My Commander is jamming

[FoghornLeghorn]

I took two 1911s to the range today. One was a heavily modified Mark 4/series 70 that was customized by Clark Custom Guns.

The other is a Colt Combat Commander.

I fired 200 grain SWC bullets. Some with 5 grains Unique. Some 6 grains. And also some WWW 230 grain factory ammo.

The Mark 4 did fine.

The Commander had frequent jams. Some on the feed ramp. A couple of stovepipes.

I even used the mag out of the Mark 4, and it still jammed.

Suggestions? It's mostly a stock gun. The only thing I did was to put an ambi safety on it.

Would polishing the feed ramp help?

[chris in va]

The semi wadcutter OAL probably needs to be adjusted or switched to LRN.

[FoghornLeghorn]

I'll try that. The shoulder of the swc will be even with the lip of the case.

[RickB]

Has the Commander ever worked correctly?

[AK103K]

How old is the Commander?

Earlier guns often need some work for them to reliably feed the wadcutters.

[Rainbow Demon]

While at the range two older guys had two similar bobcat stlye 1911 pocket size pistols and both were having frequent jams or misfeeds.
One asked if I'd take a look at his pistol to see what was going wrong.
I fired two magazines (the shortened mags , I forget the capacity) from it without a hitch.
I then tried the other and it also functioned perfectly.

Both pistols then jammed again when the owners fired them.

Thats was the first time I'd seen "Limp Wristing" in action.

A very lightweight autoloader will misfeed if the pistol is not held more firmly than the average hold on a heavier pistol of the same type.

I use a light but firm grip on the standard 1911, with grip safety drawn tight into the web of the thumb by the middle finger, with slightly less pressure on ring and little finger as it goes further down, the little finger exerting little force.
I'd instinctively used a tighter grip on the cutdown bob cats.

The lighter Commander may react the same way to a lesser extent.

[smee78]

Sounds like it does not like the WC's.

[Billy Shears]

There have been several very reasonable suggestions offered so far, but if those don't solve the problem one more thing you might consider is double checking your loads. 5 grains of Unique under a 200 grain bullet is within spec, but only barely so. That's a very light load. And if your powder measure has even a .1 or .2 grain margin of error from one throw to the next you may be loading up to half your rounds below the minimum starting load. I have a Hi-Power that regularly balks at such light loads and wonder if your pistol is sending you a similar message.