Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns So who has a 1911 that doesn't work?

And why does it piss the 1911 fans off so much when someone has trouble? It's not like I'm trying to trash them, heck I bought a Kimber Rimfire Target to get more familiar with the platform. I want this Colt to work, so please don't hate me cause my plastic pistols run circles around the 1911.

TWR

My STI Trojan had no problems making it to 500 rounds. I have a couple Colts they can make it to 500 rounds.

So this got me to thinking I am going to see just how far I can push my Nighthawk. I just cleaned it after shooting yesterday 200 rounds. So fresh cleaned and lubed gun. The only thing I am going to do to it is a drop of oil every 100 rounds. I will also do it with my Colt.

Do you carry 500 rounds of pistol ammo on you? I am wondering what the round count is for an average gunfight for both military, police, and civilian.

I just don't see handguns as I do shotguns were 1000 rounds at dove in a day is something that happens much.

I understand that is the metric you are choosing to judge by but I just don't see it being necessary.

TWR - shooting one pistol better than another isn't just about accuracy. And just because someone shoots a 1911 better than a Glock doesn't mean everyone will.

To those who ask "how many rounds do you carry" - I think it is fair for a shooter to expect to get through a day of his favorite handgun competition or a training session without having to clean or switch guns. (A couple drops of oil on the frame rails only takes a few seconds though)

Seems like we have a couple cases here that might make for an interesting trouble-shooting thread. I wonder if our resident 1911 'smiths are open to that?

The difference is one is a handgun, the most difficult of all firearms to hit with, and the other is a rifle. [/quote]

If that was my only experience, I'd probably feel much the same way as you.

What I cant seem to wrap my head around is this. I have two 1911's right now that are functionally box stock. Never had a single issue with either. 500 rounds in a day; piece of cake.

I've also competed and built competition 1911's. I've been on the range and seen 1911's go thousands of rounds without a hitch. I've also seen others that couldn't make it through a magazine.

I've watched the 1911 perform quite brilliantly for decades. Suddenly they've become a completely unreliable POS; that just doesn't compute.

I ascribe this phenomenon to the fact that since there are now pistols that are MORE reliable, the unknowing young-ins on the internet extrapolate "less" reliable to mean "un" reliable.

My point about the 500 rounds vs. the 5,000 rounds is very pointed, and doesn't carry over to an infantry rifle; two VERY different animals with VERY different roles.

No one has EVER fired 500 rounds from a handgun in a firefight; EVER.

You can't even count how many have done it with a rifle though, and then were re-supplied and fired another 2,000 rounds. VERY different sort of thing. (BTW I happen to think the AR has demonstrated about a bazillion times that it's more than sufficiently reliable).

A pistol that will go several thousand rounds without needing any maintenance at all is very inspiring. But that is a training convenience, NOT a battlefield necessity; do you see a difference?

So my pistol will go a good 10-20 times farther than my ammo supply without needing any maintenance, and still not exhibiting any malfunctions. I know this because I do it all the time. Would you agree that at that point, my pistol is sufficiently reliable for self defense purposes, and even has a good 300-400% reserve of reliability?

So that part of my criteria is done; I'm good. Now past that, I'm on to other criteria that I consider important, and it's that other criteria that moves me toward non-Glock pistols. Make sense?

Again, I have nothing against the Glock; they're great guns (as are the other synthetic frame pistols). But I have other wants and likes that are not fulfilled by a Glock.

Not intended as a counterpoint to your post, just following it.

The 1911 earned a great reputation as a reliable man stopper doing what it was conceived to do - work in the mud and blood of battle. For that it was purposely made to be loose. It can also be tightened up considerably and be very accurate.

But the two goals are functionally opposed.

Not many people (except soldiers) carry a gun in muddy, dusty, icy conditions. Sure, lots carry a 1911 concealed or otherwise, but they're not sleeping in a foxhole or a trench of spending 24 hours a day in a swamp for a few weeks at a time. The gun lives in a fairly clean environment.

However, lots and lots and lots of people are playing games with 1911's - ID this, IP that, I don't follow those so don't even know all the various abbreviations. Other people shoot at targets on indoor or outdoor ranges, and even the alphabet games put an emphasis on precise accuracy at times.

