M1911s... Maintenance nightmares?

[Llama Bob]

On a side note, I've had more problems out of three Glocks than I have with a dozen 1911s.

This is so true. I've lost count of the number of non-running Glock gen4s I've seen recently. They must be pounding the obstler schnapps over there in Austria, because those things have SUCKED.

 

[CLP]

This is so true. I've lost count of the number of non-running Glock gen4s I've seen recently. They must be pounding the obstler schnapps over there in Austria, because those things have SUCKED.

so wrong- everyone knows the glock crowd prefers apfelkorn

 

[tuj]

1. Tripp Cobramags are your friend. They are hands-down the best.

2. If you want your gun to handle defensive ammo, test at least 2 boxes of it (I mean 100 rounds). If you have any failures whatsoever, you must have the gun smithed before using it for defensive purposes.

3. From the factory, extractor tension should be fine. This will slowly wear over time, as it does on every pistol, but it just tends to be a bit more of an issue on the 1911 because of its design.

4. Some 1911's need a little beating to wear them in. Les Baer's are often like this. Shooting hardball for 500 - 1000 rounds can help settle the gun's parts.

5. Parts are not interchangeable generally. This is a negative IMHO, but it does ensure custom fitting, which can contribute to quality and/or accuracy. However, it sucks when you break a safety and need a new one and have to file it to fit.

 

[TomJ]

I own 5, and the closest I've come to a problem (outside of my EMP, which I'm not sure is relevant to this discussion) is having to put about 500 rounds through a Springfield Loaded Lightweight Operator I received at Christmas. The owner at the LGS I picked it up at told me it was tight and I would need to have some rounds put through it to loosen it up. Sure enough, after the 500 or so rounds it's been great, as have the other 4 right out of the box.

 

[mavracer]

Don't take my word for it - ask any reputable smith who has been working on 1911s for 30 years. They'll tell you the same thing I did.

Oh for sure the smith will sell you some fancy named reliability package, he'll take it and leave it on his bench until you call a few times then after a few months he'll run a box of ammo thru it and call you to pick it up and charge you a couple hundred dollars.

Like WC I've owned a bunch of 1911s over the years, still have an even dozen, and I've owned prolly twice the number of other autos and I've only had a couple problem children only one was a 1911 a Charles Daly commander that the mag catch was too low and it would nose dive easily.

As a challenge I've taken a couple of my factory stock Colts and loaded mixed SWC, JHP and even empty cases and they feed anything and everything.

 

[Llama Bob]

1. Tripp Cobramags are your friend. They are hands-down the best.

While replacing mags can help some guns, especially older ones, you have to be careful. The Tripp mags have a very high round placement. That tends to help on older guns that had small throat sizes, but it's not good for some modern guns.

For example, new colts have the "dimple" in the barrel to facilitate a lower feed angle. They don't want the round high, and may very well fail with Wilson or Tripp mags. The mag they want is exactly the mag they ship with: an 8rd Checkmate.

Also, some aftermarket 8 round mags have weak springs (notably Wilson).

 

[Llama Bob]

Oh for sure the smith will sell you some fancy named reliability package, he'll take it and leave it on his bench until you call a few times then after a few months he'll run a box of ammo thru it and call you to pick it up and charge you a couple hundred dollars.

This has become all too common, but back in the day there was a need for work to be done if you wanted to make a surplus 1911 fire hollowpoints or SWCs. Plus of course some surplus guns needed a spring swapout etc. That got the idea going of "reliability packages" and smart smiths know a gravy train when they see one.

Modern Colts (and the bulk of other, higher-end guns) need none of that. The springs are new, the barrels are throated for wide-meplat bullets, the feed ramps are perfectly smooth, and the magazines already have SWC or hybrid feed lips. There's nothing to tune.

