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I have an issue with the function of the 1911. Simply put, they all work which means I've been denied the privilege to experience all of the aggravation that some claim of the 1911 gun. The newly purchased ones have worked perfectly. The old ones purchased used have worked perfectly. They do this with round nose, semi-wadcutter, truncated cone, and gaping hollow point bullet designs. Every one of them. None have required "feed ramp work." They've never required anything to give perfect satisfaction.
Being a handloader, I've fed them some strange concoctions, some wild concoctions. Anything's fine with them. The first 1911 came to the menagerie here in 1978. I didn't know much about its inner workings. I just shot it and maintained it. It behaved just like any of several family members' 1911 guns with which I was familiar with as a kid. Those all worked too as far as I remember. In our family the 1911 was always considered the dependable automatic and good for "what ails ya." As additional 1911 guns have been added to the menagerie here in more recent times they have all proved to be well-mannered and reliable.
They are regularly fed from a large canvas bank coin sack of bulk cast lead "general purpose" handloads which is kept on the floor of the right front leg of the loading bench, right in front of a similar cloth sack of .38 Special handloads. Those sacks have been kept on hand there ever since I set up the bench.
Oh, the Colt Gold Cup can get balky. A hundred or so rounds of the filthy Russian steel-cased Bear ammunition induced some stoppages on one occasion, but it's a Gold Cup, a bit of a tangent from the standard because it was built as a target gun. The Model 1911 was also along on that day of ammo burnin' the Bear ammunition and it ate up several times the quantity that the Gold Cup digested and never bobbled.
The front sight fell off my original World War I vintage Colt 1911 after 90 years of riding up there on top of the slide. No telling what sort of treatment the pistol sustained before I got it and I didn't baby it once it came to live here.
One can load powder-puff cast lead semi-wadcutter loads so light that feed issues will crop up, though you might be surprised at "how low you can go" using standard 16lb recoil springs before encountering this. The Gold Cup has a 9lb. recoil spring handy that can be installed if such loads need to be used.
Went to the range this morning before it got hot and shot a couple of 1911s. While there it occurred to me that I feel cheated somehow. I can detail strip a 1911 and have a basic grasp of the design and its function. I've missed out on the tinkering and tuning experience though. I never get to play with clearing malfunctions.
What do I need to do?
-Start sawing on them, modifying, altering, upgrading them so that I can experience the thrill of malfunctions and gain the knowledge required to become a 1911 guru?
-Keep shooting them, hoping that somehow something will go wrong that I'll need to fix?
-Scrap the 1911s and go Glock?
Being a handloader, I've fed them some strange concoctions, some wild concoctions. Anything's fine with them. The first 1911 came to the menagerie here in 1978. I didn't know much about its inner workings. I just shot it and maintained it. It behaved just like any of several family members' 1911 guns with which I was familiar with as a kid. Those all worked too as far as I remember. In our family the 1911 was always considered the dependable automatic and good for "what ails ya." As additional 1911 guns have been added to the menagerie here in more recent times they have all proved to be well-mannered and reliable.
They are regularly fed from a large canvas bank coin sack of bulk cast lead "general purpose" handloads which is kept on the floor of the right front leg of the loading bench, right in front of a similar cloth sack of .38 Special handloads. Those sacks have been kept on hand there ever since I set up the bench.
Oh, the Colt Gold Cup can get balky. A hundred or so rounds of the filthy Russian steel-cased Bear ammunition induced some stoppages on one occasion, but it's a Gold Cup, a bit of a tangent from the standard because it was built as a target gun. The Model 1911 was also along on that day of ammo burnin' the Bear ammunition and it ate up several times the quantity that the Gold Cup digested and never bobbled.
The front sight fell off my original World War I vintage Colt 1911 after 90 years of riding up there on top of the slide. No telling what sort of treatment the pistol sustained before I got it and I didn't baby it once it came to live here.
One can load powder-puff cast lead semi-wadcutter loads so light that feed issues will crop up, though you might be surprised at "how low you can go" using standard 16lb recoil springs before encountering this. The Gold Cup has a 9lb. recoil spring handy that can be installed if such loads need to be used.
Went to the range this morning before it got hot and shot a couple of 1911s. While there it occurred to me that I feel cheated somehow. I can detail strip a 1911 and have a basic grasp of the design and its function. I've missed out on the tinkering and tuning experience though. I never get to play with clearing malfunctions.
What do I need to do?
-Start sawing on them, modifying, altering, upgrading them so that I can experience the thrill of malfunctions and gain the knowledge required to become a 1911 guru?
-Keep shooting them, hoping that somehow something will go wrong that I'll need to fix?
-Scrap the 1911s and go Glock?
