Alpha Foxtrot Romulus DS 1911 Review

The Romulus, let’s check it out.

 

Alpha Foxtrot, out of Duluth, Georgia. They make really high quality 1911s. One of the things that they’re known for is their DLC coating and it just makes this an absolute beautiful handgun.

But one of my favorites is the 1911 S15, which is a compact 1911 in 9mm that uses the Shield Arms S15 magazine. So it’s like a little micro 2011. But now they’ve just introduced the Romulus, and this is a double stack 1911.

It has the polymer grip shell in the 2011 style. It is an absolutely beautiful handgun. Very smooth.

And while we’ve seen a number of 2011 style pistols that have hit the market, this one really stands out. And we want to give a big thank you to Alpha Foxtrot for sending the Romulus for this review. The Alpha Foxtrot Romulus in the 2011 style or double stack 1911.

Of course, Staccato, STI started all that. And we have seen a lot of different companies that have been introducing this type handgun. But now Romulus was the founder of Rome, and he actually had a twin brother, Remus, and they were raised by wolves.

They were found, and Romulus went on to be the first king of Rome. A lot of his ideas transcended into the Roman Empire. A pretty powerful guy, especially in a very violent time.

But while Romulus is engraved here on the side of the slide, and it’s pretty large, it’s in kind of Roman numerals. And to be honest, I’m not a big fan of billboards on the slide, but this really looks nice. There’s just something about that Romulus on the side of the firearm that I love.

Here on the other side, we just have our serrations, and we do have Alpha Foxtrot. Let’s go ahead and drop our 19 plus one, and this is a BMX magazine. They’re very high quality.

These do fit your standard STI or your Staccato pistols. So that form will work, and it has a nice base pad. Of course, it has witness holes, very excellent magazines.

But you only get one. Now we’ll go ahead and open up this chamber, and it’s empty. Now this is a 2011 style pistol or a double stack 1911.

Has a polymer grip shell, which is typical for most of your 2011 style pistols. Then we have our frame that comes out all the way to the end of the slide. Now this is steel.

Some are made with aluminum. Also of course, the slide itself is steel. But it has a beautiful DLC coating on it.

I mean, it is just gorgeous. And just something about the way these serrations and the Romulus, it just really blends in very well, and that’s in my opinion. But the Picatinny rail is actually brought back, and we have five slots, and then it extends on out.

So this is going to get that light really close right here to the trigger guard. Of course, the trigger guard on out is polymer. And we have a high ride, so we can get a high ride grip and an undercut under the trigger guard.

One thing I do like though about this handgun is the mag well. It’s large, it’s in charge, and those magazines go in really easily. And it has divots in case you have any kind of malfunction where you have to strip those out.

And really, we took this to the range. We had zero malfunctions. I mean, it ran like a top.

I love the polymer texturing all along the grip, checkering on the front, and here on the mainspring housing. So really, the grip itself, while it’s aggressive enough to grip, it’s not rough on your hands. Then we have our high ride beaver tail, which comes up.

This really allows for a lot of surface area in the web of your hand, ambidextrous safeties. The left side is actually extended, and this is more for right-handed people. But you do have the left side, which is a little bit more abbreviated, but it’s fairly easy to get that thumb up on that safety just to mitigate some recoil.

I love the slide stop. It’s extended out, and it actually matches with the safety. I mean, it is nice and large, and it just holds that together.

It’s very easy to be able to drop that slide. Now, one of the things about this handgun is the slide to frame, slick. I mean, this thing is so slick back and forth.

And a lot of that has to do with the nine millimeter recoil spring, a little bit lighter than your 45. But man, that thing just glides on those slide rails. And that just gives you better slide to frame fit.

It makes it a better shooting experience at the range, and it’s one of the reasons why the 1911 is so smooth shooting. Now, we do have our commander or delta style hammer, and this is single action. So that means that you can’t access the trigger unless the hammer is in the rear position.