So folks take a perfectly functional self defense piece that can be very dirty and fire a 7 round 3-4" group with no problem. And they look at that 4" group and say, "what a POS!". I want an accurate gun.

So, they tighten it up after the purchase, or they complain vehemently to the manufacturers who tighten it up from the factory, and go 180 degrees away from reliability in search of accuracy. And then complain when that gun isn't 100% reliable.

********

As with any post, this will piss of those who, as the Buddhists say, are identified with their possessions and will refute me with a story of their sample of one 1911 that will shoot 1" at 50 yards and is also uber reliable, so there!, but I will stick to my point.

Get a 1911 that rattles and it will probably go bang every time far more often than it needs to under very harsh conditions. And hit a man size target where it hurts out to as far as you'd need to. Make it a target piece and it will be more finicky and require more cleaning and lubrication.

Take your pick.

Jim that makes a lot of sense.

Kevin, let me be clear, I want to love the 1911 and have no fantasies about being in a fire fight but I do expect a pistol to work through a 100 count box of Winchester 230 gr ball ammo. I also thank you for calling me a "youngin" at almost 50 I need that now and then. I would've never said a thing about my 1911 woes but you asked the question.

I ain't giving up yet, I replaced the recoil spring and will try that tomorrow. I also will add oil every 50 rounds. The gun may need a little break in, I don't know but I'm trying to get it to run. Starting a thread insinuating that 1911 trouble is just something that Glock fans made up is just not quite true.

So, TWR - what, exactly, does your 1911 do? Can you describe exactly how it malfunctions? Have you changed anything - and did those changes make it behave any differently? What do your spent cases look like? (photos?)

I'm sure that some here may be able to walk you through troubleshooting way better than I, but if it's really obvious I might be able to help.

DEEP apologies for reading into things and thinking you're a youngster; we're probably the same age. (although, I'd be pretty happy if just once someone didn't call me an old fart).

And again, given your experience I TOTALLY understand the conclusions you have come to...If that was my only experience, I'd have a hard time liking the 1911 too.

Really sucks you dish out that kind of cash and end up with a gun that doesn't work. I'd recommend sending it back to the factory and giving the maker an opportunity to make it right.

Until then, if I were you; I'd carry that Glock. And honestly, if you're happy with the performance and the carrying characteristics of the Glock; why change? I'm certainly not going to try to talk you into the 1911 after the experiences you've had.

As most people know, my favorite pistol is the Hi Power. Would you believe my first Hi Power was a completely un-reliable POS, even with FMJ's? It was a rather ratty Argentine Hi Power, and I couldn't afford to have it fixed, so off it went. It wasn't until I was exposed to LITERALLY a pallet of Hi Powers that had been drug through WW II in China, then stored in Cosmoline for 40 years, only to find out that when cleaned up, over 95% of them didn't miss a single step...that completely changed me on the Hi Power.

We all have our experiences, you stick to your guns and keep that Glock close by. Salute!!

Damn right they should work, especially when you consider the coin you dished out. Man I wish we lived in the same town, I'd get you cleared up in a few minutes.

Generally speaking STI's are very good guns. The two that I encountered the had issues, there were serious and showed that the person whom built the gun did a half arse job.

What I love about Colt's is that they are made right. When you encounter a Colt that doesn't work, it's generally because someone has screwed it up (I mean that's well over 90% of the time) or it's something very minor and easy to fix.

This is just me, but I don't do well with guns that don't work. If I can't fix them, they go down the road with full disclosure. I guess if you have a safe full of handguns though, you have room to tolerate something less than perfect.

I am well over a thousand, probably at least twice that number if you count the empty primer boxes in my trash. My 1911 has failed twice and both times it was a failed to load because of problems with my reloads. That has been solved with a Lee factory crimp die. When I load right it has not had one failure and that is with hard ball, cast round nose, cast truncated cone, and factory HP.

But then I can explain that, you see my 1911 is a high dollar RIA, you know, the $499 military model with no fancy anything.

I run into a lot of Springfields that need a minor tweak here and there. They are better now than they used to be. The older ones I threw out everything but the slide and frame including the barrel...all of their barrels were over-ramped, and two piece to boot.

