M1911s... Maintenance nightmares?

[44 AMP]

The cult of personality that the 1911 commands is absurd.

I agree.

So is "GLock Perfection". And both sides are completely convinced of their stands.

To a degree, both are correct.

One feels like misguided over enthusiasm, the other the marketing scheme of an arrogant Austrian, to me.

If you want to know what tools work the best, find people that use those things for a living,

While this is logical, and probably correct for a number of things, when it comes to people who use "guns for a living", I don't think its correct to take at face value.

By the numbers, people who use guns for a living do NOT get to choose WHAT guns they use. The best organizations take their input, and use it, but it isn't the "shooters" that get to choose what they want, individually, by and large.

You may survey artists to see what is the "best" paintbrush, get one answer, and then check with house painters and get a different one. Ask a cabinetmaker and a lumberjack what are the best saws, and I expect different answers. And these are examples where the users get their personal choices.

Work for a police dept, or the military (the largest numbers of people who use guns for a living) and you see the users do NOT have a choice. (or much of one, in the best cases)

So, in that regard, the argument fails.

Another facet of the choice is not what works best, or better, but how much of what the individual wants beyond "works good enough".

And, a superior feature in one area does not cancel out a negative feature in many people's opinions. Which is why we argue back and forth a lot.

 

[noonesshowmonkey]

And, if you read the thread, there's a several cracked slides in the Glocks they use. I'm not saying 1911s are more problem-free. That would be inaccurate. But it is also inaccurate to say that 1911s are substantially more problematic than other guns or need a lot more maintenance.

I did read the whole thread. The thread also starts out by saying that, hands down, the most fired and most trouble-free of the handguns is the Glock. Further, the cracked slides show up after some absurd round counts. Due to the cache in pop culture and gaming, Glocks get shot a crapload at a place like that. Due, if only, to the magazine capacity (!!!!!), their round counts get extremely high.

At no point am I going to call a 1911 a garbage pistol or claim that it is made of glass and likely to break if handled roughly. It IS, however, an older, more complicated design, that is generally hand-fitted rather than precision machined by robots.

Also, if Glock got it wrong with their slides, then they got it wrong. My guess is that the slide in question was something of a lemon. Either way, there is an absolute preponderance of evidence available showing MRFBs that are pretty intense.

While this is logical, and probably correct for a number of things, when it comes to people who use "guns for a living", I don't think its correct to take at face value.

You're right in so far as those who use them for a living are often issued firearms, and have little say in the matter. I carry a glock for work, because I have to. I carry a glock 19 in my off time, because I want to. When it comes to those who do have the capacity to exercise choice, such as the vast majority of SOCOM, or security contractors, etc. the Glock comes up a lot. There's a reason for that, even if there's a chicken/egg argument to be made about issue weapons vs personal weapons.

Finally, since I have pointed this out in this particular thread: I don't have a horse in this race. I could give a straight crap about Glocks. I admire their engineering, and have first hand experience with just how well they work, how easy they are to work on/maintain. I also have an absolute love affair with Sig P228s, and think that a P35 may in fact be the sexiest handgun ever (just to put all you JMB-is-a-Saint crowd at ease). But, I don't carry, nor would I ever consider carrying, a 1911 unless it was issued to me.

 

[Spats McGee]

IMHO, and purely IMHO, . . . two points:

First, the 1911 was born of a different age. At the beginning of the 20th century, every man (and every soldier) could reasonably be expected to possess at least some basic mechanical knowledge. There were no smartphones, no internet, no satellite uplink TV. Even if you worked in a fairly urban environment, things like cash registers would have been mechanical in nature. Today, I suspect that there are many young shooters who have simply never had much reason to deal in purely mechanical things. I don't even change my own oil any more, because I don't understand how that interacts with my car's computer (and I don't have time to learn that).

Second, comparing a 1911 to a Glock (for example) is a little unfair because "1911" has come to mean this basic style of handgun, built by (at least) a dozen manufacturers, with at least 3 different levels of fitting. (Custom, semi-custom, and production.) A Glock is built by one manufacturer, in one of 2 (?) factories. (If there are more, someone correct me.) A fairer comparison would be "1911 vs. polymer striker-fired pistol."

 

[P71pilot]

I am going to attempt to post a link of an interesting Video on yewtube. I have never done this before so hopefully it works. There is a channel that abused the crud out of a rock island tactical 1911 and the series of c
Videos is a hoot to watch.


http://youtu.be/NRf7MbF9suk

 

[Tucker 1371]

Spats, there's at least one, maybe two, companies that now make a 100% Non-Glock Glock. Lonewolf is one.

