Greetings all. I have converted my springfield armory 1911 in 45 ACP to also use 10mm Auto ammo.
Contrary to popular belief, the only PART I needed was new barrel. Same Mag, barrel bushing, and upper reciever. The barrel is just thicker.
You DO, however, need to tweak the extractor a bit (not replace) to get it to reliable extract the 10mm cases. Upper reciever(slide) remains unmolested.
The reason I did it was because I also have a "parker" 10MM auto from "wyoming arms" and saw that the 45 and 10mm were the same except for the barrel. Got me thinking. I use the same mag as came with the SA pistol.
I have 30 years of gunsmithing experience but I must say that I did the whole "mod" with a belt sander, files, dremel, and time.
The hardest part is the extractor actually. I have to tune it a bit to swap barrels and go from one caliber tho the other at the range without incident. 45ACP is great, but at first the extractor would not pull out the smaller diameter 10 mm case reliably. I can cover the serial number and post pics to prove it. The GI spec 45 ACP is 5" barrel. The 10MM auto is actually a 40 S&W chamber reamed to 10mm. And, yes, the barrels are the same but for caliber. Slide says "45 ACP", barrel says " 40 S&W", it shoots 10MM auto and swaps back and forth.
PS. ONLY reason is to shoot pigs and to increase variety. 45 ACP still rules!
PPS: 10MM auto barrel is 6"
