1911 feed problem with hollow points.

[JaMail]

SA Longslide .45

I have

2 factory 7 rounders
3 chip mcormick 10 rounders
2 chip mcormick 7 rounders


all of them feed fine with hardball, range trash reloads, they eat wolf and tula (same thing) like no tomorrow.

BUT

I bought a box of winchester supreme elite 230 hollow points (PDX1) for HD

and i noticed the following, if i fully load any of the mag's i get a feed failure on the first round. if i clear it im fine for the next 6 or 9 rounds.

im guessing the springs arent strong enough to feed JHP on the first round of a full mag. this just seems weird to me.

first 100 rounds were winchester white box

2nd 100 were range reloads

and the last 700 or so were wolf


didint have a single failure to fire, feed or eject on any of them, except for the winchester JHP..

is it just that the ramp hasnt polished enough yet? springs arent strong enough? or just something with these winchester pdx1's?

thanks in advance for any thoughts on this...

[raycm2]

JaMail,
How are you dropping the slide: releasing the slide stop or racking it back and letting go? If releasing the slide stop, try racking it. If that works better, your recoil spring may be weak. How many rounds do you have through it with that spring?

Ray

[ojisan]

Sounds like your gun feeds all longer OAL rounds (230g ball, RNL, etc) but not the shorter JHP rounds. You might find the same problem with short LSWC rounds, too.
Typical fixes / adjustments:
Extractor properly fitted, shaped and polished
Polish feed ramp
Polish breech face
Adjust the magazine fed lips to allow a higher feed angle at the front of the round, or possibly a earlier release of the base of the case from the feed lips, depending on the type of feed problem.

[JaMail]

its a new 1911 long slide from SA..

between 700 and 1000 total rounds through it...

ive both rack & released, and slide stop released, same thing, first 1 or 2 rounds of a fully loaded mag gets stuck with the PDX1's, all others after feed fine.

i dont really have the cash to buy a ton of diff hollow points to test with, but i guess i might have to, or find someone local that has a bunch of different flavors i can test with.

[BunnySlayer]

Most gunsmiths offer a basic reliability package. The 1911 was not designed to feed anything but FMJ. Most factory guns have this done at the factory now but some need a bit of tweaking. Probably run about $80.00 give or take and consist of pretty much what Ojisan pointed out.

[The Bacon Eater]

http://www.trippresearch.com/store/store_1911.html

Maybe try these mags out. I had a similar problem and these mags fixed it.

[PutTogether]

I had a Kimber that absolutely refused to feed Winchester SXT, which I believe is close to the same bullet as the PDX. They lip of the cavity of the bullet would get hung up between the feed ramp and the very edge of the chamber of the barrel.

I will give you three ideas/pieces of advice that are all SUPER easy to try.

1) Switch to a different Hollow Point. I've yet to encounter a gun (personally I mean) that wouldn't feed standard Remington UMC JHP. Note that I'm not referring to the Golden Sabre, but the regular old 230 grain JHP. The profile of the bullet is just like a ball round, and they feed in pretty much everything. It isn't the super duper technology bullet that the winchester is, but it is still a .45 230 grain HP bullet - nothing to laugh at.

2) Try a slightly higher weight recoil spring. It's not a good idea to depend on a recoil spring to overcome geometry that just won't work, but it is certainly worth a try if you don't go overboard with it. It could be that your spring is just super worn. I suspect though, that if it were your spring, it would happen on more than just the first round. That said, springs are very cheap, and easy to try, and a totally reversible modification.


3) Please, PLEASE don't screw with your feed ramp. That is the kind of thing best left to professionals, or at least people that REALLY know what they are doing. You can damage your gun badly if you screw it up.

Edited to add: I would also normally suggest trying different magazines, but it looks like you (wisely) covered that base already.

[BlackICE]

Smoothing out the feed ramp is not that hard or dangerous. If you have a lot of tooling marks using a dowel wrapped with emery cloth and smooth it out. You should know what you are doing if you attempt to re-profile the feed ramp. Metal removed is not easily replaced!

[wilit]

I have have maybe 1000 rounds through my SA 1911. It doesn't feed JHP's for squat. I've tried several different mags and that doesn't seem to make a difference. I have noticed the smaller the hollow point opening, the more likely it will feed, but not always.

[Katana]

You might want to try Remington Golden Saber 230 grain. They run flawlessly in my SA Loaded and Mil-Spec 1911s.

The bullet has a rounded profile and the hard brass jacket doesn't deform on the feed ramp.

I started using them because a gunsmith at SA recommended them for their 1911s. I believe at one time, because of the terms in the original FBI contract, SA was actually tweaking the design of their 1911s to run on them.

[gadjeep]

I have a SIG 1911 that I run winchester standard 230gr jhp through. I only run 8 rd mags and I get FTFs probably 1 in 5 for the first of 8 rds so I only load 7 and they run flawlessly. Good luck.

[Crazed_SS]

Hmm.. my SA MC Operator feeds all manner of JHPs with no problems.. my buddy got me a 5 boxes of that PDX1 stuff and it fed and extracted flawlessly

[xibunkrlilkidsx]

SA Longslide .45

I have

2 factory 7 rounders
3 chip mcormick 10 rounders
2 chip mcormick 7 rounders


all of them feed fine with hardball, range trash reloads, they eat wolf and tula (same thing) like no tomorrow.

BUT

I bought a box of winchester supreme elite 230 hollow points (PDX1) for HD

and i noticed the following, if i fully load any of the mag's i get a feed failure on the first round. if i clear it im fine for the next 6 or 9 rounds.

im guessing the springs arent strong enough to feed JHP on the first round of a full mag. this just seems weird to me.

first 100 rounds were winchester white box

2nd 100 were range reloads

and the last 700 or so were wolf


didint have a single failure to fire, feed or eject on any of them, except for the winchester JHP..

is it just that the ramp hasnt polished enough yet? springs arent strong enough? or just something with these winchester pdx1's?

thanks in advance for any thoughts on this...

i had that same problem with mine for a while. now i just keep a std ball rd there and it works fine. but now it deefs them fine after getting a couple hundred rounds through it.

[xounlistedxox]

You can easily perform the polishing that has been recommended and I would recommend doing it yourself too. You don't need any tools to get a decent polish. Get some Flitz Metal Polish and put a small amount on the end of your finger. Then use your finger to polish all of the surfaces mentioned. Feed ramp, breach face etc. Do this until you no longer feel any grit in the polish, and repeat until your surfaces are super smooth. You'll be amazed how smooth this will get your feed ramp and how polished it will be. I do this on all of my firearms on parts such as the sear, trigger, feed ramp, and any other metal to metal surface. I've had zero problems even with box stock base model 1911's feeding HP ammo after this. You may also want to try an 18lb recoil spring.

[Blademan21]

Have a good gunsmith give you a reliabliity package. Tussey did mine and I could put a empty case in the mag and drop the slide closed. Now it will feed ANYTHING. Be sure to get the ejection port lowered and the barrel throated while its at the gunsmiths. Better than spending a small fortune on ammo to see what works,right?