Sport45
Member
Last month I posted about the feed failures I was having with my Colt 1991A1. My problems appear to be over and I wanted to relate what the cure turned out to be.
I was loaned a reliable magazine from a very reliable source for which I am very grateful. (I wasn’t granted permission to post his name, so I won’t.) Anyway, I made the trek to the range with my magazines and his and guess what? I didn’t have any failures with his although I had multiple failures with mine. The troubles were the same as I’d had originally in this thread.
I took the gun home and cleaned it thoroughly, including stripping the slide. I usually clean the extractor channel by shooting brake cleaner through it. This time I used k’bob sticks and long swabs. There was quite a bit of dried bullet lube, powder residue, and dirt in there. I checked extractor tension after cleaning with a new S&B FMJ and it seemed okay (it seemed okay before cleaning as well). I determined “okay” by inserting said cartridge under the extractor and shaking the slide. The cartridge would wiggle around a bit but not fall out.
Back to the range with my freshly cleaned 1991 and freshly cleaned magazines had the same results. The gun functioned flawlessly with the loaner mag and had multiple troubles with my Mec-Gars. I had one failure with one of my McCormick Shooting Stars (I think I misidentified these earlier as Wilson’s) and none of these failures with my Colt magazines.
The cleaning certainly helped, but the root cause of my problem was the magazines. I will soon be putting Wolff extra power magazine springs in my Colt and McCormick magazines and sending the Mec-Gars back for replacement (again). Maybe I’ll get lucky with the Mec-gars this time, but I’m convinced it is only luck that makes them work. By the way, the Mec-Gars are the MGCG4508-PF 8-rounders with the plastic floor plate.
I was loaned a reliable magazine from a very reliable source for which I am very grateful. (I wasn’t granted permission to post his name, so I won’t.) Anyway, I made the trek to the range with my magazines and his and guess what? I didn’t have any failures with his although I had multiple failures with mine. The troubles were the same as I’d had originally in this thread.
I took the gun home and cleaned it thoroughly, including stripping the slide. I usually clean the extractor channel by shooting brake cleaner through it. This time I used k’bob sticks and long swabs. There was quite a bit of dried bullet lube, powder residue, and dirt in there. I checked extractor tension after cleaning with a new S&B FMJ and it seemed okay (it seemed okay before cleaning as well). I determined “okay” by inserting said cartridge under the extractor and shaking the slide. The cartridge would wiggle around a bit but not fall out.
Back to the range with my freshly cleaned 1991 and freshly cleaned magazines had the same results. The gun functioned flawlessly with the loaner mag and had multiple troubles with my Mec-Gars. I had one failure with one of my McCormick Shooting Stars (I think I misidentified these earlier as Wilson’s) and none of these failures with my Colt magazines.
The cleaning certainly helped, but the root cause of my problem was the magazines. I will soon be putting Wolff extra power magazine springs in my Colt and McCormick magazines and sending the Mec-Gars back for replacement (again). Maybe I’ll get lucky with the Mec-gars this time, but I’m convinced it is only luck that makes them work. By the way, the Mec-Gars are the MGCG4508-PF 8-rounders with the plastic floor plate.
