Review: 1911 That Takes Glock Mags?! Meet the Stealth Arms Platypus

One of the products I was not anticipating but was most excited to find at SHOT Show 2023 was the Stealth Arms’ double-stack Platypus. Based on the 1911 platform, this pistol is completely compatible with Glock 17 magazines. Yes, you read that right. The Platypus is designed to take a 17-round OEM Glock mag. Or a 33-round factory stick magazine. Or even a drum mag if you so desire. The compatibility with one of the most popular and reliable magazines on earth is a pretty good move to make in my book. Currently, the Platypus is only available in 9mm. However, Stealth Arms is working on making .45 ACP, 10mm, .357 Sig, and .40 S&W versions available. These are also custom guns with the shortest lead times I have seen in the industry. So let’s dive into this pistol, and how it performs.

Stealth Arms Platypus Specifications:

Barrel Material/Length/Threads: 416R Stainless Steel/ 5” (Gov) or 4.25” (Com)/ 1/2 x 28 (9mm) or 0.578 x 28 (.45 ACP)

Frame: 7075-T6 Aircraft Grade Aluminum

Slide Material: Carbon 70 Series Steel

Magazine: 13-Round (.45 ACP), 17-Round (9mm)

Sights: Novak®️ Style Sights

Trigger Pull Weight: ~4.0lbs

Custom Pistol Builder Tool

Something to note is that every Platypus is completely custom and every component minus the springs and pins are made in-house. Stealth Arms takes pride in its in-house manufacturing capabilities. They boast that everything they make is machined down from the highest quality billet to ensure superior quality and a perfect fit. 

To make a unique gun even more distinctive, Stealth Arms uses the coolest gun builder tool I have ever seen from a manufacturer. All you need to do is go to their website, click on the gun you are interested in, click “customize,” and then select any option you so desire. Not only can you choose different slides, frames, grips, barrels, and triggers, but you can also select custom paint jobs for nearly every individual component. As you are making these selections, they are displayed in real-time with the interactive builder on their website to show you exactly how the finished pistol is going to look. Pay attention to the selections made, and the colors that are chosen as I accidentally left the trigger green and didn’t catch it before submitting the order. After receiving the pistol, I do like this one small flash of customization that looks out of scheme from the rest of the pistol I requested. I will take it as a good reminder of what Stealth Arms can do. 

At SHOT Show Stealth Arms claimed they intended to keep lead times to around 2 weeks which is just absolutely insane to me for a completely custom gun, with custom Cerakote, that is built to order. I placed the order for mine on a Sunday night, and the pistol was shipped out 17 days later. This is still an unbelievable turnaround time in my opinion. Looking at their website, lead times are currently listed as 6 weeks so maybe orders have increased by quite a bit but I still am impressed from a manufacturing standpoint. 

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What’s New?

So first and foremost, the Platypus runs on Glock mags. Have I mentioned that yet? Due to the length of the magwell, magazines will need to be at least Glock 17 length to sit and feed correctly. With the magwell attached, I had no issues feeding 17-round OEM and Magpul Glock mags, along with 33-round stick mags. Wanting to showcase the originality of the Platypus, I had to buy a 50-round Magpul drum mag to use for this review as well. While the magwell ended up hitting the main body of the drum mag, it fed just fine with the magwell removed. 

Out of the Box

The Stealth Arms Platypus is packaged in a soft carrying case that features a Multicam Black inner lining with elastic mag inserts and two velcro inner pockets. From the factory, the Platypus comes with two 17-round OEM Glock magazines, a user manual, extra rear sight for use in conjunction with a red dot, and multiple Allen wrenches with a few extra screws.  

Frame

Externally the Platypus shares nearly all of the same similarities as 1911’s except for utilizing a larger internal magwell without the ability to replace the grip panels. The Stealth Arms Platypus maintains the 1911 grip angle of 17.5 degrees and utilizes the back grip safety. The thumb safety selector is only on the left side of the frame for now, and even though other manufacturer’s Ambi Safeties will not work with the Platypus, Stealth Arms says they will be offering a field installable Ambi Thumb Safety in the “near future.” While these are custom guns with three different grip options, the one I chose has acceptable texturing that contours to fit my hand well. When paired with their magwell, my hand fits perfectly and is forced into a proper high-and-tight grip. 

