@breakingtime91 How's the wilson running?
@breakingtime91 How's the wilson running?
Big fan. Going to clean it once I get to 1000 rounds. Busy next couple of weeks of school. After that I’m going to put a case through it and some more hst. Exclusively using Wilson mags. Using 115,124, and 147. No issuesOriginally Posted by theJanitor
Well finally got my slide back after almost 3 weeks for them just to change out the sight. Put 300 rounds down range and the gun is definitely a shooter. No issues at all, ran like a champ. The .180 front sight is perfect. I totally see the allure/addiction to 1911's. As someone who has recently gotten into competition, I can see how the 1911 platform would be fun to compete with. Really pleased with the guardian, such a soft shooter and excellent trigger. Really there is nothing not to like about the gun. The weight of the gun is just at 35oz loaded with 10 rounds, so not bad at all for a carry option. I really like the look of the wood grips but I may change to the vz grips. It was raining today at the range and the wood certainly can get a little slick. Really happy with it.
Even though I know that the 9x19 1911-pattern pistol is not as reliable as modern service pistols in the same caliber, I still love to shoot 1911-pattern guns in the caliber. Lately I have been enjoying guns from STI and SVI, especially the below Duty One 5.0. It has a Wilson/Nowlin ramped bushing barrel as well as a Picatinny rail. It has been modified a bit since it left the factory.
The Recoil Master was replaced with a one-piece FLGR to allow easier recoil spring changes. I generally like STI products, but the Recoil Master is an exception. It is a bit too Rube Goldberg for my needs with the little plastic tool required for field stripping the gun. It also makes replacing the recoil spring harder than it needs to be. The FLGR adds a bit more non reciprocating weight to the gun, and muzzle rise is extremely minimal. The single-piece design eliminates concerns about a two-piece design having the muzzle section unscrew.
A Caspian "Trik" flat trigger was fit to the pistol and the trigger pull weight now averages my preferred four and one-half pounds. The factory-provided STI polymer trigger is okay but does not enable/encourage my preferred trigger press. The STI grips were replaced with grips with a scoop that make magazine changes a bit easier for my small hands. Finally the thin STI bluing was replaced with a good coat of black CeraKote to provide more protection from corrosion from the elements and holster wear.
The factory rear sight, the Novak-cut TAS, is an adjustable rear that resembles the Novak Lo-Mount sight. It has a plain serrated rear surface. The front is a black ramp with Testor's orange model paint on it. The sight picture is surprisingly good, and the sight holds zero nicely. I have zeroed it for 147-grain Fiocchi and HST ammo.
Reliability has been okay but not great. There have been a few issues with feeding the first round from slide lock of a magazine from dropping the slide release or fully retracting the slide (especially the latter). The top round dips (pics show 147-grain HST nosediving and not with the same rounds in the same magazine), starts to feed, and gets jammed into the barrel ramp; clearing the jam requires locking the slide back and stripping the magazine. Then the top round has to be removed from the magazine. No other failures to feed. If the magazine feeds the first round, it feeds the rest. No issues locking back on the last round fired. It runs best with the Metalform "Springfield Ramp" and Wilson ETM magazines. It does not run well with Mec-Gar or Colt Metalform magazines. I am running a 12# recoil spring with Enos Slide Glide Lite lube on the slide and disconnect rails. Brass is ending up about five feet from the gun at 4:30, so that is acceptable to me. There have been no failures to extract or eject.
The magazine well integrated into mainspring housing is okay, but single-stack 1911-pattern guns are harder to reload than guns with modern double-stack magazines. I need to make an effort to insure the magazine is seated in the gun due to the magazine well as I have had more than one not properly seated. The magazine catch holds the magazine very high, almost in contact with the extended ejector. An energetic magazine insertion will cause the magazine to strike the ejector. The pistol would still benefit from the magazine being held a bit higher so that the round being fed has less chance to nose dive into the barrel ramp if I can get the nosediving solved. That would require a new magazine catch as well as relieving the ejector. Dawson Precision offers a catch that holds the magazine 0.010" higher.
Accuracy is superb, with shots on steel plates and gongs at about eighty yards doable with lots of holdover. I have not shot it for groups on paper as I keep grabbing my TargetMaster with its three-position rear sight for shots on paper. It is heavy enough at 39 ounces empty to hold steady on distant targets.
