Originally Posted by
HCM
Yes, and the issue came down to mags. Neither Para nor prior STI mags were up to snuff. The fact that they were .45s and the weight of the ammo va the strength of the springs was another issue.
HK, Glock and S&W have al made reliable double stack .45s though, particularly HK. You know why ? Magazines. HK is a magazine company. Their mags are engineered for maximum reliability rather than maximum capacity.
If making good, consistent mags was easy, Colt, HK, SIG, Beretta, S&W etc would not outsource mag production.
One of STI’s changes to try and get into the LE/GOV market is they redesigned and outsourced their 2011 magazines. Which also dropped the price. So far the new production mags seem to be living up to the hype and they are $40-45 a pop rather than $75 or more.
Speaking of mags, while some of the old, in house STI mags needed tuning to run, part of the 2011s negative reputation is based on competitors trying to cram as many rounds as possible into a mag of a certain length. As we have seen with trying to cram 8 rounds into a 7 round length 1911 mag tube, 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag is not a recipe for reliability.