Alpha Foxtrot 1911 Issues

xusmico · Feb 1, 2023

for the money, those problems should not be included.

joepistol · Feb 1, 2023

Re-read this thread & a "fix" for the rear sight came to me. Don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.
(Must be 'cause I'm getting old) Actually, I had the same issue with a pistol I own. Struggling to think which one it was..w/o success.
Anyway it's simple, easy ^& cheap, so it's worth a try..IMO. The fix ?

If you think the sight needs to be raised .035", get a feeler gauge of that thickness, & cut a small piece of it off, then use it to shim the rear sight,
by sliding it beneath the sight. I wanted to tighten the sight so it didn't slide around.

My sight has a set screw, to tighten the sight to the frame, but no matter how I tightened the screw, the sight would soon loosen & move around.
After shimming the sight ( the shim piece was pretty small, ) with a piece of stock approx. 1/8" wide and about 3/16" long,
It was tapped in place, beneath the sight, after the locking screw was backed off.
The sight hasn't moved since. Thought I might need to tap the sight to the L. or R., but ended up being centered, w/o needing adjustment.

you may need to experiment with shim thickness / size..but it could be an east fix... it was for me.

I should add, This was my gunsmith's idea, & he actually did this for me. Took just a few minutes for him to do, & he didn't charge me for he fix..

woodlands747 · Feb 1, 2023

xusmico said:
for the money, those problems should not be included.

Agreed but if gun maker is non responsive and OP is stuck with the pistol it is not the end of the world.

woodlands747 · Feb 1, 2023

joepistol said:
Re-read this thread & a "fix" for the rear sight came to me. Don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.
(Must be 'cause I'm getting old) Actually, I had the same issue with a pistol I own. Struggling to think which one it was..w/o success.
Anyway it's simple, easy ^& cheap, so it's worth a try..IMO. The fix ?

If you think the sight needs to be raised .035", get a feeler gauge of that thickness, & cut a small piece of it off, then use it to shim the rear sight,
by sliding it beneath the sight. I wanted to tighten the sight so it didn't slide around.

My sight has a set screw, to tighten the sight to the frame, but no matter how I tightened the screw, the sight would soon loosen & move around.
After shimming the sight ( the shim piece was pretty small, ) with a piece of stock approx. 1/8" wide and about 3/16" long,
It was tapped in place, beneath the sight, after the locking screw was backed off.
The sight hasn't moved since. Thought I might need to tap the sight to the L. or R., but ended up being centered, w/o needing adjustment.

you may need to experiment with shim thickness / size..but it could be an east fix... it was for me.

I should add, This was my gunsmith's idea, & he actually did this for me. Took just a few minutes for him to do, & he didn't charge me for he fix..

I thought that shimming might be a possibility so great that it was a fix for you. Good job.
Since the OP's pistol was shooting low the shim may help that. If not an adjustable style sight would be in order.

DubbleURX · Feb 1, 2023

woodlands747 said:
It has been almost a year since you posted the issue with the AF. What is the outcome?

From what I saw if you are stuck with the pistol none of the issues are major. Annoying yes, but fixable without great expense.

1) The trigger could be fixed in 5 minutes with a sear spring adjustment. Follow instructions for sear spring adjustment here and factor for the heavier pull you are trying to achieve. https://www.brownells.com/userdocs/learn/bt002005.pdf

2) Rear sight could be replaced by an adjustable Novak style, however if dovetail in the slide is over cut it may need to be addressed by a gunsmith. https://dawsonprecision.com/sight-for-novak-cut-rear-adjustable-1911-black-by-dawson-precision/

3) That recoil spring looks way too long and you can get the correct one from Wolff Springs.

My take-away from his comments is that there is NO customer support for any firearm you buy from Alpha Foxtrot. Two folks in this thread couldn't reach customer support, and the OP couldn't reach the parent company either. IMO, that's bad. It's not a problem until you need support, then you're stuck because support doesn't exist.

Suppose he had a barrel defect or any defect that he couldn't fix on his own and actually required support from the gun maker? The guy could never get a human and couldn't even leave a voicemail. All I'm saying is that not being able to reach customer support (regardless of the issues) is a big red flag.

