1911 Magazine Feed Lip Analysis

[Candiru]

A long while back I did some analysis of 1911 magazines for a friend and wrote up my experiences in an article (http://how-i-did-it.org/magazines). It was not a very comprehensive article and that bothered me, so I decided to take a whack at something a little more comprehensive and at the same time more focused: If you keep all things equal except the feed lips and the ammo type, how does that change the way cartridges feed?

Here's the result: http://how-i-did-it.org/magazines2. Check out the conclusions for some observations on ball ammo and USGI mags that ended up changing my carry load.

[Brian48]

Nice work.

[DBAR]

That was a very well written article. Thank you for sharing it with us, and I hope people actually take the time to read it. They just might learn something. I did.

DBAR

[Dust Monkey]

Damn good article. Browning was ahead of his time. A 1911 built to spec, including the magazine, is 100% reliable. I have a 44 RR. With 2 hardball mags. Never misses a beat.

[Jason_G]

Hey Candiru.

I've actually read that article in the second link several times before, and I have recommended it many times as a great source of info to others who were asking questions about 1911 mag design.

Nice write up.

Jason

[Dust Monkey]

If you do something like this again. Please include the Novak/ACT magazines. I like their followers. The cracking feed lip issue on the Novak/ACT magazines have supposed to be fixed.

[vox rationis]

excellent write up

thanks for the gargantuan undertaking

a few questions though:

when the gun is fully in battery and the barrel fully locked up, what difference would it make whether that round got into the chamber via USGI lips or hybrid lips or whatever..the gun should have the same accuracy regardless of the magazine..or what am I missing here?

also regarding the wadcutter lips, I think that if you feed a round slowly into the chamber, yes there is that point where the round seems to pop out as the lips release control of the round, but when the gun is being fired, obviously the slide velocity is such that the breech face is always in contact with the round, with the eventual migration of the case under the extractor and its eventual push into the chamber, that happens so quickly, that the round isn't nearly as "uncontrolled" as slow manual feeding suggests..in other words, slowly manually cycling the action is deceiving and suggests a degree of non controlled feeding that is greatly exaggerated, and perhaps not even present to a significant degree at full cycling speed

as an example of this, I can feed rounds all day long successfully by releasing the slide on a round being fed via a wadcutter lips mag when the gun is upside down, but if I slooowly feed the round with the gun upside down, and especially if I lag and allow loss of contact between the breech and the round, then yes the round pops out and jams the action, or falls out the ejection port, but again at speed it is not a problem (I admit though I haven't fired my 1911 upside down with live ammo, but the return to battery slide velocity has to be at least as high as when releasing the slide manually with the slide release)

what do you think?

In any case a very educational article