 

[Mike J]

My experience with 1911's is limited to the Ruger SR 1911 I bought a few years ago. The only problem I have had with it was due to me not liking where it was throwing empties (over my right shoulder). I messed with the tension & fixed it so well I started having failures to feed. I took it back out & retensioned it & it has worked fine since though it still throws empties over my right shoulder.

 

[guyfromohio]

I've purchased six 1911s in the past 9 months.

1) Brand new Colt 1991 Government...replaced safeties, hammer, and grips to my liking...not performance related. No malfunctions until I used CMC 8-round mags. Perfect with stock 7-round and Tripps.
2) Brand New DW VBOB....no mods. After 300 rounds with some mag issues, perfect now.
3) Used Colt XSE Ltwt commander....couldn't get through a mag without an issue. Sold it.
4) BN Colt Lightweight Commander....zero issues ever. Have 500 rnds through it. No mods.
5) BN DW ECO....zero issues at all in first 300. Have not shot more.
6) Used Les Baer Cvii....several lock-open with rounds still in mags...several brands. Have not tried my Tripps in it yet. Previous owner claims 1500 rounds through it.


Bottom line....it will be fine. Just be careful of aftermarket 8-round mags with a flat floor plate. Don't overthink the interwebz. Shoot it wet, shoot it much and it will be just fine.

 

[Llama Bob]

6) Used Les Baer Cvii....several lock-open with rounds still in mags...several brands. Have not tried my Tripps in it yet. Previous owner claims 1500 rounds through it.

I recommend:
http://www.midwayusa.com/product/684844/colt-plunger-spring-assembly-1911-blue

or if it's out of stock,

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/663054/wilson-combat-factory-plus-plunger-spring-assembly-1911

Chances are your premature lockbacks will go away. For some reason I don't understand, a number of high end 1911 makers use plunger springs that are less than ideal.

 

[MICHAEL T]

Most of my hand guns are 1911 family Colts from Government, Commanders, Officer and Defender. NONE ever needed any work I have a American Classic Delux 5" was shooting HP mix brands on 2 nd mag and still going strong today .My Dan Wesson CBOB again no problems .
Most this internet bull is repeated stories from years back of I heard from so and so. Today 1911 are reliable. Only weak point on any semi auto are the mags. You will find more bad mags than bad guns.
I wouldn't buy a rail gun if was a dollar. But I will buy a non rail Colt and day of the week. I think rail ugly and serves no real purpose . But then again I don't do laser and I hold my flash light in hand as I was taught. Both those just might make you the better target if BG concealed . Shot at either and your right behind.

 

[guyfromohio]

Llama Bob... Thanks! I didn't think of that. I figured it was just a mag issue.

 

[entropy]

Having worked on issued M1911's and 1911A1's, none newer than 1946, and owned several different makes of 1911 myself, and worked on many more as a gunsmith after I got out of the Army, I will say that the idea that 1911's had to be worked on came from a combination of people taking Norincos and making race guns out of them in the 70's and 80's, bad manufacturing by Colt and a few others in the 80's, and people expecting Olympic-level accuracy of a pistol designed to be dropped in the dirt, picked up, and fired.
That said, yes, I smooth the ramp and bottom of the barrel on all my 1911's out of habit. Otherwise I personally believe 90% of reliability is good magazines & the other 10% is a proper recoil spring.

 

[highlander 5]

I have 7 1911s in both 45 and 9 mm from S&W,Ruger, RIA and SA and all have run like a sewing machine. The RIA the sear spring broke,had it replaced by a local smith and switched the plastic MSH for one of steel. The 2 bad experiences I've had with 1911s are AMT,better boat anchor than a pistol and back in the late 80s a Colt that the plunger tube housing that launched itself into the weeds never to be found.
The 1911 platform can be finicky but is not the horror show that the Internet makes it out to be.

 

[Llama Bob]

Llama Bob... Thanks! I didn't think of that. I figured it was just a mag issue.

No problem. I have seen more high end 1911s go toes up because of that stupid spring than literally any other problem.