Tell your future SIL that he can't marry your daughter until that 45 is 100%!

As to how many rounds between cleaning and lubing...a 1911 was designed to be lubed, why run it dry?

If that is of concern for some reason, run a test on your car and see how far it runs with no oil and post the results here...it's the same logic, but I don't see that it proves anything.

Keeping a 1911 properly lubed and ready for action only takes a few seconds, a lot less time than loading a single magazine.

How hard is it to keep a bottle of oil handy? You can just stick one on a strap of your camo bike helmet...but if you are in some kind of survival mode, a few drops of oil from your car's dipstick works just fine.

+1

other than a kimber supermatch I had that didn't work, every 1911 I have ever owned have been as reliable as my glocks.
If they are done right, they work!

Back in the bad old days, a buddy of mine bought a satin-nickel Combat Commander, remember those? It choked and gagged on hardball, wadcutters, anything and everything imagineable, and you couldn't get it to feed a Silvertip for anything.

As it turns out, somebody at Colt had mismarked a .38Super/9mm slide, and had it satin-nickeled (that finish wasn't available from Colt except in .45, which was the marking on the slide). The breechface was cut for .38Super, which was too small for a .45 case to work. After his father(a pretty good pistolsmith in his own right) opened the breechface, it ran like a champ.

The '70 Series guns get a lot of praise from some quarters, but none from me, that, to me, was the "bad old days" when Colt couldn't do much right. I've had finger bushings break, roll pins shear(Gold Cup) front sights fly off, you name it. Towards the '90s, things got a good deal better, and the new Colts seem pretty good, if you can find one..............

TWR

I respect you and enjoy reading your post. By all means your pistol should be able to make it through a 100 round box of ammo and them some without cleaning or hiccups. I would not be happy with your results either.

I've got a whole slew of 1911s, and they're all as reliable as any modern auto pistol. Now I have had some in the past (two chopped down style Kimbers) that weren't reliable, but I sold them. I also had an Officers ACP Colt that wasn't reliable, but sold that too. Had to send one Springfield Loaded Model (full sized) back for unreliability, and it came back 100% reliable. I also had an Ed Brown Kobra Carry (ordered direct from Ed) that was unreliable from the start, eventually suffering from a broken extractor after less than a thousand rounds. Tuned a new extractor, installed it, and it became 100% reliable.

I know that a brand new Ford Explorer will run approximately 150 miles with no oil in it before it schits the bed

I put together AR's and completely understand how to run one wet. I am pretty liberal on the 1911 as well, not much runs good dry.

As for my pistol, to be clear it's a series 80 that wasn't shot much at all by the looks of it and is or was all factory except the magazines. Ammo was factory Remington and Winchester 230 gr ball. I bought 100 rounds of the Remington and 600 rounds of the Winchester, fired all the Remington and 50 rounds of the Winchester so far.

With one cheap mag it would not fully load the shell nearly every time and did the stove pipe thing once. I trashed the mag. The other mag is a Chip McCormick 10 rounder that ran most of the time but had the same failure to fully chamber the round. Same with a MecGar mag.

I bought 4 Colt 8 rd mags and thought all was good but had the same issue a few times once it had a few rounds through it. I ordered a Wolf 18# recoil spring and installed it, it was almost an inch longer than the spring that came in it. I also ordered a 20# Ed Brown spring. I will try the 18# spring in the morning and see how it goes, the 20 if needed.

Even my Kimber 1911-22 failed me twice, it failed to pick up a shell from the mag, the first time I thought I just didn't have the magazine seated good. 350 rounds later it did it again but I didn't have my mags marked and don't know which one or ones of the 5 did it. They are now marked and I'll see if it's a single mag issue or what.

While not a problem, I am changing the plastic trigger and ordering a complete Wolf spring kit for the Colt, along with some round Pachmyer followers. I have a buddy who is gonna look it over and change the parts for me. He worked with a pretty good 1911 guy and I trust him. I know from trying to diagnose AR problems on the net that it's really hard to do without seeing the gun but I do appreciate all the offers to help me figure this out.