All in all, a fine pistol for fun but not one I am willing to carry, even on my property when doing yard work. The issues with reloads and the ejector as well as the failures to feed from slide lock are disqualifying.
I also have one of these. Had a lot of issues with it with the recoil master in it. Went for a GI spring setup, and have had some issues finding the right weight spring. The 10# has been the most reliable so far. Funny yours works with wilson mags, every STI I have had locks up tight when trying to use them. The metal form mags run well, so I haven't tried anything else. The finish was also garbage, so I had it melonited. For what I paid I wish I had spent a bit more and got a 2011, but after messing with mine it now runs well and the finish is holding up.
I am late to this party but I have a bit of experience with 9mm 1911s.
The first thing I'd encourage you to do is go to Pistol-Training.com and read Todd's series of articles about his 9mm 1911 test:
http://pistol-training.com/archives/8839
He also had some threads here on Pistol-Forum where useful information cropped up in the discussions about his test.
Based on conversations with him and the various conversations surrounding his test guns that happened here, I started to think a 9mm 1911 would be neat. I pondered on it a bit and came to the conclusion that the only way I would really do a 9mm 1911 I would consider anything more than a range toy is to buy one from Wilson Combat. To the best of my knowledge they make all their own parts in house and did a significant bit of work on 9mm 1911 magazines and pistols. After talking with all kinds of industry pros about it, the consensus seemed to be that if you were going to buy a 9mm 1911 they were the people to buy it from.
Then one day I happened to be at Colonial Shooting Academy and they had a Wilson CQB in 9mm in stock. I handled it. I was done the second I picked it up. Thousands of dollars later, I had it in my hot little hands.
I did some writing about it:
https://www.gunnuts.net/2016/01/21/w...ombat-cqb-9mm/
Short version is that it is a splendidly reliable pistol. I went a little over 4,000 rounds through the gun when I first bought it without cleaning. I did lubricate the pistol because it's an all steel gun and it would be stupid not to lube it, but the gun got flat out filthy and didn't have a moment's complaint.
Not long after it hit the 4,000 round mark I changed the recoil spring setup in the gun to a flat wire spring kit from Wilson Combat. That didn't change the reliability of the gun and I still run it.
I didn't experience any stoppages with the pistol until I took the Advanced Instructor course with Tom Givens in August of last year. I had multiple stoppages in the class due to a couple of magazines that decided to go bad on me. By "go bad" I mean that they began to dump two rounds when the magazine was inserted vigorously or when the slide was worked with vigor. Part of Tom's qualification requires starting with an empty chamber and performing a remedial action to get the gun up and running within his time limit. I missed a perfect score on the qual because when I tap/racked I ended up with a hellacious double feed I couldn't get cleared in time to fire the shots on that section.
So my best advice would be:
- If you want to play the 9mm 1911 game, bring money. You might get a cheap one that works, or you might end up with a series of problem guns that just make you want to pull your hair out. I know of a few Wilson Combat 9mm 1911's out there in the world and so far I've not seen anyone who bought one have serious problems running it.
- Magazines are a giant pain in the ass. It's not as simple as "Buy Wilson 9mm magazines" because some guns are picky and won't work the best with the Wilson mags. One of the reasons I bought a Wilson Combat 9mm 1911 is because I thought that a Wilson built gun would work well with Wilson built magazines and I wouldn't need to try umpteen different magazine/spring/follower combinations to find something that worked.
- Even when you buy magazines that work properly in the gun, they can go bad on you overnight. The magazines that gave me problems in the Givens class started doing that out of the blue. Prior to the stoppages they caused they had worked just fine for their portion of thousands of rounds. Wilson has since made improvements to their 9mm magazines so perhaps what went bad on my two magazines has been corrected. Can't say for sure, though, as I haven't broken my CQB out of the safe in a while.
I used my CQB as a primary carry gun for a while. I was actually carrying it the last time I saw Todd and during his memorial service. It was certainly reliable enough for carry.
