Nice write up.

One of the better and most honest reviews that I have read on the Platypus.

 

These Glock, 2011 blended platforms just don’t interest me to the point of buying one. But I’m glad they exist and bring innovation to the field. Kudos on an open and honest review, that’s concise and to the point.

 

Nice review, I feel like most Platypus reviews on social media seemed biased to always be positive, just for the fact it takes Glock mags. Also its really cool the amount of customization you can do with the cerakote, but in the end of the day it is just cerakote.

 

I've basically lost all interest in the Platypus but they're still fun to see. Wild paint job on that one haha.

 

Pretty fair assessment of the Platypus. I think it's a solid gun for it's price range. The convenience of using inexpensive Glock mags is definitely it's biggest selling point followed by the paint customization.

 

As someone who has tried a couple of these and just cant seem to like them, this is the fairest review ive seen. It seems like all of the other owners are apart of the manson family the way they swear by these things and refuse to admit they have any faults.

 

Have you tried any of the other up and coming 2011 brands? MPA, Vudoo, etc?

 

A friend has one and likes it except that he had to send it back to get the light trigger pull that he paid extra for.

The garish paint jobs on most are my main turnoff.
I think the Platypus is the Gateway Gun for Glock owners to shoot something with a hammer action.

 

Interested what you think of mag changes with the Glock mag angle. I fooled around with one and thought that would take a bit of adjustment on my part to get fast with it.

 

My training/dry-fire pistol is a SIRT Glock 17. I probably get five dry-fire for every live-fire round. I'm doing about 1,000 live-fire rounds/week, so at least 5,000 dry-fire per week. So I'm doing more trigger pulls and mag changes on the Glock platform than the 1911/2011 platform I compete with. So I've unintentionally trained myself to deal with the change in mag and grip angle. I need to practice index a couple of times and my brain switches over to whatever I'm holding.

 

Thank you for the report

 

Wait, aren't you afraid you'll always miss your target (Stormtrooper colors...)

j/k nice write-up

I can't be the only one who was annoyed when I learned how much Staccato mags cost when I bought my Springfield Prodigy and wanted extra mags. I feel like this Platypus is a good contender vs brands like Springfield and Bul Armory, in this price (base) range. When you factor in the Glock mags, it does make it attractive.

 

I can't be the only one who was annoyed when I learned how much Staccato mags cost when I bought my Springfield Prodigy and wanted extra mags. I feel like this Platypus is a good contender vs brands like Springfield and Bul Armory, in this price (base) range. When you factor in the Glock mags, it does make it attractive.

My biggest gripe with 2011's and why I won't carry one is the magazines. Incredibly delicate and easily over-inserted. Feed lips or tube gets bent by a couple hundredths of an inch and they stop working. The Platypus uses the mag base as a hard stop and also the OEM Glock mag ledge at the top as another hard stop to prevent over insertion.

It's a problem with the 2011 platform - the new Kimber bottlenecks the interior of the grip to try and keep the magazines from over inserting. There really needs to be some kind of standardization on 2011 mags. The feed lips are all different heights and angles and some (MBX) over insert even locked into the mag catch depending on your gun.

The two hard stops on the Platypus and the angle of the OEM Glock mags give a lot of clearance and over insertion doesn't seem to be a problem.

 

This is the kind of writing I wish gun magazines and gun review videos gave us. Concise, articulate, and supported by evidence. Good on you, sir. You write better than most of the industry.

 

I agree completely with your assessment on the Platypus as I picked on up in February of this year and deep dove into a Venom that I just picked up last week.

The Platypus is in-line with its price point. Mine actually has a tiny bit of slide play, but it still runs everything I’ve thrown at it (save the initial break-in period). I feel like my cerakote job could have been slightly better, but I knew I was going to run/holster this thing, so the wear was going to come quickly.

I think that it’s still totally worth the price if you want to customize a pistol looks-wise. Or if you already have a bunch of Glock mags, and want to tiptoe down the double stack 1911 path, then it’s a no brainer. I have zero regrets buying one.

 

"We've tested all the mags they all over insert in pretty much all the guns."
- Owner of Atlas Gunworks
Video below opens at quote.

I think it's a combination of two factors: speed and force.

With enough speed, you can push the mag past the mag catch before it can engage and stop the mag. With enough force, you can push past the mag catch completely.

It's competition, everyone is moving as fast as they can. Mag is going in fast. In the real world, at some point, some LEO, in a life-and-death situation is going to go fast and use too much strength because his life depends on it and he's going to jam the ejector.

