9mm 1911 magazines

[Robinson]

Since there has been some interest shown on the forum about 1911 pistols lately, some of which involves 9mm guns I thought I would share some of my experience with magazines over the past half year or so.

All of my 1911s are Colts, none are high end custom builds. Several of them do have modifications such as sights, mainspring housings and grip safeties. The .45 guns work fine with ball and hollow point ammunition.

As for the 9mm guns I've had mixed but mostly good results. My Colt Competition gun, which is a Government model, feeds ball and hollow point ammo with no problems even with the factory 9 round mags. I only have several hundred rounds through the gun so far but no failures of any kind yet.

My 9mm Commander feeds ball ammo fine -- no problems in a couple thousand rounds of ball. It has failed to feed hollow points on several occasions, so I started a quest to find magazines that work better in the gun. I tried some of the new Chip McCormick XP 9mm magazines -- they are hard to insert and do not drop free when empty in the Commander. They also did not fix the problem with feeding hollow point ammo.

I also bought some recent production Wilson Combat ETM mags. These magazines are really nice -- they insert easily and drop free (in my guns) when empty. So far the gun seems to feed both ball and hollow points with no problem using these mags, but I have only fired about a hundred hollow points so far. I will post an update once I have a bunch more hollow point rounds through the gun using the WC mags.

The hollow point ammo I am shooting is the Federal P9HST2 147gr regular pressure ammo. I realize the round counts above are low but until late last year I was shooting .45ACP almost exclusively.

[ranger]

I bought six of the Brownells 9mm 1911 10 round magazines. Ran about 300 rounds through the six mags between Thursday night and today (just got home from range) in my SA 1911 9mm Range Operator. No issues and the price is right. Ammo was my reloads - mix of Bayou 135 RN over Bullseye and 124 RN over WSF. Minor power factor.

[Odin Bravo One]

Something to remember when dealing with 1911s, and ESPECIALLY 9mm 1911s is that feeding issues might not be limited to magazines....... I use CMC & Wilson mags in my 9mm 1911s and all run like the proverbial raped ape with whatever ammo I toss in them. Magazine or ammo type, none of the four 9mm pistols care.

Most of the time if you're having issues like this, the magazine is to blame. But, I've seen it more often than I'd would have liked to with 1911s where the magazines are not the problem. Just something to think about.

[TC215]

One of the biggest issues with 9mm 1911 mags is the top round creeping forward and now allowing the magazine to eject for a tac reload. The new generation of ETM mags have fixed this. I bought a couple and have run a few hundred rounds through them without issue so far. I've also had good experience with the 10 round Chip McCormicks.

I also saw a couple days ago that Wilson has released a 9mm version of the Vickers/Wilson duty mags. I have a couple of the .45 versions and have been happy with them so far.

[SecondsCount]

We have had this discussion before and I posted in it (https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?9403-9mm-1911-mags)

I will add that we have had good success with the two Chip McCormick mags that were purchased a year ago.

[Robinson]

I bought six of the Brownells 9mm 1911 10 round magazines. Ran about 300 rounds through the six mags between Thursday night and today (just got home from range) in my SA 1911 9mm Range Operator. No issues and the price is right. Ammo was my reloads - mix of Bayou 135 RN over Bullseye and 124 RN over WSF. Minor power factor.

I may have to get some of those to try. The WC mags work nice but are pricey.


Something to remember when dealing with 1911s, and ESPECIALLY 9mm 1911s is that feeding issues might not be limited to magazines....... I use CMC & Wilson mags in my 9mm 1911s and all run like the proverbial raped ape with whatever ammo I toss in them. Magazine or ammo type, none of the four 9mm pistols care.

Most of the time if you're having issues like this, the magazine is to blame. But, I've seen it more often than I'd would have liked to with 1911s where the magazines are not the problem. Just something to think about.

Absolutely true. I had a Super .38 that had feeding issues with all magazines and it required an experienced gunsmith to fix the problem -- and he did.


We have had this discussion before and I posted in it (https://pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?9403-9mm-1911-mags)


Sorry, I thought the topic had been discussed here before but it seemed like a good time to start a dialogue since people are looking more and more at 9mm 1911 pistols as viable options.

[dsa]

I shoot SSTK in USPSA; there is a bit of a major vs minor experiment going on at my local club. The best guys that are shooting SSTK minor have tried mags from: Tripp, Wilson, CMC, and Dawson....they have settled on Dawson mags. These guys are all "A" class or better and shoot > 15K rounds/year.

[WilsonCombatRep]

I shoot SSTK in USPSA; there is a bit of a major vs minor experiment going on at my local club. The best guys that are shooting SSTK minor have tried mags from: Tripp, Wilson, CMC, and Dawson....they have settled on Dawson mags. These guys are all "A" class or better and shoot > 15K rounds/year.

We made major revisions to our mags this year.

[WilsonCombatRep]

I may have to get some of those to try. The WC mags work nice but are pricey.



