OA 2311: The Right Formula?

Photos by Kenda Lenseigne

Formula 1 racing is the apex of motor-sports. It’s on the cutting edge of technology, but in a conservative way. 

To clarify, totally new concepts are very risky, so refining existing ideas is a safer game plan, with a goal of getting an advantage without going off the deep end. An entirely new technology has a chance of not working out and when you’re dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars per season, no one can afford to take that risk. 

The focus becomes finding combinations of “safer” ideas that will net a better result. The problem is there are no new ideas; so evolving existing ideas is the order of business. Finding ideas from outside arenas to fit the racing circuit is a thought process in and of itself. For example, turbo chargers were first designed for use in aircraft engines. 

Eventually, some crazy gear head strapped one to his car to see what would happen. The rest is horsepower history.

As a byproduct, some of these ideas trickle down into the consumer market. Products like carbon fiber, paddle shifters, and steering wheel buttons all have their roots in racing. Evolution doesn’t just bring new products but also new ways of thinking, and that’s what gets the winning result. 

The firearm industry works the same way on a slower and less stressful scale — both the internal combustion engine and the semi-auto firearm evolved at about the same time in the human condition. Ideas come together to advance products. The good ideas make their way into the mainstream market; see red dots and polymer frames on pistols. Mindset and technology mix in an attempt to gain progress and innovation. 

OA Defense (formerly Oracle Defense) has taken a page from the racing handbook and have implemented the winning mindset to blend together some of the best characteristics of modern pistols. The OA Defense 2311 is the next step in evolution of a practical race car gun. 

Admittedly, the 2311 doesn’t feature anything you haven’t seen before. The kicker is you haven’t seen them offered in a single package. This is the part where the culmination of ideas creates something special. Instead of searching for the perfect lap, the perfect pistol is the goal.

OA claims the 2311 is the “combination of race gun DNA and duty weapon reliability” — a fitting description, as the 2311 gives you the best of both worlds. It features the trigger from a 1911, the linkless barrel with no bushing from a CZ75, modularity of a 2011, and of course, magazines from a SIG P320. This seems to be a Frankenstein’s monster approach to gun manufacturing, and we always loved monster movies.

UNDER THE HOOD

You can tell there’s something special before you open the bag. If a company pays this much attention to the wrapper, you can expect good things from the rest. The Savior Equipment pistol case has enough room for five magazines, the gun, three optics plates, premium gun oil, and all the emergency toilet paper, or “instruction manuals,” as some refer to them. The attention to detail is high with OA Defense — a truly nice package from the start.

The 2311 features a P320-esque slide, with front and rear slide serrations and a thinning profile toward the muzzle. The tapered profile is a small bonus when re-holstering. Night sights are high quality from Night Fission, and an optional suppressor-height front sight is included, but you’ll need patience and proper tools to get it installed. 

The 2311 is cut for Trijicon RMR, DeltaPoint Pro, and RMSc optics plates that are included in the bag. The plates have backup rear sights, but we found them borderline unusable as the red-dots we tested were too tall to cowitness. Choose an optic with a base if co-witnessing is a priority.

The bushingless, linkless, and Petter lockup barrel makes for fewer moving parts than a 1911, in turn providing fewer things to break and making manufacturing a bit simpler. While digging through the 2311, we came across the “debris clearance system.” This was an answer to a problem we didn’t know existed. 

There are a couple of channels cut into the lug of the barrel to clear any debris in the area. Honestly, we’ve never heard of this causing a problem but it’s always better to have it and not need it.

 The hammer, trigger bow, and safety were our first clues that there’s 1911 in the pedigree. The trigger breaks at about 4 pounds and is pretty crisp, and the sear and disconnect are straight from a Series 70 1911. Both are MIM parts, if this bothers you. The sear spring and mainspring housing are proprietary pieces that essentially do the same as their 1911 equivalent and were an ordeal to get back together after some curious disassembly. 

The absence of a grip safety is a controversial move if you happen to be a French cavalryman in the early 20th century, but most serious shooters disable them, as they can fail to disengage if not activated just right. Not something you should be worrying about when you need a gun right now.

One of the perceived downfalls of the 1911 is the internal extractor, which can require tuning from a seasoned mechanic and be prone to failure if repeatedly asked to snap over the rim of a cartridge. The 2311 all but takes care of that problem with an external extractor, which is more reliable and definitely less finicky than the standard 1911 claw.

