Need hints on extra tuning on the .40 1911

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MartyK2500

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Hey, i was wondering if any of you had the last bit of info to make my 1911 reliable.
I have worked hard on this so far, and feel like im very close to being there.
I have documented round count/stoppages from last 3 range visits. Had 8 jams in 900 rounds.
Still unaceptable by my standards, my previous ipsc gun (sti ranger ll 9mm) has had 0 jams in over 5K rounds, has had lots of work in it tough.

My jams always occur the same way, bullet is nose diving in feedramp. A simple tap/rack always corrects it. Even half of the time the round feeds and slide closes by simply tapping (net even racking)
Here are things i have done to improve reliability so far, please feel free to pitch in an idea i have not tried yet. I will only describe mods that affect feeding in my opinion.
STI trojan 5" .40, aftec extractor, 10mm tripp cobra mags, hybrid followers, followers lightly sanded so they drop free with ease, long reloads (200gr TC cone bullets at 1.195"OAL), 12# recoil.

I am pretty sure it is not technique related, as today i was purposely shooting 1 handed and limp wristing bad, it still cycled very well. I just desire to get this going for thousands of rounds in a row without any jam, cause right now even at 1% jam i feel like i cannot depend on this platform.
 
Years ago in my Colt Model 80 I started having feeding issues. Original mags, I thought a high mag catch from EGW would help. Since then, I have my gun running pretty reliably, no more feed issues. The changes I made were:

1. Put back the original mag catch.
2. Got new mags Mecgar.
3. Tried different recoil springs to match my IPSC reloads, settled on 14 lb for now
4. Use a case gauge on all of my ammo.

Step 4 probably made the biggest difference. If you reload and buy your brass, you never know what you are getting. Bulged 40 brass is very common, and the regular resizing process will not size it right to the base of the brass. I case gauge and rounds that don't pass the test go through a Lee Bulge Buster, it full length sizes them. I now run this as my IPSC Classic gun, and knock on wood have had no failures all summer.

Good luck!
 
Hi Bugout, thanks for the input, here is my experience with your points.

1. Magcatch, I have tried with the original one and the Wilson combat one (currently installed), they seem both identical and perform just the same.
I was looking into maybe getting the EGW one since it's advertised to keep the mag inserted 20thou higher than standard ones. Did not work for you?
2. Mecgar mags. Man I wish I could of found some metalforms in .40, it's all I use in 9mm and they have solved 90% of my reliability in 9mm. In 9mm they have these nice basepads which are not found in .40, which is why I went with tripp cobra.
3. Recoil spring, I could tinker with it. it did come with a 14# myself and I have found it to nose dive at 14#. Maybe 13# would be better. I know it tracks dead on with the 12# which is why I did not thinker any more with it. And the fact that the round is diving on the ramp I did not doubt the recoil spring much for it.
4. Case gauge. Yes I do for my match rounds! I do know what you mean by this buldge next to the case head. In my personal experience, this has affected chamber feeding/extracting reliability, I do not believe that this will result in a dive on the feedramp.
 
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Have you tried stiffer mag springs? Might help keep the bullet nose a little higher during feeding.
Just buy a 10mm barrel and solve all your problems by running a longer cartridge ;)
 
Sorry, I forgot about this last detail. Towards the end of my tuning madness I took a look at the extractor. It's the original one from when I got the gun in '93, and I've put countless thousands of rounds through it. I Googled the extractor test and mine failed miserably. It had an extremely wimpy hold on the rounds and they were angled down too much. At that time I was having nosedives and having to slap the slide to get into battery. I tuned the extractor so it was a bit tighter and haven't seen the problem since.

If you want a line on .40 Mecgar 1911 mags PM me. I just got two in, but I ordered them back in the beginning of August, from a non-site sponsor. It was a brutal experience. No base pads, I had some installed on my other ones, but the installation cost more than the base pads. I took it to a machine shop, and I don't think they want to see me back again. The metal in the mags must have come from Krypton.
 
Fack, ipad bugged and lost my reply, take 2

cr5, I have not tried stiffer mag springs. I was scared to relive what happened with my ex-CZ shadow. I had 120% mag spring weight in my mags.
The bullet was pushing harder on the slide, slowing it down. So yeah it was slowing my rate of fire, especially at the 5yds targets where its point-shoot.
10mm aint an option, I have visited the idea in my head at some point. It's all brass related. too scarce.

