1911 Magazines are flawed

J

Jamie Young

New member
I have Colt and various other 1911 Magazines and all of them except for one have caused the same failure (The Slide Slams Shut on an empty Chamber). The Flaw in 1911 Mags..................


"The Metal Followers with the Tabs That bend".

Only once have I had ball ammo Jam, and that was due to a weak Spring in a Brand new Colt 8rd Mag.


The Fix IMHO are the Plastic Followers in Wilson's Combat Mags. NOTHING TO BEND.

I have 2 Colt Mags and 4 Other Mags that I want to fix. Can you put Followers like the Wilsons Combat ones in Mec Gar and Colt Mags?
 
The most common problems of 1911s are magazine-related. Brownign may have been a genius at guns, but maybe not at magazines.

I have found that Wilsons work best in my gun, but while they don't bend, they do wear out.

You can try switching out the followers, but I would not expect them to work right. Spend a little extra and get the mags that you know will work in your gun. It really is a worthwhile investment no matter what the brand is. The same goes for ammo as well. Shoot in your gun what works well in your gun.
 
The thing is I don't like to throw away stuff. And I did use a pair of Needle Nose Plyers and ordered Followers for My Mini 14 and fixed 4 USA 30rd Mags. I already have 2 Wilson's Combat Mags for Carrying but I'd like to Salvage these 6 other mags.
 
Has this happened on more than one gun? Good magazine followers shouldn't cause this, but a bad slide stop or a bad slide notch will.

Jim
 
I put the Wilson Combat follower and spring in my original Colt 8rd mag. I have not shot that much since I put it in so I can't say anything about any improvement or not, but it definitely appears to work better than the OEM mag follower and spring.

My Wilson 47D's have never caused a FTF in 1500 rds, or 500 rds apiece.

Personally I think you can salvage those mags for range use/SHTF/etc except carry if you install the WC components.

SB
 
Where can you order springs and followers from? I could have sworn I saw them in Dillon's Blue Book but I don't see them on the website.
 
For several years Wilson's were the only thing I would use in my 1911s but I started to have failures with them as well as the plastic followers wore down. I now exclusively use Chip McCormick Power Mags. Their follower design is different from traditional but still uses steel. No problems yet.
 
Does this happen predictably? I have ape hands and use a thumb-highish grip, and used to have the same problem. With all my mags. Until I discovered my thumb was occasionally smacking the slide stop under recoil.
 
The two Colt mags are bad because you can see that the Tabs are crumpled up. The four other mags are ok except one of them did it to me 2 times. I just figured I'd replace all of them and be done with that. I've fired about 800rds out of the two Wilsons Combat Mags that I have and I have ZERO problems.
 
SBLars noted that his 47Ds have not caused a FTF in 1500 rounds, or 500 for each mag. Since the fail to feed is on the last round, assuming SBLars shot his mags from full to lock-back every time, then that means he has successfully tested each mag last round feeding about 62/63 times. That really isn't that much.

I bring this up not to find fault with SBLars statement because I am sure he is correct. Instead, I just want to illustrate how easily a number like 500 rounds per mag may not translate directly into very much use at all. At 500 rounds, the mag is still practically new. A comparable comparison might be to say that your new car has been 100% reliable for all of the 5000 miles you have owned it.
 
webfast:

Dunno about you, but if mongo is charging me with knife and I've got 7+1 rounds in the gun, he's gonna get all 8 of them. Maybe you can count under such circumstances, but I doubt I would be able to.

SodaPop:

Go to Wilson's web site and order the 7 round springs plus followers. I find they work better than the 8 round springs plus followers. YMMV.

Jared
 
I just did !!!


But getting back to my original Post.......................

The Metal Tabs on most of the 1911 mags I've seen, especially the Colt Mags, from my Experience (whatever thats worth) seem to bend. I've put over 4000rds threw my Colt in the last two years and only had problems with bent tabs and Hollow point ammo. Seems the Wilson Design Solved Both of these Problems.

If you've got a properly design mag you don't really need a Feed Ramp on the gun.
 
STACK'o MAG-PACKS

Sounds like crappy gun.

I've had ONE jam in my 1911 (Caspian, of course) caused by POS case.

Got some thousands of rounds through my gun.
 
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