1911 Lowered and flared ejection ports- ability to eject a live round?

[Rmiked]

I have been reading some old posts here about these things. I have a DW Specialist in 10mm and it ejects a live round fine (although I don’t do that unless needing to empty pistol). It ejects snap caps real well. The DW has a lowered and flared ejection port. Am I understanding the true military spec 1911s (JMB design) is not intended to eject live rounds easily? Because the pistol is designed to shoot and eject empty cases? What is the rationale here? Also some have written there may be some inherent risk of the ejector hitting a primer and igniting a live round IF ejecting live rounds. Is that possible? It looks to me like the ejector is off-center to the left (looking from behind pistol) and not capable of hitting the primer. I am not very experienced with 1911s and appreciate the wealth of knowledge here. Thanks

[45dotACP]

One of the risks of extended 1911 ejectors is the detonation of which you speak. I haven't seen a great many GI type 1911s with extended ejectors though. It has been known to happen however, especially with guns that have the longer ejectors (usually ones with shorter slides or that aren't .45 ACP)

The main reason I use a "slingshot" method of racking the slide on a chambered semi auto pistol is out of concern for an ejector striking the primer and detonating a cartridge while my hand is above the ejection port. I don't think it's a problem unique to 1911s, so my way of racking the slide is the same for all semi autos.

The GI style ejectors however, are quite short, so that's probably why they won't eject live rounds, but I can't imagine them detonating a cartridge either, as they tend to be a little less pointy.

[farscott]

When JMB designed the 1911 pistol, not much thought was given to what we now term administrative handling of the pistol or reusing fired brass. Sure, the US Army asked for the addition of the thumb safety, but no one was too concerned about how to unload the weapon or what to do with brass other than making sure it was removed from the range after firing. There was concern about mud and dirt getting into the pistol. As such, the ejection port is small, sized just enough to eject an empty case. An unfired round usually will fall out through the magazine well with the original port. A fired case will eject, often with a dent from the slide found on the case mouth.

Later the ejection of man unfired round became more important and reloaders did not want brass with dents, and the ejection port was lengthened to allow an unfired round to clear the port. The port was also lowered and flared to prevent cases from striking the slide and being dented.

As for an unfired round hitting the ejector and firing during the manual ejection process, it can happen. It happened to me with my .40 SVI Limited 10 pistol. Do NOT try to catch a round you are ejecting from a 1911 pistol by placing your hand over the ejection port as we used to do. It does have a short ejector as I used .40 "loaded long" to increase magazine feed reliability.

[Rmiked]

Wow! I have put my hand over the ejection port to catch an unfired round. I will not do that anymore. Thanks

[Caballoflaco]

@Rmiked watch these two videos on the development of the Colt 1900 and 1902 (predecessors of the Colt 1911) to get a good idea of how much the designers and end users didn’t know when they were inventing auto loading pistols. One day we’ll get a video on the 1911 from the guys @C&Rsenal, but since they do things in chronological order we’ve got a few models left to go.

ETA: yes they’re long, but trust me it’s worth it if you’re interested in the actual engineering of the guns and how things got to where they are.

[Rmiked]

Thanks. I will watch them right now

[JohnO]

Wow! I have put my hand over the ejection port to catch an unfired round. I will not do that anymore. Thanks

I have been taught the technique of catching a manually ejected live round. Emphasis was put on cupping the catching hand and rolling the gun over so gravity allowed the round to fall into the free space created in the cupped hand. It was stressed that clamping the catching/slide manipulating hand over the ejection port with no space for the live round to fall into was a bad thing.

This technique probably originated at Gunsite during Col. Cooper's days. It was Chuck Taylor who taught this technique to me. I'm sure I have seen it done many hundreds of times without incident.

[JHC]

I have been taught the technique of catching a manually ejected live round. Emphasis was put on cupping the catching hand and rolling the gun over so gravity allowed the round to fall into the free space created in the cupped hand. It was stressed that clamping the catching/slide manipulating hand over the ejection port with no space for the live round to fall into was a bad thing.

This technique probably originated at Gunsite during Col. Cooper's days. It was Chuck Taylor who taught this technique to me. I'm sure I have seen it done many hundreds of times without incident.

Ken Hackathorn demo'd it that way in the class I took from him as well.

[JohnO]

Ken Hackathorn demo'd it that way in the class I took from him as well.

Same here. It was a 1911 class instructed by Larry Vickers & Ken Hackathorn.

I hemmed and hawed about taking the class. I wasn't crazy about two aspects. I had trained with LAV before and figured it would be the same drills perhaps tweaked some because it was 1911 specific. #2 was typically that class was 1 day on the range and one day classroom detail stripping the 1911 and some lecture.

So I procrastinated but I really wanted to train with Ken. Then the class filled. I was in the DFW airport checking the interwebs and saw the class was full. Somehow I also ran across James Yeager blowing his horn about registering for a Vickers/Hackathorn 1911 class. So I joked to my friends that Yeager took my spot. The class being full solved my dilemma.

This was right when the guy running Alias Training skipped with may of the trainer's money. So things were in turmoil. The registration opened again and my buddy who was hosting told me the class was going to be 2 days on the range and they booked a hotel conference room for an abbreviated nighttime classroom session. So I threw caution to the wind and signed up.

There were over 50 in the class here in CT and people came from as far as South Africa. It was a great class and I spent a lot of time picking Ken's brain.



There was a wedding party in the hotel that night. Occasionally a guest would wander into our conference room and see 50+ people with guns.

[Elwin]

I've also been using what apparently is the Cooper/Taylor/Hackathorn technique and I'm also comfortable with it. In addition to leaving plenty of space in my hand for the round to fall into, I'm firmly grasping the slide and holding it all the way to the rear until I have the round completely clear of it. After the round falls into my hand, I wrap my fingers around it to "secure" it and then move my fingers away from the ejection port as I begin to ease the slide forward. I try to be methodical enough that I consciously think "I have it" once it's grasped and only move on after that. This dovetails well with making sure every live round is accounted for and placed safely, since I'm normally clearing a gun to clean it or dry fire it and the priority is leaving all the ammo in a designated space.

But I also totally get why someone would skip all that and just clear guns a different way to avoid the problem.