If you look at how the .45 ACP 1911 mag works, it's impossible to get enough clearance so that the rounds don't touch the side of the slide stop and still have the follower engage the bottom slide stop. If you look at the mag from the top with rounds in it (especially HP/truncated cone), and push the top round forward (like it is under recoil) you'll see what I mean. The rounds WILL touch the side of the slide stop, and the thing holding the slide stop down is the plunger spring. You want a strong plunger spring, and a strong mag spring to overcome it to ensure lockback.

 

[Fishbed77]

There is one thing that I've been running across, and that is that 1911s practically all need some level of gunsmithing to be reliable out of the box.

That is 100% nonsense.

I have a Colt Government XSE (exact same gun as a Colt Rail Gun, but without the rail), and it has been 100% reliable straight out of the box, and through a few thousand rounds by now.

By a quality 1911 from a quality maker and leave it at that. Unless you just want to modify your gun.

 

[PabloJ]

Typical 1911 will be less reliable than Glock, Gen III S&W or Makarov pistol. There is no way to get around that fact. It is more difficult to take down than Glock or Makaorv and harder to use and shoot than the Glock.

 

[anothernewb]

Geez, I'm new on the 1911 block, and that concept makes no sense to me. I've bought perhaps a dozen from the Ruger 1911, to a Dan Wesson Silverback in the last 4 years. None of which needed anything for actual function. None have given me any issues at all. All have at least 500 rounds on them, and the ruger passed 11,000 not long ago and it's still running like day one. (albeit having the mainspring changed at 10k)

they've been fed a variety of factory hardball, 200 lswc handloads and 185 hp's.

I have sent 3 to the gunsmith - for trigger jobs. Out of the box only one, a kimber grand raptor, had a heavy trigger, with some gravelly feel. and even then it wasn't all that bad, but I got used to the 3.5-4# pulls in all of my other guns so I wanted that one "perfect" as well.

 

[mavracer]

Typical 1911 will be less reliable than Glock, Gen III S&W or Makarov pistol.

How is a Glock, Gen III S&W or Mak more reliable than my 1911s that never malfunction.

 

[Llama Bob]

How is a Glock, Gen III S&W or Mak more reliable than my 1911s that never malfunction.

Negative malfunctions, clearly

The absurdity of this is that while the Glock fanboys pratter, the actual gen4 Glocks being shipped have been horrible, especially in 9mm. The wrong spring rates, feed problems, extraction problems, ejection problems. Yuck.

 

[bullzeye8]

The 1911 having all these issues is way overblown. It would not be near this popular of a gun if it were true. Yes everyone puts out a problem gun now and then. If it isn't reliable out of the box you should send it back to factory to get it fixed for free. Most should not need that. Also buy good magazines to use. I use Wilson mags and have no problems with my s&w but the person I shoot with uses cheap mags in a nighthawk and has problems until I let him borrow my Wilson mags. So many people like getting work done to 1911's to make them better that it gets turned into something people think you have to do but that is not true.

1911's do not need expert maintenance either. Just like every other gun clean them after a few hundred rounds and oil it and you won't have a problem. People have shot 1500 rounds without cleaning a 1911 and they have been fine.

 

[tark]

I have been around 1911s for a long time, worked for Les for 21 years, and here's my opinion of the subject of out of the box reliability in production 1911s:

I don't have one. Never bought one. I have zero first hand experience with new 1911s or whether or not they work; I've never owned a "new" 1911, except for my retirement present. And it is a safe queen. The gun writer who tested it got 100% reliability. Well, IMHO, you BETTER get that in a very expensive custom shop gun. I fired seven rounds, just to say that I had shot it.