I'm not above fixing my own guns, but I'm not going to pay $1600 for the experience, either.

terdog · Feb 1, 2023

I WAS interested in this make. But saw some others have similar issues. 1 of which was a fairly popular YouTube guy (RIDERS RANGE). If he can't get ahold of them, then I want nothing to do with them.

joepistol said:
Re-read this thread & a "fix" for the rear sight came to me. Don't know why I didn't think of it sooner.
(Must be 'cause I'm getting old) Actually, I had the same issue with a pistol I own. Struggling to think which one it was..w/o success.
Anyway it's simple, easy ^& cheap, so it's worth a try..IMO. The fix ?

If you think the sight needs to be raised .035", get a feeler gauge of that thickness, & cut a small piece of it off, then use it to shim the rear sight,
by sliding it beneath the sight. I wanted to tighten the sight so it didn't slide around.

My sight has a set screw, to tighten the sight to the frame, but no matter how I tightened the screw, the sight would soon loosen & move around.
After shimming the sight ( the shim piece was pretty small, ) with a piece of stock approx. 1/8" wide and about 3/16" long,
It was tapped in place, beneath the sight, after the locking screw was backed off.
The sight hasn't moved since. Thought I might need to tap the sight to the L. or R., but ended up being centered, w/o needing adjustment.

you may need to experiment with shim thickness / size..but it could be an east fix... it was for me.

I should add, This was my gunsmith's idea, & he actually did this for me. Took just a few minutes for him to do, & he didn't charge me for he fix..

Thanks for the idea sharing. I might have to try this on my POS Girsan Hunter.

squarebale19 · Feb 1, 2023

Quality Quality Quality, imo if you spend a little more with respectable names you get quality control with customer service. I bought a second hand dream pistol, and sunk 500 in it to get it right(new thumb safety, trigger job, bp extractor) my point is would you get that out of a kia of 1911's, although some of these works of art could be picked up cheaper than you can buy a frame slide combo. But at the end of the day you can usually get your money back out of a nameplate

terdog · Feb 1, 2023

For its price, it SHOULD have been great. The problem here IMHO is as you say, not buying from a name brand.

They had a great idea though.

skibum · Feb 2, 2023

Gentlemen, my apologies, I am not sure what happened here. Many of my posts to keep you updated are not in this thread. There were at least 3 or 4 other updates I made plus the final resolution. Quite strange. Maybe I screwed something up. Long story short. The gunsmiths where I bought it said there was incorrect milling from the factory. They could easily and consistently repeat the failure of it to function/cycle properly. Some of you commented on how this or that could be fixed, tweaked, adjusted and so on. A pistol that retails for $1,500 should not be FUBAR out of the box. The dealer I bought it from has multiple locations in a few states, they are a large, well respected company (not a big box store) that deals mostly with police departments and is mainly a wholesale company of guns, ammo and all accessories to gun shops. They have some pull in the industry. They worked with the rep from AF, who was quite uncooperative. The entire process took 2-3 months. The gun was finally returned for a full refund. I have since replaced it with a new Dan Wesson Specialist Commander. The DW is a fantastic gun and the AF was actually quite similar to it.

Thank you all for your interest and input, much appreciated.

terdog · Feb 2, 2023

Sorry for your trouble, but VERY glad that you got rid of that POS.

Dan Wesson's are extremely fine guns. I have owned several, continue to own 2 and am looking at adding 2 more to my collection. All in 10mm natch!

Congrats on your SPECIALIST. I'm trying to sell my 5" VALOR in order to upgrade to a SPECIALIST 10mm. I would really like it if they offered a SPECIALIST VBOB in 10mm!
IMHO the only way that the SPECIALIST falls short, is in its single stack.

joepistol · Feb 2, 2023

skibum,

1 st)..Thanks for the update,
2nd) Congrats to you & kudos to those who helped you get a refund.
3) enjoy your new DW..

Curious, did HB Rider, the OP who also had issues, ever get a resolution to his problem(s) ?

Wildbil44 · Feb 8, 2023

HB Rider said:
Has anyone had any experience with Alpha Foxtrot 1911s?

I recently picked up a new 1911 by Alpha Foxtrot (AF1911 Government-size .45). The gun has a couple issues. I've reached out to AF in Georgia twice using their website "Contact" form, twice by voicemail (generic number - no number available for customer support) and once by email to their customer support, but haven't heard anything from them.

