The real reliability issue.
Perhaps it is us to blame for the feeding problems in the 1911 pattern pistols.
If I decided to produce and market a custom tuned exhaust manifold for my Jeep Cherokee that didn't work unless the motor was modified whoul;d that be Jeep's (Chrysler's) fault? Of would it be mine?
Let's face the simple truth that there wasn't much bullet selection in 1911. ALL semi-automatic pistol ammunition back then used a metal jacketed or at least a metal pointed bullet.
It was quite a long time before hollow point bullets were introduced in handgun ammunition. A good example is the Speer 200gr JHP commonly called the "Flying Ashtray". In some guns it fed and in some it didn't. Whose fault is it? Colt for not feeding it reliably or Speer for designing and selling a bullet that didn't feed? I recall many articles, back when gun magazines were worth reading cover to cover, recommending carrying a Speer in the chamber and a magazine full of Remington 185gr JHP. Now the Remingtons didn't expand as consistantly as the Speer but they fed like crazy.
But people wanted that Speer. That big cavity was, and still is impressive. People were determined to alter the gun to make it feed. So Speer didn't have to spend the money to redesign the bullet. And why should they? People were buying them like popcorn both loaded and as components. And then going to all of the troube, time and money to adapt the pistol to the ammunition when it should have been the other way around.
As we should all know by now, you can design a bullet that will feed reliably and yet still expand consistently. But there are still bullet designs out there that don't feed 100% and there are still people modifying their guns to adapt.
The manufacturers are trying to design pistols that will feed everything availabe and everything that still may yet be concieved because they know if they don't someone will be on an internet forum somewhere pissing and moaning because it doesn't work.
So whose fault is it really?