And then you can’t actually fire the pistol unless the grip safety has been depressed. It’s a passive safety. It gives you extra safety.

And so as I depress it, I’m able to pull that trigger, and it’s a nice clean break. We’ll look at that in a minute. I love the slide serrations.

They are somewhat directional, but they’re just kind of unusual. I like the way that looks. It’s great for press checks, great for pulling that slide back.

It is optics ready, and it does have serrations right here on the base plate. This has the RMSC footprint, so very common, easy to find optics. And we have serrations that go on out to the end of the slide.

We have a tritium bead at the front, and I believe this is night vision, and it is night vision sights, and it has that circle of neon green around the edge, and it’s really easy to see. And then we have blacked out sights at the rear, but it has night sight inserts. So you’re going to have that night sight, which is going to give you excellent self-defense capability.

Now, the DLC coating is actually beautiful, and that means diamond-like coating. It has a very smooth, slick, reflective surface to it, but it’s hard, very hard, and so this is going to resist any kind of scratching or any kind of wear. I’m a big fan of 1911s.

I’m a big fan of 2011s. It just gives you more round capacity. You know, a standard 1911, even in 9mm, only holds 10 rounds.

So this almost doubles the capacity. Mag release, fairly easy to get to, and of course, we have this cut in the frame, which allows for your hand to get up in there and just lock in. I’m going to tell you guys, it’s almost like an extension of your hand.

And one of the things about a 1911 is that it’s very balanced, and the same with a Romulus. Now, one of the key features of the AF 1911 is that you can interchange barrels. One of the things about the 1911 is there’s a lot of fitting that’s typically required.

But Alpha Foxtrot said they’re going to send a compensated barrel and a threaded barrel, and I’m going to be able to put that barrel in this gun without any kind of fitting. And so we’re going to do a separate review and just test that out, but hopefully that’s coming up soon. But I love that feature, because if I want a threaded barrel to shoot suppressors, if I’m not shooting a suppressor, I really don’t want that extension on the end.

Or if I’m carrying a compensator, it’s just going to extend the slide length. So it really makes this a more modular handgun. This has a five inch ultra match barrel.

It’s 416R button rifled barrel, which just lends to great accuracy. And I’ll tell you, and you’ll see it during our range report, this is a very accurate handgun, even all the way up to the full 19 rounds. Now the barrel is DLC coated, but it’s also a bull barrel.

And so you can see it coming out, and this mates against the front of the slide. But you’ll notice that there is a deep crown in the barrel. This is going to preserve accuracy, but it also mates up extremely well with the frame.

So this slide frame fit is just really tight, which because of the DLC coating, this is going to allow for better reliability. One of the things about a really tight fit is it can lead to malfunctions. But we found that this was extremely reliable.

And then here, same thing. I mean, it’s super tight, but again, that DLC coating between the frame and the slide just make this really smooth. And these are made in the USA in Duluth, Georgia.

They have a huge facility down there, and they’re really an OEM manufacturer and decided to get into offering their own 1911 handgun. And we’ve had quite a bit of experience with Alpha Foxtrot, including their 1911 S15, which uses your standard Shield Arms magazines, or it’ll even take Glock mags. And they make 1911s in 9mm and in .45, and in different configurations.

With the Romulus, it does come with a 4.25 inch barrel, and it comes with a 5 inch barrel that’s been compensated. And you can get threaded barrels. The trigger has very light texturing, and we do have adjustments for over travel.

And as far as our trigger, it’s a flat face trigger. It’s just going to rest right here to a wall, and then a nice break, which is typical for your 1911s. And then reset really fast.

Let’s check the trigger pull weight with our Lyman trigger gauge from Brownells. Two pounds, 8.3 ounces. Two pounds, 7 ounces.

That is a fairly light trigger, but man, it is smooth. Weight on the Romulus, 39.88 ounces. It is heavy.

You guys, when you’re holding this in your hand, it definitely is very pointable, but it has some heft to it. And that mitigates the recoil. And because of that really slick slide going back, it has a very smooth shooting experience.

