All posts tagged Wilson 8rd magazines

Quit screwing around with your 1911s and they’ll work

There is no other firearm that I see so much tinkering with than the 1911, and no matter how much money you spend on one, you can still mess it up.   I absolutely do not believe that higher end 1911’s are tougher and more reliable than a loose fitting GI Mil-spec gun.    If you want that competition shooting gun, then shoot it in a competition, but if you want reliability, keep it simple and stop screwing around with it.   I have putt thousands of rounds through my GI 1911 guns and almost always use ball ammunition.  I’m messed around with semi-wad cutters for target shooting and got my guns to feed with them, so I know it’s possible to shoot something other than ball.

The gun magazines you use for your 1911 are the difference in running a reliable firearm.   From my experience GI 1911 magazines are meant to be used a few times and tossed on the ground.   They are not worth replacing gun springs on like Wilson Combat magazines.   The magazine bodies on many 1911s get dented and don’t hold up and will eventually just jam up the follower when it is working it’s way up.    The Wilson Combat Elite Tactical magazines or ETM, is a minor improvement for a few bucks more.   The magazine body is a little thicker with changes to the placement of the ammunition level window.   There are also numbers from 1-10 on the bottom of the magazine so you can just take a hi-lighted marker and number the mags with one stroke without damaging them.

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10rd magazines for 1911s?

This is something I’ve only delved into once and it wasn’t a great experience.   Back in the early 1990’s we had all of that assault weapons ban BS and and aftermarket gun magazines were everywhere.   Some of us that owned certain firearms ended up with unreliable firearms that should have been durable.   $90 Glock magazines were not uncommon and $14.99 for a jamming Mini 14 30rd magazine from USA magazines, which I believe is been long out of existence.   Many people fell back on revolvers and there was a big upsurge back into the 1911 because it was one of those guns that was originally designed for fewer than 10rds which was what the Assault Weapons Ban limited you to.

So some of us messed around with aftermarket 10rd magazines and all of the ones I tried failed pretty quick.   We tried to make the 1911 into it’s highest capacity that we legally could, but the balance pretty much got messed up.   Gun magazines, even a few rounds bigger than standard capacity can make the gun imbalanced or make it harder holster.   There are a lot of reasons to use 10rd magazines like Wilson Combat magazines or Chip McCormick which have a good reputation in competition shooting, but they will protrude considerable.   This may cause snagging on shirts ect if you are considering using one for CCW.   If you’ve ever practiced with you’re gun, which you should have, firing 8rds and reloading is probable a better CCW than thinking a 10rd magazine is going to give you more protection.

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Reloading speed, revolvers and tactical loads

If you are new to firearms it’s fun to play tricks on you.   I have the opportunity to teach novice shooters and sometimes just random co-workers and family members that have no idea how to use a firearm other than pulling the trigger.   It’s not always up to the operator’s speed at gun handling, sometimes its the way the gun is loaded has more to do with how fast you get it up and running.  For instance, if you had a Glock 19 and 3  15rd magazines and they all ran empty, if you don’t have a speed loader a guy with a 5 shot revolver is going to get his gun back in the fight faster especially if he had speed loaders ahead of time.  It’s not really that you have to worry about running empty with a Glock firearm, it’s that carrying a 5 shot revolver does not mean you are under gunned.

As our economy sits in limbo, there will be crimes that creep up out of nowhere and concealed carry is something people are thinking about.  There are a lot of wild situations that people like to put themselves into, but the right mindset of a gun fight is to get out of it.   If you are military or Police, you may be called to break down doors and take down the bad guy, but civilians don’t have the justification for doing that by law.   The 1911 is seeing a lot of come backs in private security rankings and we have sold a lot of Wilson Combat magazines to guys that are doing the door knocking.   The reality of many search warrants is that close quarters gun fight does last long and the need for a high capacity firearm isn’t very necessary.  The most common gun magazine we are selling to the guys doing the door knocking are 7rd Wilson combat 1911 mags.

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Why pack a whole lot of handgun ammo?

It always amazes me that when people think they need a backup gun or sidearm on a training course it means packing as much ammo for the 9mm handgun as it does for the M4 Carbine.   All it takes is a short training day to find out that a big chunk of the gear you brought with you was un-necessary.   An M4 Carbine is already probable the lightest and most handy firearms you can carry with you during the day and with a gun good sling you should be able to let go of the gun and still retain the weapon.   I have several LWRCI M6A2 guns and I tend to shoot the 77gr MK262 bullets.   These bullets weight a little more than the standard M193 ammo, but in my opinion it’s a better up front round.

 

When I carry a back up gun and I’m already carry a an M4 Carbine,  I am back to the old dog, my Colt 1911.   The Colt 1911 with 2 spare Wilson Combat magazines is all I need to retreat from a position or hold off a threat until I get my LWCR M6A2 back up and running.   I have yet to have something like that occur, but I have trained for it.   I am very confident that 24rds of 45acp is plenty of back up ammo and if the fight needs more than that,  I’ll more confident just turning around and running the other way.   A couple grenades my help boost my confidence though.

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