Alpha Foxtrot’s 1911-S15 is a high-capacity single action from a company that knows a thing or two about making guns. (Photo courtesy of Keith Wood)
October 22, 2024
By Keith Wood
One could reasonably assume that the further we progress in the development of handguns, the more the public would drift away from older designs such as the 1911. That assumption would be wrong. More than a century after its introduction, John Browning’s masterpiece remains a relevant market force, albeit with some changes. The 1911 hasn’t died—it has morphed.
Innovation has driven the 1911’s evolution into capable handguns that embrace the design’s classic shootability but with significantly greater capacity. The Alpha Foxtrot 1911-S15 is a prime example: a compact 1911-style handgun with a double-stack magazine that provides a capacity on par with more modern platforms.
Alpha Foxtrot is a U.S. subsidiary of Dasan Machineries Co., a Korean firearms manufacturing firm with more than three decades of experience producing OEM products for military and civilian customers worldwide. Dasan’s specialties include investment casting and precision machining operations. Many well-known U.S. firearm brands outsource numerous operations to companies such as Dasan, and although you may not have heard of the company, you’ve likely used a firearm containing one or more of their components without realizing it.
The company’s U.S. operations are located in Duluth, Georgia, where an 80,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility produces firearms, including the 1911-S15, domestically. A look at Dasan’s website makes it clear that 1911 parts are core elements of its OEM manufacturing business.
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Construction The extended thumb safety and high-cut beavertail grip safety allow the handgun to sit low in the hand. The trigger pull weighed in at 5.5 pounds, which is fine for defensive purposes. (Photo submitted by the author) The core firing mechanism of the 1911-S15 is that of a typical single-action 1911-style handgun. However, this system is incorporated into a compact yet full-bodied frame that’s constructed from forged 7075-T6 aluminum with steel inserts in key areas such as the frame rails. These inserts are sturdy parts, resembling the locking blocks on a Glock pistol; both extend deep into the frame and are securely held, ensuring no compromise in terms of strength and durability.
There are no grip panels per se. The aluminum component serves as both the frame and the grip. This maximizes the dimensions of the magazine well and therefore the capacity, while keeping external bulk to a minimum. The grip/frame is slightly narrower than that of a standard 1911 with traditional grip panels, although the circumference is 1/8 inch greater at the midpoint.
Gripping surfaces are machined onto the frame itself. A diamond pattern is present on the flats, where panels would ordinarily sit, and the frontstrap is machine checkered at 30 lines per inch. The frame has a round butt with a correspondingly contoured mainspring housing that is checkered to match the frontstrap.
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The frame is relieved under the trigger guard, though not radically so, and that radius transitions around to the flats on either side. Since the core of the shooter’s gripping strength will be at that position, this shape makes a great deal of sense. The front of the trigger guard is rounded. The monolithic frame extends forward to a full-size dust cover with an integral Picatinny rail for accessory mounting.
Controls The controls on the 1911-S15 are standard 1911-style. The trigger uses a rounded aluminum pad with three holes and a serrated face. There is an overtravel adjustment screw. The trigger on my sample gun broke cleanly and consistently right at 5.5 pounds. While this pull weight isn’t ideal for shooting tiny groups on the range, it’s probably about right for a handgun intended for defensive use.
The beavertail grip safety sweeps upward, and the memory bump allows it to engage even with a high grip on the pistol. It is interesting that Alpha Foxtrot decided to retain the grip safety, as it easily could have been deleted as part of the frame redesign.
There is a manual single-side safety with an extended lever. I shoot with a high grip, and this lever allowed me to ride the safety with my right thumb. The slide stop has a checkered pad, and the right side of the frame is machined with the so-called HRT cut. The hammer is a Delta-style unit. The magazine release is in the traditional 1911-style position with a serrated button.
The slide is constructed from a steel forging. There are angled cocking serrations at both the front and rear of the slide. The top of the slide is tri-topped, meaning there are two flats machined at 45-degree angles that transition from the flats to the top. The top of the slide is serrated along its length, terminating just behind the front sight.
Sights or Optics The optics-ready version of the 1911-S15 comes equipped with suppressor-height three-dot sights. A steel plate covers the Trijicon RMR-footprint direct-optic mount when not in use. (Photo submitted by the author) The iron sights are suppressor height with three green tritium lamps providing illumination. The front sight is a square post, and the rear is a U-shape notch. The front sight is secured to the slide with a hex screw accessible from the bottom, and the rear sits in a dovetail milled into the slide, making it drift-adjustable for windage.
The 1911-S15 is available either with or without an optics-cut slide. Mine was the optics-cut version, which is available at a slight cost premium. The steel optics plate cover secures to the slide with two hex screws. Optics mount directly to the slide with no need for an adapter plate. It is designed for the Trijicon RMR footprint, making it compatible with the Trijicon, Holosun 507C, Holosun 407X2, Swampfox and Riton units. I’m still firmly in the iron-sight camp, so I chose not to mount an optic during my testing.
1911-S15s are fitted with bull barrels that eliminate the traditional bushing. The buyer has the option of a standard or extended threaded barrel; my test gun came with the latter.
Alpha Foxtrot advertises this handgun as having a 3.5-inch barrel. The distance from the breech face to the front of the slide is 3.5 inches, but the threaded portion brings the actual barrel length up to 4.25 inches. The extended section is threaded 1/2x28 and covered with a thread protector. I did not install a suppressor for this evaluation.