Bugout, I do have an Aftec extractor in there, and casings are flying out of there in a hurry. My ejector was broke during a slide lock mag change.
I did not care for it cause same thing happened in my 1911 9mm and I never got around changing it. It broke at round count 2k on 9mm and am at 10k+, not one failure in 8k+ rounds without an ejector. Maybe for .40 it's more sensitive and should check into changing it.
I see your mecgar are .40, do they have a plate in the rear of the mag preventing the use of long ammo? I had that on my cobras and had to take it out my ammo was too long, and had to buy new followers to fill the gap.

Hitzy, I have one exactly like the brownells link you've sent me! When I try with that specific mag I have never had a failure, I do believe that metalform do have the 1911 platform figured out straight. they lack in features. Like my only one, just like the link, has a welded basepad, and I drop mags in the sand. I would love to find metalform 10mm with removable basepad, I don't care adding rubber basepads afterwards cause it's worth it.
Getting RN bullets would make lot's of sense. Last year when I was tweaking the 9mm, I had to get away from HP for it to work well. Since I went RN with metalform mags 95% of the problem was gone.
I am shooting 200gr. projectiles right now, I wouldn't mind going to 180gr. if I find some RN. I'm a sucker for projectiles shipping though, I hate paying the very high fees.
I end up going to MTL and getting campros or Zeros.
 
I have just polished the feedramp to a mirror (I know i'll prolly catch flak for that) hope it helps a bit.
Yes I will get some campro RN just seen it on their website. But until I have finished my load development for this the RN won't be ready to shoot before 2015.
I have owned the Trojan for 5 months now and debating if I will use it for the first time in a match in 2 weeks.
Anyways I think I might go back to the ranger until I have worked it out, only 1 jam per 100 shots but still, just cause it's a match it will jump to 5-10% as luck likes to have it at me.
 
that is way more load development than I do lol, if it makes major and isn't totally aweful accuracy wise its good enough for IPSC. I think I took all of 2 loading sessions to get my load, and thats only because the first one wasnt quite as far above major as I wanted
 
Yeah thats what i mean, getting the right OAL for good feeding then the right amount of powder for major.
A different weight bullet will react different and will need tweaking.
With my 200gr i currently have 178PF with 4.9 of VVN320
 
MartyK2500 said:
Fack, ipad bugged and lost my reply, take 2

Bugout, I do have an Aftec extractor in there, and casings are flying out of there in a hurry. My ejector was broke during a slide lock mag change.
I did not care for it cause same thing happened in my 1911 9mm and I never got around changing it. It broke at round count 2k on 9mm and am at 10k+, not one failure in 8k+ rounds without an ejector. Maybe for .40 it's more sensitive and should check into changing it.
I see your mecgar are .40, do they have a plate in the rear of the mag preventing the use of long ammo? I had that on my cobras and had to take it out my ammo was too long, and had to buy new followers to fill the gap.
Click to expand...

Yes it has the plate along the back, and I don't load long so it hasn't been an issue. As others have stated, the rounder the nose of the projectile the better.

Even a new extractor may require some tuning to fit your gun. YMMV.
 
MartyK2500 said:
Fack, ipad bugged and lost my reply, take 2

cr5, I have not tried stiffer mag springs. I was scared to relive what happened with my ex-CZ shadow. I had 120% mag spring weight in my mags.
The bullet was pushing harder on the slide, slowing it down. So yeah it was slowing my rate of fire, especially at the 5yds targets where its point-shoot.
10mm aint an option, I have visited the idea in my head at some point. It's all brass related. too scarce.
Click to expand...


Holy crap you must be able to pull the trigger faster than a full auto if slowing the slide down a little slows down your rate of fire in a semi auto. I'd like to see a video of you shooting. Must be up there with Jerry Miculek ;)

10mm brass isn't that hard to find but if you're competing then collecting your brass to use it again may be a problem which would become expensive.

I've got it, the solution is to sell the pistol and buy a Glock ;) LOL, just kidding. I have no idea what to do with your pistol, have you talked to a smith about it?

http://www.brownells.com/magazines/...zines/1911-8rd-40s-w-magazines-prod71635.aspx
 
I'd stick with the Tripp Cobra mags and get an EGW "higher" mag release. That seemed to solve my nosedive issues.

