comp lives at the very end of the barrel, where every gram works against you twice, once in weight and once in leverage. Limcat's own page lists RazorCat builds from around $7,750, varying with options, which is simply what a no-compromise Open gun costs.

For Limited division, where compensators are banned, the Wildcat answers with a different metallurgy trick: a KKM barrel with a tungsten sleeve. Tungsten is more than twice as dense as steel, so the sleeve packs muzzle weight into a barrel that still looks — and rules-measures — like a plain barrel. The Wildcat Tracker extends the idea to Limited Optics, and the Flashcat (pictured above) wears the shop's slant-cut slide lightening.

THE MOMENT

The RazorCat's strangest honor is that it became somebody else's signature. JJ Racaza — one of the fastest production-to-open shooters alive — is so associated with the gun that the RazorCat is described in the trade as his signature model. A custom shop's dream is a champion choosing your pistol when any pistol on Earth is available to him. Limcat got there with a one-subject shop in Sparks.

And when a Limcat's racing days end, it does not get parted out. It goes to auction houses like Morphy, catalogued the way vintage race cars are catalogued — by championships, by drivers, by provenance. Race guns are consumables to most shooters. Limcats are apparently collectibles.