Bull Barrel The 1911-S15 features a bushingless bull barrel and is available with a 1/2x28 threaded muzzle. A steel thread protector is provided. (Photo submitted by the author) Bull barrels usually taper to a smaller diameter from the muzzle rearward to allow clearance for the slide to function. On the 1911-S15, this taper is present only on the top of the barrel from the three o’clock to the nine o’clock position. I’m not sure whether there is any functional advantage to this contour, but it works as intended.
The barrel uses two top lugs to engage with the slide in addition to the hood and a single squared lug that locks into the frame. The barrel is ramped and fully supported, which has become more or less standard when it comes to 9mm 1911s. A slot cut into the barrel hood serves as a visual loaded-chamber indicator. The gun uses a standard 1911-style internal extractor in concert with a fixed extended ejector.
The 1911-S15 uses a dual captive recoil spring assembly. This system adds a slight wrinkle to the standard 1911 disassembly procedure. With an unloaded handgun, the slide is retracted until the slide stop aligns with the half-moon cut in the slide. The stop is pushed out from right to left; a pen or other object helps due to the HRT cut in the frame.
Once the stop is removed, the slide comes off the frame, and the recoil spring assembly is removed. A plug that holds the recoil spring assembly into the frame must then be removed before the barrel can be pulled forward and out of the slide.
Feeding the Beast The 1911-S15 uses 15-round steel magazines made by Shield Arms, but it is also compatible with Glock 43X polymer magazines. (Photo submitted by the author) The 1911-S15 feeds from a steel-bodied 15-round dual-column S15 Gen 3 magazine manufactured by Shield Arms. This magazine was designed as an aftermarket upgrade to be used in the Glock 43X and 48 handguns. In case you are wondering, yes, Glock magazines will work in the 1911-S15, but they will diminish its capacity because polymer magazine walls must be made thicker than those made of steel, so the internal dimensions of Glock mags are smaller.
The Shield Arms magazine’s steel body is black nitrided, which should make corrosion a non-issue. The base pad is polymer, as is the follower. Shield Arms also makes a +5 extended base pad, bringing the overall capacity up to 20+1.
The slide, frame rails and barrel are all coated in black high-gloss DLC (Diamond-Like Carbon). Unlike many of the newer finishes on the market, DLC can be applied over polished metal, which gives the appearance and texture of bluing. Not only does this finish increase surface hardness and resist corrosion, but it also makes the working parts incredibly slick. Cycling the slide is glassy smooth.
The frame and frame-mounted parts, including the controls, are matte black. If you are not a fan of the glossy top end, a QPQ/black nitride version is available, too. For a lifelong 1911 user like me, shooting the 1911-S15 was, in many ways, a familiar experience. The only real difference was the boxier grip shape, which gave the pistol a fuller feel. Although this is a compact handgun, recoil was relatively light thanks to the 9mm chambering.
Shootability (Accuracy results provided by the author) The sights provided a crisp and useful sight picture that was both fast to acquire and capable of precision when needed. While the trigger pull wasn’t race-gun light, it was clean and repeatable. Overall, I found the 1911-S15 to be very shootable.
It is not uncommon for 1911-style handguns that deviate too significantly from the basic design parameters to suffer reliability problems. This was not the case with the 1911-S15. This handgun fed, fired, extracted and ejected both full-metal-jacket and jacketed hollowpoint ammunition with 100 percent reliability. It bears noting that the current 1911-S15 is the second-generation version of the design, so some improvements have been made since the handgun first appeared on the market in 2022.
There are several handguns available these days that merge the 1911’s DNA with double-stack capacity. When it comes to compact guns suitable for concealed carry, the choices narrow. The 1911-S15’s competitors include the pricier but excellent Wilson Combat EDC X9 as well as the comparably priced Kimber KDS9C and Springfield Armory Prodigy 4.25 models. I’ve used and evaluated each of these designs, and all were reliable and accurate handguns. At the end of the day, it comes down to user preference. My recommendation would be to give the 1911-S15 a try; you might be surprised at how much you like it.
Alpha Foxtrot may not be a household name among all gun enthusiasts, but if this handgun is any indication, the company is producing well-built and reliable firearms that rival better-known brands.
Brass Tax The 1911-S15 is accurate, reliable and well thought out—a handgun that combines the beloved aspects of the 1911 with added capacity and options such as a threaded barrel and optics cut, making it an attractive possibility for those who demand all the bells and whistles.
With a base price under $1,500 and an as-tested suggested retail price of $1,650, it sits comfortably in the mid-tier handgun market between standard factory guns and high-dollar customs.
Alpha Foxtrot's 1911-S15 Type: double-stack 1911Caliber: 9mm LugerCapacity: 15+1Barrel: 3.5 in.; 4.25 in. w/threadsWeight: 28.5 oz.Construction: forged steel slide, 7075 aluminum frameGrips: aluminum, integral to frameTrigger: 5 lb. 8 oz. pull (measured)Sights: 3-dot suppressor-height night sights; optics-ready slide, RMR footprintSafeties: manual thumb, gripMSRP: $1,650Manafacturer: Alpha Foxtrot, AlphaFoxtrot.us