Ugly jams with my 1911.

[another okie]

My Springfield has started occasionally wrinkling the last case in a magazine and jamming it in the ejection ramp. It's happened both with my handloads and with factory ammo. It creates a truly ugly jam, very slow to clear, and makes the magazine almost impossible to remove.

I took the gun and the mag it had happened in to a gunsmith. The same thing happened on his second or third try. He said the extractor was fine, and the eight round Wilson magazines had a follower which was too high. He also pointed out that the magazine now had a slightly bowed right lip from having the shell casing shoved under it.

I came home and loaded several of my mags with one round. One of the other Wilson mags now jammed in this way, but not any of the others. My three Wilson mags, which represent quite an investment, are the eight rounders with a plastic base and follower. The follower is concave.

I called Wilson Combat in Arkansas. I got right through to a technician, which is nice. He had me check the extractor tension (fine) and do some practice ejecting with a dummy round. I said the rounds were in general ejecting straight to the right, or occasionally not ejecting if I worked the slide slowly. He concluded that the ejector was not working correctly.

I went back outside with all four of my non-Wilson mags and loaded each with one round and fired them. Each fed and ejected properly. I did this six times, no ejection problems whatsoever.

I then compared the two magazines carefully. It's hard to compare how they look loaded in the gun because the Wilson mags are polished and the others are black, but if there are any differences in the metal body they are very small indeed. However, the Wilson followers are much longer. The factory follower are about 1 1/4" long and the Wilson followers are about 1 3/4" long. The factory followers also seem to point up more than the Wilsons. Obviously at this point I'm leaning towards it being the magazines, but I guess it could be a little of both a weak ejector and a long follower causing the case to tip slightly as it is extracted.

Well, fortunately it's getting too hot here for any IDPA and IPSC shooting for a while. What are your thoughts?

 

[Delmar]

the only things which come to mind other than ammo, and you have seemed to have covered it would be magazine spring tension and/or dirty or misshapen feed lips in conjunction with other issues.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I bought some Wilson magazines that didn't work worth beans in my Kimber, which has never failed to feed, fire, or eject rounds with its own magazines.

 

[KarlG]

I am not a gunsmith, so this stray thought may not even make sense. The only two things I can think of that are different with the last round are the magazine follower is present below the round being ejected instead of another round, and the slide release lever would be engaged because of the follower being present. The follower has been discussed. Could the slide release mechanism have anything to do with the malfunction?

 

[E357]

Sort of sounds like the case is hitting the ejector too low because there isn't another round below it in the magazine and the concave shape (I never liked) of the follower. Try changing followers and/or springs between the working and non-working mags to see what happens.

In my sometimes (rare) carry officers model, the last round either stovepipes or ejects into my forehead. I don't care because I don't carry another mag anyway. If it were a range gun it would bother me.

Elliot

 

[themic]

your recoil spring could be worn out, too. if it recoils and comes back too fast, that round doesn't have enough time to get fully up into the loading position, and gets sortof crunched up and squashed about in there. happened to me before. try out a new spring. also try an extra cleaning and lubing on the inside of the magazines, that one got me before too, and resulted in a similar problem. real pain to get the mag out after the jam.

 

[another okie]

Thanks for the suggestions. I doubt it's a worn out spring, though I know that's the most common cause of failures to feed and eject. Both the gun and the magazines are relatively new. As I think more about it it seems unlikely it's the ejector, since the extracted case never makes it back far enough to be ejected.

 

[Jim K]

I still feel it is the extractor, combined with the mag follower. The extractor may be the right tension, but it could be shaped wrong and not holding the case up fully. The case is then falling down and being wiped off the extractor by the magazine follower, not the ejector. If you have a couple of GI magazines, try them. If they work OK, then try substituting one of the flat followers for the follower of one of the Wilson mags. See what happens.

Jim

 

[another okie]

Good suggestion, Jim. Thanks. I'll give it a try.

 

[ocabj]

I had this exact same problem with my Springfield MilSpec.

1. If you use a Wilson Shok-Buff or a similar device, remove it. This should solve the problem.

2. If you do not use a Shok-Buff (if if you did and removing it did not solve the problem), get a Wilson Combat Bullet Proof Extractor.

I was using a Shok-Buff and I had the same problem as you. I removed it and had no problems afterwards. I then had feed problems were the round would hang up and the slide would just a few cm out of battery. Replacing the extractor solved the problem.