[LawofThirds]

I recently picked up a pair of wilson combat blued 8 round 1911 magazines from cheaper than dirt and I have a few questions.

Should the follower slide out the front of the magazine tube with such little provocation? It's moving forward enough that I have to double check each time I load the magazine to make sure it doesn't jam against the tube.

Why won't it slide lock when empty? :cuss: I expect the follower to perform this function every time but it feels unstable and gritty when moving up the tube.

Why does it have such issues feeding hollowpoints when fully loaded? 185 Gr Gold dots which fed perfectly with the magazine supplied with the gun (Kimber TLE) hang up and nose dive every time if there's 8 rounds in the magazine.

I'd like to have 8 rounds but if these are all issues that 8 round magazines have, I'm stickin' to 7+1.

[alanjtc73n]

I've got the 47D's blued which should be what you're talking about and haven't had a problem. The follower should be plastic. It's long enough that when no rounds are loaded, the bottom of the follower doesn't come out of the tube. In fact, I'm fiddling with mine right now and it's impossible to pull the follower out without taking the magazine apart.

Again, with the plastic follower and stock spring, mine lock open every time. In fact, it's difficult (compared to my CMC mags) to thumb the slide lock to release the slide when the mags are empty.

I'm thinking you might have picked up the Wilson Combat Service Magazine. If you have these, they have a metal follower which could slide out. Have you disassembled them? I'm not sure about the Wilsons, but the CMC's have a tab on the follower where the mag spring catches to prevent the follower from moving forwards. These are not nearly as desirable as the 47D's. If you want, you could buy the magazine rebuild kit from Wilson that includes a new spring and plastic follower. This should make them perform like the 47D's.

I've gone through tons of 1911 mags - cheap surplus, CMC, MecGar, Wilson, etc. and the same old line applies. You get what you pay for. The best "cheap" mags I have that work great are the CMC Shooting Stars. MecGar also worked well but I had some slide lock problems. The Wilson 47D and new ETMs are awesome. Never a single problem in my Kimber series 1. In fact, all my other mags sit in a pile in my closet and the Wilson's come with me every time. Good luck - sometimes, certain guns like certain mags.

[LawofThirds]

Ok, it appears I have the service mags. Guess I'll look into the plastic followers then.

[alanjtc73n]

If you're not totally vested in the Wilsons, just sell 'em (or keep them for another project) and pick up some CMC's or 47D's. Used ones come around quite often. In fact, if you're interested in some 10 round CMC's. Shoot me a PM.

[cbmax]

Thought I would jump into this one.

I just received some Wilson 47D eight round mags with plastic followers.

All of my other aftermarket mags are either Metalform or Ed Brown 7 round mags with metal round followers.

I bought these Wilsons to try in my Kimber Royal II. I haven't brought the new mags to the range yet, but thus far the first things I noticed was the extra force it takes to seat the mag in the gun (no big deal) and the extra force necessary to release the slide stop and close the chamber while manually cycling the gun.

Based on above posts I am guessing this is normal???? Again I haven't fired the gun with the Wilson mags yet, but I'm a little concerned about the slide stop as it looks like it really digs into the notch in the slide.

Can anyone share their experiences?? I don't want to do any irrepairable damage to the slide..

CB

[cbmax]

Please help....

[Oro]

Go shoot it and see. The quality wilson, brown's, etc., with plastic followers and such do not malfunction often. You also haven't broken yours in with a few rounds and some lube, based on what you said.

As the OP learned, buy the real stuff, not mis-labled stuff from CTD. They are a good stuff for surplus items, but not 100% genuine items. They are well known for selling some copy-cat colt and S&W grips and mags. If you are saving a bundle, ask yourself why you are.

[Oro]

CBmax - it's really hard to do damage to a 1911 slide unless you are using it off the frame as a hammer, or have badly fit onto your gun a bad barrel with an ill-sized link and mis-fit lugs. Otherwise, it will last about a 100 years with casual use, as many guns on the market have shown.

That the new mags are a little stiffer in going home and releasing means the springs are new, and they fit well, nothing else. I am more concerned about magazines that slam home w/o effort and release w/o much effort - they are the ones that will fail first as the follower is getting misshapen or the spring/base plate is wearing out too fast. A well-built magazine should offer some resitance to seating and ejection, and maintain that resistance, as well as offering positive slide-stop after last-round ejection. It's the "easy" ones that start offering operating problems.

[cbmax]

ORO,

Thank you for your reply.

CB

[Oro]

Glad to help. For my information, does "cbmax" have anything to do with honda, or just another initialism?

[cbmax]

Nope, nothing to do with Hondas. CB are my initials and Max was my dogs name.

[Drail]

Really cool name for a dog. Wilson mags are very high quality but very overpriced. Check your gun with other people's mags to see if they will lock the slide back. If they don't (consistently) you might need a new slide stop. Also sounds like your mag catch is a little out of spec (too high in the frame). It also sounds like the mags are releasing the hollowpoint rounds a little too early. Magazines designed to feed ball rounds will have problems with any other type of bullet. I have always had good luck with Chip McCormick's standard magazine. They feed anything in all of my Springfields. But try different mags to see if the problem is the mags or the gun.

[Candiru]

Not a huge fan of Wilson magazines. Their famous reliability comes from the fact that they act as a workaround to the 1911's normal feeding system: The round leaves the magazine so high and takes such a straight shot at the chamber that it bypasses the spots where an out-of-spec gun would have trouble. It's similar to how Glocks achieve reliability: They turn the chamber into an easy target and then just kind of fling the round at it as fast as possible and try not to let anything get in the way. It avoids errors caused by poor construction at the cost of introducing randomness, while the 1911 design specifies very stringent dimensions in order to ensure predictable feeding.

I wrote an article (http://how-i-did-it.org/magazines) about 1911 magazines that goes into this in more detail.