 

How are people moving fast able to align the sights, pull the trigger, and hit the mag release?

 

The platypus is kinda neat. I am not sure I would recommend it as a first 1911 as the grip module is a one piece unit so its a take it or leave affair and considering the different grips out there, I would rather have that option than to not have it.

With that being said, as a follow-on purchase, I would pick one up as a second 2011, based on it using glock mags.

 

I like mine. It’s priced correctly for the quality of gun you get. Nice trigger. Tight slide. The customization is super fun to do. They are extremely smart to be the first to offer anything like this. Shocked no one has copied yet

 

I am fan, I thought it shot really nice, and I wonder if Glock increase reliability to any extent

 

Guys at T-rex arms did an extensive test, ie. couple thousand rounds, on their platypus recently. Mixed results in terms of reliability. Lot's of stove pipes. Either bad mags or extractor needed a tune, guess on my part. I still like the idea of this gat, but certainly not any more or less reliable than a staccato. Staccato mags have been drop tested, and seem to continue to function reliably. Over insertion, well that's a thing in 2011s.

 

I'd avoided that video because it was Trex, but guess I have to watch now. That's the first one I've heard of with failures so I'm curious.

ETA - nevermind, I can't do almost an hour and a half of that.

 

I think the guys at T-Rex arms are good for some stuff, but they tend to compare everything to a Glock 19 and proceed dumping rounds with no lube out of the box like a Glock 19. They choked out a staccatto a couple weeks back and the guys over on reddit were stroking out.

Overall, I think 2011's tend to be really enjoyable to shoot but they have their quirks and as long as you account for this, there is no issue that can be addressed. Its a great platform. Hell, I have a prodigy that I have put around 1500 rounds in the last few months and have had zero failures. I know its not ton of rounds but I am impressed.

 

Sometimes people forget that the pedigree of the 2011 is the 1911.

 

"I'll rack and dry fire the Nighthawk because it's just such an exceptionally well built gun with an exquisitely fitted trigger. Experiencing that level of machining is like enjoying a fine meal or feeling the warmth of the sun on a cold day." THIS. Six days a week and twice on Sunday. Very eloquent sir

 

Why would he have to loosen USPSA to sell comp guns and PCCs? Both are established Divisions.

 

We don't get enough people to separate something like Limited Optics and Open. So if you bring a Staccato XC, you just run that against everyone else. Because turnout is so low, this allows people to just join in with whatever they have on hand. But it also means that we score the guy with a USPSA open gun directly against the guy with a Hellcat and iron sights.

I often see people write something along the lines of "yeah, I tried my friend's Atlas Erebus and it's not much different than my Springfield Prodigy". In single-lane slow-shooting they're about the same. But in hit-factor shooting, the Erebus is basically "pay-to-win" when compared against the Prodigy.

Everyone bought a comped race gun when we figured out they weren't going to score us according to division/gun-type. This scoring model really promotes gun sales. The store owner provided an environment where there's a justification for buying a higher-performance pistol. If you're single-lane slow-shooting, any Glock or M&P is more than enough. But run a gun in hit-factor scoring (especially without divisional separation) and there's suddenly a reason/demand/justification to buy a higher performance pistol because this is where the higher performance is drastically superior to the standard gun.

We're gun guys. It doesn't take much justification to get another pistol. "Honey, I'm 30 years older than the average competitor at the local range, the only way I can keep up with them is if I pay-to-win with an Atlas Erebus" was what I told my wife.

 

We're gun guys. It doesn't take much justification to get another pistol. "Honey, I'm 30 years older than the average competitor at the local range, the only way I can keep up with them is if I pay-to-win with an Atlas Erebus" was what I told my wife.

My excuse for getting on TRT for BJJ 😂

 

Excellent review. I just had a real problem with the name since the beginning. “Freeze, drop the gun, I have a platypus aimed right at you!“

 

I think the target demographic is a younger enthusiast who's based on the Glock platform. He wants to get into the 2011 platform - his aspirational buy is an SVI Infinity (check out the similarly silly names with those guns). The Platypus is the gateway. He gets "one-off" customization (through an unlimited color pallete) like a 2011/Infinity, but can still use his Glock mags and the base cost of the gun is at the lower end of the 2011 range. He can completely avoid the added costs of 2011 mags - my collection of 2011 mags could buy three new Glocks. They're just prohibitively expensive.

 

Thank you for the review, that was an excellent write up.

 

Thank you for the honest review. I love the concept. As a purchase they sound better, used.

 

I have yet to see one for sale, what types of pricing are you seeing?