Guys, here we have a number of double stack 1911s in that 2011 style, which we have the Springfield Armory Prodigy. We have the Bull Armory SAS2. We have the EAA Witness N9 millimeter.

And of course we have the Romulus. Don’t have a Staccato. And there are some others.

Live Free Armory makes a double stack 1911 that’s very reasonable. And there’s a new one that is coming out that I will be bringing out next week. So there are a number of companies that are producing these handguns.

If you want to get into a very entry level, I mean the EAA is under $1,000 and these are nice guns. They’re not quite as refined for sure. I mean the others are slicker, smoother, better triggers, but it’s still a 1911 double stack and it’s really reliable.

Really like it. But you have to decide what you want out of your firearm. And I think that’s really one of the big choices.

I think it’s just great that we have a lot of options. Big thank you to Fiocchi for sponsoring our ammo. All made in the USA.

One of the biggest suppliers of ammunition in the country. Also we really thank Lula Loaders for being able to load these 19 round magazines. Alright, taking the Romulus down to the range.

19 plus 1, I mean that’s a huge advantage. Of course a lot of the 2011s are getting those really great capacities. And really, for the 1911 all the controls are the same so it makes it really a nice transition if you’ve already liked 1911s but you want that higher round capacity.

I mean 10 rounds of dimillimeter and a standard, this gives you almost double that. And really the way they’ve got these grips set up, they’re very ergonomic. Very smooth cycling.

Super smooth. I mean it’s like glass. And I think that diamond like coating or the DLC coating really helps.

It’s just a beautiful handgun. You have those ambidextrous safeties. Just allow you to get your thumb up on that ledge.

The left hand side is a little smaller but it still gives you plenty of leverage. But overall it shoots really smooth. I mean you know it just hardly has any recoil.

Because of that slide to frame fit it really works out nice. Plus it has that tritium front sight which is night vision and it has that ring that glows and then you have your tritium. So to me it’s the best of both worlds.

It gives you a really nice sight picture. In the back we have blacked out tritium. So at night you’re going to be able to see these.

But very smooth shooting. Again, it’s got that legendary 1911 feel. Just a little more of a handful.

No malfunctions. It’s just been smooth as glass. I mean I’m loving the 2011 platforms.

I’m glad to see them coming out. And the Romulus is taking it up a notch. Now when it comes to disassembly.

We’re going to drop our magazine. Go ahead and check the chamber and the gun is empty. Now bring your barrel and your slide around.

You’re going to take an allen wrench and fit it into the end of the slide. And then we’re going to want to turn it counterclockwise. And this is just going to unscrew the guide rod.

Once you get finished, you can pull that straight out. Then we’re going to bring our slide back. And we’re going to find this little notch right with our slide stop.

And once you get it, just start pushing it from the other side. And with these wide bodies, they’re a little bit bigger than your 1911. Typically they’ve been beefed up a little bit.

So I’m going to take my punch and just kind of push that. We’re going to pull that right out. Now you want to be very careful when you’re bringing this back over.

Because this recoil spring is going to be not captive. So keep your thumb right there on the recoil spring. And then just bring your slide forward.

And there we go. And then we’ll pull out our recoil spring, our guide rod. And we have a sleeve right here in your dust cover.

Take your barrel. Drop your barrel link. And just take your barrel and pull it out of the front of the slide.

We have a bull barrel. This thing is absolutely beautiful. That DLC coating on it makes it really slick.

Has a lot of lubricity. And it’s just very beautiful, honestly. And then here on the inside, very well done.

Beautiful finish inside. We’ve put about 500 rounds through this handgun. And then of course, we have our front sight.

Now one thing I want you to notice with this front sight is it has more of the Glock style. Instead of it being staked or being dovetailed in, you can take your 316s nut driver that you take off your Glock sights, and you can just remove that front sight. So this is a Glock front sight.