I did an unboxing review and a follow-up range review that discussed problems with a heavier than normal trigger, as well as a self-adjusting rear sight. Here's the range review:

Sounds to like a make shift company jumping on the 1911 wagon and not wanting to support their product , putting a bad name on 1911's. I don't know anything about this company but if they want to sell 1911's then they need to step up their service and support For their product. 1911's are still in demand it's a proven design that some of the younger crowd are intrigued with the decades old design. I'm a Ruger fanatic and like my Glocks, but I also love my 1911's of all makes, there where some South American spin offs that looked like 1911's but they had a parts interchangeabilly issue, therefore not a true 1911, these where manufactured way back in the 60's and 70's.

Fred_G · Feb 25, 2023

Glad you got it fixed OP! DW makes a nice gun.

Bentwing · Dec 8, 2023

Just an updated opinion of Alpha Foxtrot as of December 2023. I bought an AF1911 and love it. Loved it so much I decided to try their 10mm 1911, as I an expanding into loading the caliber. It arrived from BattleHawk quickly and looks similar in quality. Bummer is that hey got the optic sight cut way off, and it was shooting 6" low with my red dot cranked all the way to its stops. I tried two other dots and same results. If anyone is wondering about this brand, try calling their customer support or emailing them. Address and phone is right on their website. When I first contacted them by email "Andy" responded and said yes, send it back with your sight. They apparently know about the optic cut problem. That was over two weeks ago. Now? Andy is no longer contactable, no answer on phone and no email. The email server has been shut down. You can try to email them at [email protected] Mine comes back as invalid email now. Did I just loose a 1500+ set up? Does Andy have a new gun? I will update this if anything changes but for now I would really stay away. They are nice guns but that is only half the battle of operating a decent company.

dennishoddy · Dec 9, 2023

Sounds like a firearm company that I would never do business with.

terdog · Dec 10, 2023

Its so sad when this type of thing happens. A great idea and design is let down by poor QC, which really comes down to bad management.

Then there companies like Bul Armory. They seem to have great designs, no production or QC issues and their sales appear to be going through the roof.

seagiant · Dec 10, 2023

Hi,
Just for info, Novak's makes an "oversize" fixed combat sight for people that get too happy with a fitting file.

Also, I believe Dasan or Darsan, is a S. Korean Co. that makes 1911 Parts.

What they have to do with AF, I have no idea?

terdog · Dec 11, 2023

My understanding is that they have formed a new company, AF.

squarebale19 · Dec 11, 2023

They might have, and good luck to them. I actually was gonna pick up a 45 1911 online for 900. The way I look at it is what am I getting? What can I get for it in return? Example, if I pick up a DW for 1000 it's a deal, I know what I'm getting. If Im buying a slide n frame for customizing I like to be in the 500 to 600 range. Jmo

Bentwing · Dec 12, 2023

Important update: Unbelievable. Thats all I have to say about my experience so far with Alpha Foxtrot. I am so much trying to love this company. Good quality at a reasonable price, what is to argue with? Well, without the skill involved with developing proper customer care and quality control, the best attempt is doomed to fail. Alpha Foxtrot is well on their way down the road to failure. I received my 10mm, threaded barrel, optic ready 1911 back from the Alpha Foxtrot factory in Duluth Ga today. Please read the post above about the optic cut being off so much the POI would be 6 inches off with the sight bottomed out on adjustment. I received a shipping label right away after explaining to them what the problem was. This, below, was their "fix".

The picture below is a stack of crudely cut thin shims stacked between the rear lug/screw attach points. This lifted the rear of the sight enough that you can see light under it. It also caused these little shims to fly out and flutter to the ground after just two mags of testing. I did not realize the extent of their attempted incompetent repair until I noticed the sight flopping around on the slide. Who could have ever expected this from a factory repair job?

I have written them once again. In my opinion, the future of this company rides on their decision as to how they will take care of their customers. It is obvious that they cut the pad wrong. All I want is a refund and will even go so far as to have the gun swapped for a non optic model and have the pad cut myself. One of these two will prevent me from condemning the company, although I am being very generous here.

Updates following......
N.G.