Here's my deal. I have a 1911 that is my EDC. I love it, don't want to carry anything else. BUT, it will not shoot hollow point ammo reliably. It WILL shoot regular old ball ammo all day long and never miss a beat. But it chokes on hollow point ammo. Granted, it's a fairly minor type problem, and the problem does not occur every time, but I would prefer to have NO problems with my EDC!
I've tried several different brands of ammo, and also several different magazines from different manufacturers. Results are all the same - unreliable operation with the hollow point ammo. This being my EDC gun, I'd like to run hollow points in it, but have just about decided to simply run plain old GI ball ammo all the time and call it good, since I've never had any problems with that.
But, first, here's my problem: using hollow points, sometimes the slide locks back on the last round in the magazine. What I mean is that the slide locks open (because the magazine is empty), but the last round from the magazine is just sitting on top of the empty mag. The round does not get chambered, it's just sitting loose on top of the mag.
In a lot of cases, conventional wisdom says as the round is coming up the mag, the edge of the bullet is hitting the inside lip of the slide lock (where the follower on the magazine would normally catch it), causing the slide to lock back with a round still in the mag. But in my case, I don't think that totally explains how the bullet ends up outside the magazine, sitting on top of the (now empty) magazine.
What I THINK is happening (at least partially) is that since the hollow point bullets are so much shorter in length than a regular ball round, that the hollow point ammo is working forward in the magazine, with the bullet coming in contact with the inside front of the mag. With the longer ball ammo, that's not an issue. But with the short hollow point rounds, with the bullet being considerably shorter, the bullet just becomes oriented so far forward in the magazine that the lips on the top of the mag don't hold it in the mag when the slide moves back.
I'll admit that I'm new to the 1911 world, so could be missing something. And I still don't have all my questions answered in regard to this problem. But, I'm thinking that if I could add a strip, or a shim, to the length of the inside front part of the magazine, with that added shim being thick enough to hold the bullets to the rear of the magazine, I think that this problem would be fixed. Keeping the bullet to the rear of the mag would keep it away from the inner edge of the slide lock, preventing premature slide lock. The bullet being held to the rear of the mag would also prevent the bullet from popping out of the mag prematurely due to being too far forward for the magazine lips to hold it. The magazine mod would also require notching the carrier, and would require a custom made magazine spring, but I think those would be do-able. If it worked out, I would dedicate a few mags for holding hollow point ammo only, and use other (normal) mags for holding ball ammo for range use.
Sorry for the looooong post, but what do y'all think?
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