Also, I use Berry's "round shoulder" 180 gr bullets. They seem to feed better than the TC type (although I've had only about 2k of the TC bullets through my 1911... Old stock.)

I'd also go with completely new springs in my magazines.

If this fails to fix the issue, you may need to have the barrel ramp re-profiled and polished. A certain national champion had to have his ramp fixed.
 
Bugout,
Yeah the Aftec did require a bit of fitting and tunning, I followed their instructions to the word, but I am not a gunsmith so it might not be perfect.
If I was a gunsmith it would be bad press for me to ask how to fix a gun lol.

cr5,
nah I am just a regular Joe, but can outshoot a Shadow in these conditions.
126PF poofy 9mm, 11# recoil spring, 120% magsprings pushing that round hard on the slide.
With factory I guess you'll never see a difference, start downgrading everything for girly PF and then some slight changes severely affect slide cycle speed.
I do want a Glock 17 someday, it would be a great survival pistol as you know it will work no matter what lol, but my love for 1911s have me using them in comps.
Thanks anyways for the brownells link, I had spotted them. Metalform have a metal backing in the rear of the mag, take that backing out for longer loads, and all of a sudden you have a follower that does not know if it's going up or sideways. I know a local smith, just don't feel like getting the ATT for it and we all know how foolish it would be going there without one.

1riot1ranger,
Yeah that's what I see on 'murican forums right now. Many folks have cured .40/10mm feeding with that EGW mag catch.
Murray Gardner has some i'll probably bug him for one soon. And will have to buy a drill and tap contraption so I can install my oversized mag release button.
Yeah someone else commented about those in this post, am definatly buying 180gr RN next projectile purchase.
My cobra mags are fairly new, would you go 110-120% or are you speaking of just getting fresh springs in?
If it gets to the point of having barrel fixed, I will seriously reconsider it, at that point I might just say eff it and get a bull barrel fitted and tested for reliability.
I do not feel like spending money in a bushing barrel.
 
I do use 10mm mags for my .40 1911 as well, the longer load helps reliability because it makes a smaller jump to the ramp/chamber. I also only use tripp mags in my 1911s. I wouldnt remove the plate from a mag with it and use the same follower though, if you remove the plate you should swap too a 10mm follower.
 
I have cobra mags for my 40.
They are .40 mags which i have removed back plate.
I got their hybrid follower which is full lenght, lots of problems we're solved by this.
But this cant squeeze my last 1% needed to deem this kit reliable.
 
MartyK2500 said:
cr5,
nah I am just a regular Joe, but can outshoot a Shadow in these conditions.
126PF poofy 9mm, 11# recoil spring, 120% magsprings pushing that round hard on the slide.
With factory I guess you'll never see a difference, start downgrading everything for girly PF and then some slight changes severely affect slide cycle speed.
I do want a Glock 17 someday, it would be a great survival pistol as you know it will work no matter what lol, but my love for 1911s have me using them in comps.
Thanks anyways for the brownells link, I had spotted them. Metalform have a metal backing in the rear of the mag, take that backing out for longer loads, and all of a sudden you have a follower that does not know if it's going up or sideways. I know a local smith, just don't feel like getting the ATT for it and we all know how foolish it would be going there without one.
Click to expand...

Your regular ATT should cover you to and from any range or gunsmith unless your province is retarded and has different rules than Alberta. Good thing we have a federal system but all the provinces get to make up their own rules.

I love 1911's as well, I bought a 10mm Delta Elite barrel for mine and can't wait to get it fitted so I can give it a try.
I just traded off my Glock 17 but will always have a 21 and maybe a 41 soon :)
 
+1 for tuning the extractor. Ensure that it places enough tension on the rim and round off the lower/inner portion of the claw. It helped with my Springfield. I only have stoppages with 1 specific mag. I'm using a 16# spring and 180 gr bullets.
 
cr5, im in a law retarded province, so just going to a smith without an ATT is no go for me, legaly speaking.

Slanto, I will look into it for sure.
Is your springfield a commander length? 16# seems steep to me, as 14# would get me nose diving bad in my personal experience.
 
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