And I think that’s pretty cool. Not sure about the rear sight, but this is the part that’s very difficult to change out. And that’s what this hole is for, to be able to get that driver in there to be able to change your sight.

Comes to the frame, man, this thing is just well done. There’s just something about it that I really like. And because of that really shiny kind of finish to it, you can see any kind of tooling marks and this is just very well executed.

Now your recoil spring and you have your guide rod and it is threaded and that takes this longer piece right here. And so this makes this a full length guide rod, and it’s the two piece. And then again, you have your sleeve.

But really all you need is a wrench like this to be able to get that guide rod off. Now for reassembly, take your barrel, place it into your slide. I’m going to go ahead and make sure your barrel link is in the down position.

Next, we’re going to take our sleeve, we’re going to put it into the dust cover. And then we’ll take our recoil spring and our guide rod, put it back together. Make sure your barrel link stays in the down position.

Take your recoil spring and put it into the dust cover. Now this is going to compress it, so you’ve got to really hold on to it to keep it together with your slide. Go ahead and take your guide rod and just push it down through the spring.

And then once you hit those threads, just start turning it. And that’s going to give some structure to this spring, otherwise it’s going to be very difficult to reassemble. We’ll go ahead and tighten this down.

Now with the barrel link in this up position, go ahead and put your slide back over your frame. And once you see your barrel link through this hole, go ahead and put in your slide stop. And then you want to bring your slide back where that little first notch gets into that little area right here where your slide stop goes.

Take your slide stop right there, you’ve got to depress it past that detent and we’re just going to lock it in. Now we’re going to function test and we’re back in business. Comes in a nice padded case, open it up, we have our owner’s manual, safety lock, warranty card.

We have a place for seven magazines, then we have a padded sleeve and we can put our handgun. I’ve really liked these range bags, it just makes it great to be able to keep everything together. Retail price is $1,520 and up, according to what features you want.

If you want a compensated version, threaded barrel, of course they do offer the four and a quarter inch, which makes it more of the commander length. I love that it has the pick rail, has front and rear cocking serrations and it’s optics ready, which are just modern features that you’re finding on a lot of your polymer striker fire pistols. The polymer grip shell, very well textured, I love the checkering on the front and back and I love the night sights, night vision sights and this is Glock compatible, which is really cool and you have a lot of options, it’s easy to change out.

Serrations on the top, it’s just a really nice added touch. So overall, this is just an exceptional handgun. Now what are some cons? Well, we’re seeing a lot of more budget friendly 2011 style pistols that are coming in around the $1,000 range, but to be honest, I have heard some issues with some of those, some have been really exceptional.

In fact, the Garcon Double Stack 1911 is really a nice budget friendly 2011 pistol. It doesn’t have the refinement though that this has, it’s not as smooth coming back, the trigger pull is not as good and you’re going to find that on more of your budget friendly type 2011 style pistols. STIs or Staccatos, I mean, they’re running $3,000, so this really brings it into a nice price if you’re looking for a good quality 2011 pistol.

Maybe the DLC coating, it might not be for you, you might like more of a matte finish and then the Romulus on the side, I love it, but again, I’m not usually a big fan of a lot of lettering or billboards on the side, but this really blends with this handgun, but that may be something that you don’t care for. Really a matter of preference. Overall, I think that the Alpha Foxtrot Romulus is an excellent choice if you’re looking for a 2011 style 1911 double stack pistol.

And guys, sometimes when I’m not a big fan of the DLC coating on this, it just works. So guys, it’s been great to see a number of double stack 1911s that have entered the market. I mean, it gives you that classic 1911 feel, but yet again, with the Romulus 19 plus one in the magazine, and at a more affordable price than some of the more premium, and yet it has all the same quality.

Check out Alpha Foxtrot and definitely the Romulus, I mean, this is an absolute dream to take to the range. This is a beast. And again, a big thank you to Alpha Foxtrot for sending the Romulus for this review.

Be strong, be of good courage. God bless America, long live the Republic.

 

-Don