Ambidextrous controls have always been a bit of a moot point in our opinion. If you set up your gun to your needs, there’s little use for the opposite side controls. It is a rarity to hear anyone actually needing the opposite side controls, but hey, if you like them, knock yourself out. The only time they make sense is for lefties — and if you toil under that burden, you have our sympathy. 

OA have you covered though. For the first time ever on a factory 1911-style gun, there’s an ambidextrous slide stop. This makes right-handed shooters able to manipulate the slide stop with the trigger finger (another plus we didn’t know we needed). And this feature does make it more difficult for field stripping. 

If you’ve ever taken a 1911 apart, it basically works the same way, with the slide needing to be lined up just right for the slide stop to be removed. This is definitely a two-hand job, as the bushingless design means the slide is constantly under tension, and after lining everything up, you have to push on the back side of the slide stop to remove it. Once it’s done a couple of times, it becomes easier.

The full-size and compact models of the 2311 both have the same polymer grip, and ship with a couple of options when it comes to magwells. The horse hoof magwell on the full-size version allows 17-round magazines to fit flush, while the smaller magwell on the compact makes 15-round magazines fit flat. 

There’s an option to put the full-size magwell on the compact version to mix things up, and we felt the smaller magwell fit the hand better, but that all depends on the size of your meat hooks. The grip features some moderate texturing and the addition of integrated thumb rests/gas pedals in the plastic dust cover to help tame recoil. Have we mentioned attention to detail is high with OA defense? 

TRACK DAY

We had both the compact and full-size versions on hand. It’s an unwritten rule that the bigger a handgun is, the easier it is to shoot, and the 2311 put that notion to the test. Both guns performed flawlessly in the reliability department. The more balanced compact version performed a little better during testing. The smaller magwell and shorter slide made for an almost tighter package. The huge magwell on the full-size functions just fine but it’s a bit awkward aesthetically, and everyone knows it’s all about the looks. 

Both guns were shot at varying distances and speeds. Like taking warm-up laps on the road course, we wanted to bring the tires up to temp and get the oil flowing. It helps to get a general feel for guns when testing. Take a couple of shots and pay attention to how the sights react. Shooting enough guns, you get to the point where it becomes monotonous, and when something different comes along you notice. 

This attention to minutia gets easier after every shot fired, and this is why competitors invest so much time on setup. Or maybe it’s just OCD. 

The 2311 shoots as good as any 2011/1911 variant we’ve tested. This is no small statement, as we believe the wide-body 1911 to be one of the best shooting platforms of all time. The general shootability (that’s a word) of the 2311 is high. 

As we expected, the full-size version feels a little softer in the recoil impulse department, but the compact felt snappier and got back on target a bit quicker. When we say quicker, we’re talking about milliseconds that can’t easily be measured, and it’s the equivalent of a butt dyno on the track. The guns did everything we asked of them. 

Both guns were shot for accuracy at 20 yards resting from a table, and surprisingly, the compact version netted tighter groups than the full size. We shot 115-grain Fiocchi, 115-grain CCI blazer brass, hand loads topped with 121-grain FMP projectiles, 124-grain Sierra Sports Master, and 147-grain Federal. Both guns liked the 121-grain FMP bullets best (0.8 inch for the full size and 0.7 inch for the compact). 

All of the others fell in around an inch. The groups were tight enough for any gun to be labeled a good duty or competition weapon. The 2311 can shoot as good as you can.

THE PODIUM

Everyone has their own idea as to what’s important in a handgun. Concealment, shootability (we swear this is a word), duty performance, modularity, or cool factor. Whatever the reason, you’re not wrong. This is why we love guns so much. There are no wrong answers, only different ones. Our job is to simply tell you if we think it’s worth it. 

The OA Defense 2311 checks a lot of boxes not just as a duty weapon but also as a sidearm in general. The goal is to build a car that is fast, reliable, and does what you want when you want it. You can decide whether to use it as a race car, work truck, or even a daily driver. 

The direction OA Defense is going for is easy to see with the combination of the 1911 trigger, the modularity of a 2011, the drivetrain from a CZ, and magazines from a p320. Just like Formula 1, if you don’t understand what’s going on you won’t quite get the allure — but if you do you are going to love it. We think it’s worth it. 

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