All posts tagged ETM magazines

Reliability of the 1911 GI or MilSpec guns

My first 1911 was a Colt 1991A1 that I picked up for $375 for a gun shop.   The gun was hardly used and I don’t believe it was ever shot.  Every 1911 that I own has been had for under $400.   I have had maintenance issues with my Colt 1991A1, but I believe the gun has well over 10,000 rounds through it and I’ve made a few customizations to improve it.   I miss my gunsmith, but he did mess up something on the gun when I took it to him to have the feed ramp polished.  When he was polishing the feed ramp he hit the slide stop and put a niche in it that I noticed immediately after test firing that the gun would not lock back.   He found the mistake was his and fixed it, but I thought that it was a good time to replace the slide stop with an extended one.   When I put Hogue gun grips on Colt, it made the grips a little fatter and it was a little difficult to hit the slide release with my thumb.

I messed around with polishing the feed ramp and using Wilson Combat magazines and noticed a good improvement in feeding SWC and HP ammo, but I was still not happy with it not running flawlessly.   At this point, I don’t care, I’ve seen enough junks of wood fly out of the back of backstops to notice the difference between a 45acp and 9mm ball ammo to know that one type of ball ammo is better than the other.   I would never use 9mm ball in a defensive situation, but a 45acp is fine by my book.   I have also noticed absolutely no difference between Wilson Combat magazines that are 7rd vs 8rd.   I have done the 8 +1 in the chamber on several occasions and never noticed any reliability issues as long as the gun wasn’t stored like this for very long.   Even though I believe manual safeties aren’t the best type of device to have on a CCW gun, I think 8rds of 45acp ball ammo in a GI 1911 is not a negative.

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Wilson Combat range tests

This past weekend I got to take my 1911 collection to the range along with a friend and family member that all brought their 1911 handguns.    The real test I wanted to conduct is to see which magazines would all fall free from the guns when the magazine release was pressed and how reliable the guns were.    It still amazes me that the number of people with AR15 rifle or 1911 handguns that are not using the best on the market with their guns, even though they carry them or use them for self defense.   I have strongly felt that Magpul P-mags should replace every GI magazine in your inventory and I’m waiting to see if anyone comes out with handgun magazines as durable.   I believe it is coming.

Wilson Combat magazines have been my favorite every since my first and only bad reliability range day with my Colt 1991A1.    The second range trip with my Colt wasn’t very good because I had the same issue with the gun closing on an empty chamber.  In a defensive situation, this is as bad as the gun stove piping.  You will still have to manually cycle the gun to load it and you will even have to change the magazine out.   Get Wilson Combat magazines and avoid the problem and toss your USGI magazines or move them to plinking malfunction drill range trips.    Chip McCormick magazines are a close second place for me, but Wilson Combat has a good selection of gun accessories for your 1911 if you want to take a look.

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