Man those HK mags are nice but they sure are pricey! :)

The new ETM 9mm mags will work---or your money back.

[dsa]

The new ETM 9mm mags will work---or your money back.

Is there a way to tell if the mags are of recent manufacture? I'll buy a couple tonight and give them a try.

[rdtompki]

Tripp Cobra 10-round mags work well in our SA 9mm 1911s. Actually, the stock mags work well, but wife and I are fairly high volume shooters (>20K rounds/year each) and the stock mag springs did need to be replaced. Also, we shoot very soft loads in Steel Challenge and after the mags get dirty things start to deteriorate. I had set aside 12 stock mags for malfunction; after a good cleaning all but one functioned 100% and I believe the feed lips on the bad mag are out of spec.

[Robinson]

I may have to get some of those to try. The WC mags work nice but are pricey.


Man those HK mags are nice but they sure are pricey! :)

The new ETM 9mm mags will work---or your money back.

Yeah I can see how that might have seemed like a complaint, but it really wasn't. Don't get me wrong, the WC mags work great and I feel I can depend on them for defensive use. I'm sure I will purchase more of them in the near future. But I don't mind trying some less expensive options for range use.

[SoCalDep]

I have a Springfield Loaded Target 9mm. Changes pertinent to reliability include a 12# recoil spring and 19# hammer spring (got rid of ILS). The gun came with two 9rd mags. I bought an extra 9rd mag, (2) Metalform 9rd mags, (2) CMC 10rd mags, and a Wilson Combat 10rd (not the newest version). The only magazine that has ever given me problems was the extra 9rd Springfield mag I purchased. Everything else runs great. I prefer the CMC mags, but the Wilson mag runs great too... just a bit harder to load that last round and it "feels" like it wants to dive. It runs great though. I want to try the new Wilson mags and I probably will once I get the proper height front sight dialed in. I'm at probably around 3,000-4,000 rounds so far with only a 3-4 malfunctions.

[Robinson]

I have a Springfield Loaded Target 9mm. Changes pertinent to reliability include a 12# recoil spring and 19# hammer spring (got rid of ILS). The gun came with two 9rd mags. I bought an extra 9rd mag, (2) Metalform 9rd mags, (2) CMC 10rd mags, and a Wilson Combat 10rd (not the newest version). The only magazine that has ever given me problems was the extra 9rd Springfield mag I purchased. Everything else runs great. I prefer the CMC mags, but the Wilson mag runs great too... just a bit harder to load that last round and it "feels" like it wants to dive. It runs great though. I want to try the new Wilson mags and I probably will once I get the proper height front sight dialed in. I'm at probably around 3,000-4,000 rounds so far with only a 3-4 malfunctions.

I had one of those pistols a while back and it passed the 2K challenge no problem (after I found mags that worked well in the gun). I conducted the test with Metalform magazines and a 13# recoil spring. I posted the results somewhere in the 2K challenge thread.

[Larry Sellers]

Vote for the chip mccormick 10 rounders. I have put about 3k through my dan wesson valkyrie commander and they have worked very well. I did get one from the manufacturer with an out of spec magazine tube and it refused to drop free. I did have the WC 500-9 Magazine that wouldn't allow the gun to go into battery with the same ammo as the chip magazines. I think it requires finding what magazines run in your guns and going from there.

[45dotACP]

Something to remember when dealing with 1911s, and ESPECIALLY 9mm 1911s is that feeding issues might not be limited to magazines....... I use CMC & Wilson mags in my 9mm 1911s and all run like the proverbial raped ape with whatever ammo I toss in them. Magazine or ammo type, none of the four 9mm pistols care.

Most of the time if you're having issues like this, the magazine is to blame. But, I've seen it more often than I'd would have liked to with 1911s where the magazines are not the problem. Just something to think about.

This exactly. My sample is mostly with my two .45s and a crappily made filipino trash heap, but I've found that the best mag won't fix a screwed up gun. I've also found that a properly made gun with the appropriate parts will run with most any major manufacturer's mags. I properly make my guns and they run with Metalforms, with Wilson, with Chip McCormicks (even the cheap Shooting Star mags), with Tripps...

[PPGMD]

I use Dawson mags in my 9mm 1911s. No issues with feeding and, all except one that has a funky slide stop ledge, they look back on empty.

[Robinson]

Brief update: I recently picked up another Colt Competition 9mm pistol since I like my first one so much. The front sights will be changed out and I already ditched the polymer mainspring housings, but other than that I really like the guns. Both the Wilson Combat and Chip McCormick magazines are working well with the CCP so far, the WC mags insert and eject a little better. The guns also feed my favored defensive ammo with all my magazines so far.

The Commander I had worked great with ball ammo and carried nicely but it had issues with hollow points. It got traded for the second CCP. I know an experienced gunsmith and I know he could get the gun running properly with hollow points but I prefer the Government model overall anyway so I made the deal.

One type of magazine I still want to try in these pistols is the Tripp Cobra mag. I've heard good things but have no experience with them yet.