Springfield Armory decided to push the pendulum back the other direction where size is concerned. The new Hellcat Pro OSP kept the slim profile of the original Hellcat but got a longer, 3.7-inch barrel and a taller grip frame that now has a capacity of 15+1 rounds for its two supplied magazines. The Hellcat Pro still wears the same excellent Adaptive Grip Texturing that provides an excellent purchase on the pistol, but that’s not the only great feature it retained.
The Hellcat Pro OSP includes a slide cut from the factory to mount your favorite red-dot with the use of an adapter plate that can be ordered from the factory. The slide also integrates my absolute favorite sight arrangement. There’s a U-notch at the rear with a white outline and up front, there’s a high-visibility ring that encircles a tritium insert for low-light use. These sights paint a fantastic picture and are quick to acquire.
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The controls, while very usable, are a little limited since there’s no ambi slide stop for left-hand shooters, though the magazine release is reversible. There’s a bit of that Adaptive Grip Texture up front on the index pads and there are both front and rear cocking serrations on the slide, though they could be a bit more aggressively machined in my opinion.
During my first outing with the Hellcat Pro, I thought that the recoil felt sharper than what I’ve experienced with the original Hellcat, and I figured I might have been imagining it. However, during our range session, every evaluator commented that the Hellcat Pro was snappy and that the recoil felt sharper than a standard Hellcat. I’m not sure of the cause but it wasn’t just me that had that opinion.
During our session, we noticed the slide stop was a little sharp on top and it didn’t take many magazine changes before we began to feel the wear on our thumbs. Aside from that, the performance of the Hellcat Pro was very good from its excellent accuracy out of its cold-hammer-forged barrel to its absolute reliability. The trigger pull was a little on the heavy side but it still had a fairly crisp break for a striker-fired pistol.