Magwell

While a magwell is an optional choice when building out your own custom Platypus, it is a $25 add-on that I think is well worth it. It is flared wide to help get those speedy reloads, and provides a solid hand stop at the bottom of the grip. It is locked in place with a pin and groove system and doesn’t have any wobble when installed. I had to remove it to shoot a Magpul drum mag, and it was tough to get off but pushing quite hard eventually let me pop it off. 

Slide

Again, these are custom guns so there are multiple options as to what slide serrations or cuts the final pistol will have, but I am a fan of the multiple options. The rear slide serrations are quite deep which gives plenty of texture to grab onto, and the front slide ports look great. From the factory, the slide felt very smooth and held tight tolerances with the frame. There is no wobble and I find myself continually grabbing the pistol and doing multiple unnecessary press checks just to feel the slide racking on this pistol.

Sights

The Platypus is available with or without an optic cut but will feature Novak® style sights either way. In my opinion, the best style of iron sights are those with a fiber optic front and blacked-out rear and that is exactly what comes with this pistol. In addition to the blacked-out rear iron sight that comes installed on the optic cover plate, Stealth Arms also includes an anti-glare blacked-out sight to be used in conjunction with an optic. So not only is the slide optic cut, but it comes with two rear iron sights which set it up to be ready in any configuration. Currently, the Platypus is available with either the RMRCC or Leupold DPP optic cut with the Aimpoint ACRO and Holosun 407K footprints available around March 31st. I chose the DPP cut, and the Leupold DPP fits like a glove. I also ran the Vortex Defender-CCW for a portion of this review without issue.  

Trigger

While there are currently three different trigger options, I thought the “skeleton” trigger matched the style I was going for the best. I even had it Cerakoted green. The front of the trigger has small serrations which give a nice texture to the front face. I measured the pull weight to consistently be around ~3.5 lbs which I find to have a nice balance between a light trigger and something more duty oriented. There is a very short takeup on the trigger, which leads to a well-defined wall. Pulling past this, there is the tiniest amount of creep before a good break, and a short reset that puts me right back on the wall of the trigger and ready for the next shot. I am happy to report that while I originally noticed some creep with the trigger, this went away after around 300 rounds through the pistol along with some dry firing. 

Barrel

Stealth Arms offers both a standard and threaded match grade 416R Stainless Steel barrel to be used in the Platypus. I opted for the 5″ threaded version (1/2 x 28) so I could politely use a suppressor. The barrel shoots great, and the threaded version comes with a knurled thread protector. This direct thread suppressor actually hits the guide rod keeping this pistol from cycling, but it still looks cool for pictures so here it is.

Accuracy

Aiming to get a decent showcase of what it can do, I shot groups from 10 yards using four different types of Norma ammunition that were sent out for this review. After a little bit of warming up and shooting paper, I could quickly tell the Platypus is more accurate than I am. Either way, I got groups as small as about 0.5″ and as large as 1.2″, and I know I slightly pulled some due to the slight creep in the trigger. This creep went away after shooting a USPSA match though, so that is good to find. 

Performance

Wanting to run a red dot on the Platypus, I almost immediately removed the cover plate and torqued down the Vortex Defender-CCW along with the included rear sight. Before my first trip to the range, I aligned the red dot with the center of the iron sights to get a “rough” zero. Then when I had a chance to go shoot, I took my first shot from 7 yards and it looks like the sights were spot on. The picture below was my very first shot out of the Platypus. 

Wanting to get some good experience with this gun, I decided to shoot a USPSA match with it. For the match, I set up the Platypus in a Hush Holsters TLR1/HL/VIRII thumb release holster.

The match consisted of 7 stages and around 170 rounds which included plenty of reloads. The holster/ammunition combo along with the Platypus performed flawlessly. The magwell worked great for speedy reloads, and the 124gr Norma ammunition shot flat and spot on. Throughout this review, I didn’t have a single failure. No stovepipes, no failures to feed, nothing. To be honest, I figured there would be some malfunctions coming from the first 1911 to take Glock mags, but Stealth Arms figured out how to make these run reliably.

Summary

The Stealth Arms Platypus is one of the most unique and fun guns I have reviewed. Throughout my hundreds of rounds of testing, it ran without any issues. It was accurate, smooth, and felt great. The Platypus has an MSRP starting at $1,500 but can go up from there depending on the customized options chosen in the custom builder tab. While my lead time was just over two weeks, at the time of my writing this article their website says to expect up to a 6-week lead time. Click here to learn more about the Stealth Arms’ Platypus or to try out their custom gun builder tool.

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