Happy 1911

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Nothing better than a happy 1911 and mine is happy today. Got 4 brand new Checkmate magazines with GI feed lips today.
9065
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Not as good as I would like? Top gun supply is where I got the last 1911 mags I bought but they are out of stock on these. I decided it was shooting season and I needed more mags with the GI feedlips so I got them direct from Checkmate.
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
They are excellent magazines, and their hybrid feed lips solved my Randall's occasional 452460 feeding problems. However, to keep things as simple as possible I've only been loading the 452374.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
I have 4-5 of the hybrid lip mags from Checkmate. I like them but get an occasional feed issue with them. I tried a few mags full with one of Bill’s GI lip mags and no hiccups at all. I ran 100 rounds with one of my GI lip mags and no problems.
I decided the GI lips might be a good choice.
I am shooting the MP HG68
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
Damn, where was that a month ago?
I know where I will be placing my next order.

Thanks Longone
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Each gun is just a hair different. Some are OK with parallel lips, early release mags, some are not.
A lot are happy with hybrid mags, tapered lips and early release, some are not.
Almost all will do well with the JMB original full length tapered lips, unless very short nosed bullets
are used......which is where the first early release mags originated, to support bullseye shooting
with 1911s and short nosed H&G 130s and Lyman 452488s.

In about 1980, I bough a number of Laka magazines. SS with a removable floorplate,
and designed to only hold 5 rounds, strictly for bullseye. They had the folded, 3D
followers and worked well. Cut off the tail of the follower and you got seven rounds.
They had early release, parallel lips, the folded follower was ultra reliable on lockback.

You need to try what is out there, see what your gun likes, but with anything but
short nosed SWC target bullets, the full length lips, JMB design, "GI-lips" mags should
do well. And they ensure controlled round feeding, as JMB intended, too. A good
number of parallel lips mags do not let the round slide up under the extractor before
it pops out of the lips, and that USUALLY will work, but is, IMO, risky, having a round
in 'free flight' for a while during the feed cycle just can't be good.

Full length tapered GI lips with super short bullets can lead to "roof jams" with the round
nose high against the roof of the chamber, tail down, often still a bit in the mag. Without
the long nose to hit to roof and push the round down and in, the short rounds can
rotate up too steep, stick against the roof.

An amazing number of modern magazines for 1911s are parallel lips, and it seems like
many (most) don't even remember what the original 1911 mags were like.

Bill
 
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creosote

Well-Known Member
Bill, thanks for the lesson.
I didn't know there was a difference in the feed lips.
I just cast up a bunch of 130's from a saeco mold.
I stoned the chamber mouth just a tiny bit and they seemed to cycle ok now. I haven't shot it yet.
Might have to order some "early release" mags.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Most mags you buy today, in fact almost all, like 99% are early release.
Only old GI mags and current Checkmate GI mags are not, at least as far
as I have been able to find out.

If you have mags, look and see if the lip fold over ends just past about half way from
front to back of the mag. If so, it is early release. You have to hunt hard to
find original style mags these days. I suspect that you already have them.

The ones that Brad has pictured have the lips tapering, but going almost all
the way to the front with the lip. This is the original John Moses Browning lip design.

Here is a good photo.

9066

Both the "wadcutter" (I call them parallel lips, early release) and hybrid (tapered lips like JMB intended,
but early release) are "early release types which tend to work better for short nosed bullets than
the original GI (JMB) design. For normal length ammo, all guns tend to do very well with the
GI lips. And some guns demand them for utter reliablility.

Gunsmiths in the Bullseye days would hammer out the lips of GI mags to make them release earlier,
let the rear of the round pop up to avoid the roof jam with short nosed cartridges After a while these mags
were made new that way. Then somebody made the lips parallel. Now that is nearly standard....IMO, out
of ignorance. Don't know if Laka originated the parallel lips or not, but it is an early parallel mag, used
only for Bullseye competition in the 70s and 80s, probably earlier.

Much ignorance on the 1911, as ubiquitous as it is, and way too many folks who really don't know what the
heck they are doing modifying stuff, like mags. And they the original design intent eventually gets dropped
through a crack. Which is why I periodically put the facts and history out there, hoping to spread the word
a bit more before it is lost forever.

Bill
 
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Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
One of the things that helped me understand how important the magazine is to the 1911 was slowly hand cycling the handgun. Remove the recoil spring and put a dummy round or 3 in a magazine. Slowly hand cycle the slide watching how the round is picked up from the magazine. The rim should slide under the extractor as the round comes out of the magazine.
If all is good the process is smooth and the round is always controlled by either the feed lips on the magazine or the extractor hook and breech face.

My hybrid lip magazines are what I would call 98% reliable feeder with my ammo. I am looking for 100% and these mags should get me there.
 

creosote

Well-Known Member
Excellent information. Nice to know the "why's"

I've done the cycle the rounds super slow, but....
I really should make more dummy rounds
Yea, yea, why do they call them dummy :)
Mark
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Brad is exactly right. You can FEEL if the feeding is right or not right. The SLAM-BANG high speed
will "paper over" a lot of really 'just not right' feeding situations, but your hand will feel any snags and
your eye will see what is happening.

Actually, creosote, it is easier to pop out the FP stop, pull the firing pin, then put the stop back in,
may need a bit of tape to keep it from falling out, but then cycling live ammo is pretty safe.
Good to test with your 'serious social work' load, if the gun is ever used in that role.

Thank you, intheshop.

Bill
 

creosote

Well-Known Member
Great idea, usually have it halfway apart to do a plunk test.

Keith; Making a short firing pin would be a fun little project. It just needs to keep the stop from falling out.
 
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KeithB

Resident Half Fast Machinist
Sure, but finding a junk one and grinding it off is easier to me than turning down a small diameter part. I don't have time to have fun making stuff like that right now so that affects my thinking. For someone with more time and a small lathe it would be a great project.
 

Brad

Benevolent Overlord and site owner
Staff member
A dummy round is something I tend to have on hand all the time for any handgun round I load for. One for each bullet and cartridge. Handy for resetting the seater after it was changed for use with a different bullet.
I also like them for proof that that OAL will cycle thru the gun in question.
Removing the recoil spring is much faster than removing the firing pin, least for me. I also like not having to fight the spring to cycle the action slowly.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Agree on removing the recoil spring making it easier to feel the feeding forces, but I normally do not keep many
dummy rounds around, certainly not of all bullet types for a cartridge. Plus, I am happy to learn at the
range whether it actually works on any ammo other than $1 a shot 'magic bullet' self defense ammo. THAT
I want to feel how it feeds before spending $50-100 on testing it. I have a few aluminum dummies for
.45, and they have their used, for certain, but will not conclusively tell you if a particular shape and
LOA will feed smoothly.

A cut off FP sounds like a good idea. I may turn out one that is sufficiently close to retain the
FP stop, but NOT work as a FP, and maybe be a bit simpler profile, if possible.

Bill
 
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