To reiterate my point, I don't believe 1911s are a maintenance "nightmare". But I don't believe they are the kind of pistol that a first time gun buyer with no knowledge or aptitude for troubleshooting mechanical problems should go pick up for they're bet-my-life-on-it gun (Carry, HD, etc).

Don't get me wrong, I did exactly THAT. I absolutely LOVE the 1911, it's in a dead heat with the CZ75 for my favorite handgun. But I invested the time to learn the 1911, its drawbacks, weak points, and how to troubleshoot it.

The two worst things the 1911 has going against it are its magazines and its extractor. Both are prone to losing tension and crapping out on you. And good 1911 mags aren't cheap. If someone could make a 1911 magazine that would last as many cycles as a Glock magazine then nearly all of this crap about the 1911s reliability would cease to be. The extractor hasn't been a problem so much for me, the channel just has to be cleaned from time to time. That's something your average new 1911 buyer just isn't going to do or think about. I didn't until I had a problem.

All of y'all claiming to have a million bajillion round through multiple 1911s and have never ever ever experienced even one malfunction either are the luckiest 1911 owners on the planet or you aren't being entirely truthful. I flat out don't believe it. Everyone, somewhere along the line of owning a 1911, will have one malfunction. At least. Now maybe you've developed a maintenance program for your guns that prevents malfunctions before they happen, like buying new mags after you pass a certain round count. But somewhere along the way of learning that routine you have had ONE malfunction. Don't blame it on a bad magazine, because that is part of the system. I've had a Colt cycle wolf and Tula and floorboard PMC so don't blame it on ammo either.

Some handguns will feed everything and can reach an absurdly high round count on the original factory magazines. The majority of 1911s do not fit that description. They are a gun with a personality. You have to figure your 1911 out and develop habits for keeping it running before you bet your life on it.

 

[buckhorn_cortez]

One of the problems with the 1911 is variability in performance due to things like magazines and even recoil springs.

As an example, Todd Green tested a 9mm 1911 in 2012 - 2013. Todd was famous for his performance tests where he just took a pistol and used it for his every day shooter for a year. He would log the number of rounds shot, broken parts, stoppages, and malfunctions.

With the 1911, at about the halfway point through the test (30k rounds), the mean rounds between stoppages (MRBS) was 3,571. Not as good as the Glock 19 Gen4, or HK P30 that he tested - but, far better than the gun industry standard of 2,000 rounds.

Now to the really interesting part. Jason Burton (Heirloom Precision) suggested that he change to Wilson magazines (from Metalform), and also change the recoil spring to a 14lb progressive spring.

When he made those changes, the MRBS went up to 6,211 for the remainder of the test which surpassed the performance of both the Glock and the P30.

At the end of the test, the final statistics were: 64,579 rounds, 15 stoppages, 0 malfunctions, 5 parts breakages.

None of the parts breakages stopped the gun from functioning. In fact, the part that broke the most was the ejector which he would find broken when he cleaned the pistol.

Todd was notorious for not cleaning his test guns. He cleaned the 1911 at odd intervals that approximated 4,000 - 6,000 rounds. Between the infrequent cleanings, he'd just add some lubrication and would continue to shoot the pistol.

I've used 1911's upwards of 2k rounds without cleaning and adding only a bit of lubrication between range trips - and the guns have worked 100%.

The 1911 is still able to compete with modern pistols for functionality and reliability. The problem is the trial-and-error process of finding the "right" combination of parts that will give you the same level of functionality that you get with a modern pistol right from the factory.

 

[Tucker 1371]

The 1911 is still able to compete with modern pistols for functionality and reliability. The problem is the trial-and-error process of finding the "right" combination of parts that will give you the same level of functionality that you get with a modern pistol right from the factory.

Nailed it! +1

 

[KyJim]

But I don't believe they are the kind of pistol that a first time gun buyer with no knowledge or aptitude for troubleshooting mechanical problems should go pick up for they're bet-my-life-on-it gun (Carry, HD, etc).

I agree with this 100%. If you're not willing to do some initial experimenting, today's 1911 is not the right platform for you. I just think, though, that once the experimentation/familiarity phase is over, the 1911 does fine in the maintenance category.

 

[mr bolo]

GI magazines

Ive experienced WWII and Vietnam era magazines cracking or developing stress cracks on the back of the feed lips

since the slide slams that area it takes a lot of abuse and impact causing eventual stress cracks