After a lot of shooting, though, I realized that while I could mag dump through the CQB a little bit better than with other pistols, I don't really perform better on various drills with it than I do with my P30s with LEM. It's a splendid pistol but it doesn't make me suck any less in the grand scheme. It's a little bit easier to use with extreme precision thanks to the really nice trigger.
It's a little bit heavy (9mm 1911's tend to be heavier because there's a smaller hole in the barrel...the OD of which is still sized for .45 ACP) but that never really bothered me.
What did bother me was the idea that if I used it in self defense I'd be handing over a fucking $3,500 gun to a police department who would do fuck knows what to it. And, of course, having an identical backup to it would require spending another $3,500. Which I'm certainly capable of doing but apparently I am a lot less angerous at the prospect of it when I spend $3,500 buying and modifying shotguns $200 at a time. Because in my brain apparently that doesn't count.
At the time I bought the CQB the EDC X9 guns didn't exist. If they had, I'd have bought one of those instead. It's nothing against my gun because I still like it every bit as much as I did and it's still a very good pistol...it's just that a reliable double stack 1911 in 9mm that is compact and has a grip no bigger than a typical double stack polymer gun is a winner. One of the biggest drawbacks of a standard 1911 is capacity and the EDC X9 solves that problem.
I have a feeling that if Todd hadn't been taken from us by that tumor in his brain, he'd have been rocking a couple of those.
Last edited by TCinVA; 10-22-2018 at 10:14 AM.
3/15/2016
@TCinVA
Thanks much for the thought out response. Really good stuff, and helpful for sure, but as you indicated, you are late to the party. I have already, (rather quickly) purchased the DW Guardian in 9mm. That said, the information is excellent. The 1911 is mainly for range fun and I just wanted a good quality 1911 for my first go round without spending to much on a WC out of the gate. Not sure the 1911 will ever replace my glocks/Sf option for edc but I did choose the guardian as a reliable/fairly lightweight carry gun for the 1911 platform if I ever want to actually use it for that purpose.
That said, so far it's been fantastic to shoot and I have a feeling it won't be my last. No question if I ever decided to go that route, the DW and for sure the WC would likely be the one's I would consider if I ever get to that point. A couple weeks ago I did get to shoot the X9 and that was just a fantastic firearm, so I agree with you, that would probably be the one I would go to as an edc if I ever decided on the 1911 platform. Again, thanks for your input, appreciate it.
@TCinVA - excellent post.
I've owned several 9mm 1911s -- mostly Colts -- and they have all mostly been reliable. I agree 100% with the bit about magazines. Wilson Combat ETMs may be the best 9mm mags overall, but they don't work the best in all guns.
I may be at a point now where I shift away from 9mm 1911s except for practice. Since my .45ACP Colts are just stupid reliable I think I am back to the .45 when I use 1911s, and Glocks when I want to shoot 9mm. One factor is that my Colts chambered in .45 have been so completely drama free, the other is that I shoot both the .45 1911s and 9mm Glocks better than I shoot my 9mm 1911s. Crazy I know.
I'd probably hazard a guess that most 5" 9mm 1911s are more troubled than their .45 counterparts simply because the slide isn't moving as fast. Its the exact reverse as to why the 3" .45s are so unreliable.
The lighter recoil of the cartridge has less oomph to eject the spent brass and the lighter recoil spring has less oomph to push the round into the chamber. There needs to be more attention to ensure the correct setup of the extractor, the ejector, the springs (recoil, hammer and mag springs) and the magazines.
My educated guess is usually that the 9mm Commander framed guns are a bit more tolerant of those little imperfections because the lighter slide moves a little faster and usually has a stronger recoil spring. Alternatively you can use a practice ammo that is a little hotter (like Speer Lawman) and a duplicate for a known defensive round in a 5" gun. But some powderpuff 115gr WWB might be more finicky. Not to say it won't work, but it'll be less likely to work.
TCinVAs post indicates why the Wilson guns are so reliable. They're all made in house and are very high quality.
Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
Wilson has said it before. They've gone to 4" bushingless slides, and revised frame rails to "enhance" slide speed and reduce friction. Even tri-topping their EDC line for less slide mass. They've got a plan, and it seems to be working well. I can't confirm that I'm looking for a 4" 9mm wilson, too
In the 45, we're using heavier mainsprings, and flat bottom slide stops to slow down the slide.
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