But my first 1911 was a used parts gun and my second was the gun above. I only have two 1911s. Sometimes I feel like I should have more, considering my work history....but I feel that 1911s are so near the "Perfect" handgun that one is all you need

All I can contribute to this discussion is this: I have lots of friends who HAVE bought lots of new 1911s. I have heard very few complaints about functional reliability out of the box. A Colt rail gun should work just fine. I think the "needs work" people are the ones that want the gun to be just a little bit better. They want it to feed anything and everything, or they want a fine, four pound trigger pull, as opposed to the gritty eight pound pull the gun came with.

Nothing whatsoever wrong with that. These guys want the gun to be fine tuned to be the best it CAN be, to give them every edge in a fight. They are not wrong. When I finally get my carry licence I will Join them. There is a big difference between a "fun" gun and one you trust your life to.

But I think that any good, brand name 1911 will probably function just fine out of the box, with a couple hundred rounds to break it in.

 

[RetiredUSNChief]

Most production grade 1911s will need some work for 100% reliability because of tolerance stacking or dull cutting tools or sub contracted small parts. If you happen to buy one that doesn't need anything - you are a lucky person. If built to original blueprint specs and close tolerances a 1911 is extremely reliable. The problem is almost no one builds them like that today until you get into Wilson, Baer, Brown price levels. Back in the old days highly skilled craftsmen carefully fitted every part in the gun. Machines were expensive but labor was cheap. They would give a fitter a box of parts and tell him to fit it as good as he could - no matter how long that might take. He might only produce 2 or 3 guns per shift. Now it's the opposite. The problem has nothing to do with the 1911 design - it's because of modern mass production techniques. If you tried to build an engine or transmission with tolerances that loose it wouldn't run very long. A great deal of what we buy today is driven by producing X units per day and selling at a price point. It's all about sales volume. They are more concerned with how many units they can sell and less concerned with how many of them work poorly or not at all. They want to use CAD/CAM machines that spit parts out and then just assemble them into a gun at high speed and ship them out. That works for lawn mowers but not 1911s. Larry Vickers recently stated that if a guy wants to run a 1911 he must learn how to work on it. I would agree. If you just want plug and play - get a Glock. But once you get a 1911 set up and running 100% it's like nothing else in the world for shooting pleasure and it will run that way for many years.

Sense. This makes none.

NO GUN would long survive in the market if this were the case, much less survive essentially unchanged for more than 100 years.

 

[Zaydok Allen]

Typical 1911 will be less reliable than Glock, Gen III S&W or Makarov pistol. There is no way to get around that fact.

We are talking about reliability of 1911's, not Glocks, not S&W Gen III's, and not Maks, so this point is irrelevant.

It may be your experience and opinion, but stating it as fact doesn't make it a fact. Other folks could say the exact opposite for them is true. That doesn't make their statement a fact either. So unless someone has numbers to back up statements like that, I would encourage anyone making such declarative sentences to start it out with "In my opinion" or "In my experience".

It is more difficult to take down than Glock or Makaorv and harder to use and shoot than the Glock

Again, that may be for you, but I have taken down my 1911 many times, and find it no more difficult than any other gun. It's different, and maybe takes a few more seconds, but that doesn't make it difficult. To say so implies complexity, which is solely subject to opinion.

And I actually find shooting a 1911 tremendously easier than a Glock, as the trigger is IMO far easier to master on a 1911, it fits my hand far better, and the added weight of the 1911 helps tame recoil.

You may find a Glock easier to shoot, but your opinion doesn't make your statement a fact for everyone. It makes it a fact for you, and you alone.

And besides, this is a thread about 1911's, so in this context, who cares about Glocks? The answer is nobody, because they are irrelevant. The OP didn't ask if he should buy a 1911 or a Glock, he asked about care, maintenance, and reliability of 1911's.

 

[Sergei Mosin]

To the OP -

You have been posting a lot of threads about buying a 1911 lately. Nothing wrong with that, it's a discussion forum, after all, and you want to make an informed decision. But there comes a point where you have to stop analyzing it to death. Buy the gun, some magazines, and a case of ball, and then go shoot the thing and see if it floats your boat.