I would post this at 1911 forum but I am waiting on my membership to clear. I am a novice when it comes to 1911 style pistols, and I want to say I think I read somewhere that 1911 style pistols sometimes have problems feeding hollow point self defense ammo.
Did I read wrong? I was looking at getting my first 1911 but want to make sure that it is 100% reliable for home and cc. Please educate me. for under $900, does Springfield make the best 1911? Thanks for all the advice and info.....

Only the WWII type barrels didn't like the conical hollow point bullets.

All modernized barrels have full ramps and polished throats.

A Springfield won't disappoint you.

www.sightm1911.com has some great 1911 info

I have had hit or miss luck with Springfields and most 1911's for that matter.

I don't think most 1911's have a full ramp but most are throated and polished to accept hollow points. Many guns still have trouble with them, though. The gun was designed to fire 230 gr ball ammo. There are a few out there that work for the most part.

Kimber, springfield, are ok.

Les Baer, Wilson, ed brown and nighthawk work pretty well but get ready to spend $2000 or more.

My Colt 1911 Govenement model feeds them all day long without a hitch.

I have a stock NORINCO 1911A1 clone that I can not make FTF or FTE for that matter no matter what ammo I use. Everything through it has been my own handloads, and includes 230 grain huge hollow point Speer Gold Dots, and CT/SWC style lead target reloads. Damn thing even feeds empty cases flawlessly.

quote:

Originally posted by ruger357:
I don't think most 1911's have a full ramp but most are throated and polished to accept hollow points.

That's what I meant. Fully throated to feed anything.

I've still have been trying to experience all of these failures I've been hearing about and I've got a bone stock Colt Series 80.

The 3 inch "pocket" 1911s generally are more finiky than the 4 inch and 5 inch versions. Something to do with slide velocity. I have a 5 Inch Sig GSR 1911 that eats anything I feed it. I've got a 3 inch Para that is super picky.

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:
I've still have been trying to experience all of these failures I've been hearing about and I've got a bone stock Colt Series 80.

I know what you mean. I was shocked when I was knew to gun forums hearing "1911s are not reliable". I would not have been more surprised if I found out Hormel chili was made out of monkies.

With most people feeding their 1911s a steady diet of hollow points these days most manufacturers make sure their 1911s will feed hollow point rounds. With modern polishing, feed ramp shape and contour and barrel throating practices most 1911s will feed hollow point ammo. In the rare instance your 1911 doesn't it is something easily fixed by the maker of the weapon.

With shorter barrel 1911’s most feeding problems come from magazine spring and recoil spring issues. The recoil spring is a heavier weight to keep the slide velocities down and when the recoil spring wears out (much faster than Government length springs) the slide velocity increases and the magazine can’t keep up or the magazine feed timing gets thrown off. Shorter 1911’s can be quirky and bitchy when they want to. When you make a 1911 smaller things have to be more “correct” than when it’s a full length.

All in all you will likely be safe in your selection of 1911 that it will fire a hollow point round without any problems. You want to make sure to fire at least 100 (and many say as much as 500) rounds of your carry ammunition to make extra sure it will work 100% of the time.

Springfield makes damn good 1911s for the money; I just wish they would fit the beavertail a little better as every Springfield other than the professional model I’ve ever handled has had a wobbly beavertail. Sig is getting a lot better at the 1911 but they’re still sketchy in my book. Keep in mind that if you pay a little more money you often get a lot more 1911. I would say that places like Wilson and Nighthawk are a little expensive for my taste as they make just beautiful 1911s but I can’t bring my self to pay $3,000+ (and some crest the $4,000 mark ) that will see the abuse I put guns through. I would say for the money VS options; Les Baer is hard to beat. For almost the same cost as a Springfield TRP you can get a MUCH better gun from Les Baer. But I can honestly say that I’m really biased towards Baer guns too, and maybe giving them an edge over other guns because of what I’ve seen and have from them compared to other 1911’s I’ve seen and had in the same price range. Either way, enjoy your new 1911 when ever you get it! It won’t be the last!

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:

quote:

Originally posted by ruger357:
I don't think most 1911's have a full ramp but most are throated and polished to accept hollow points.

That's what I meant. Fully throated to feed anything.

I've still have been trying to experience all of these failures I've been hearing about and I've got a bone stock Colt Series 80.

I could have sent you a stock Colt Combat Commander that would have blown your mind...and patients.

My Kimber Grand Raptor feeds Federal Hydra Shok flawlessly. All other hollow points, including Speer and Winchester, jamb in my gun.

1911's are a "hit or miss deal" when it comes to reliability. Yes, all current 1911's are fully throated yet some will still jam even on ball ammo. The cure is usually simple such as tuning the extractor or changing the mags, but there's just no guarantee.

I've owned Colts, Paras, and Springers and each of them exhibited some form of small problem that needed to be tuned.

quote:

Originally posted by jerseyshoreshot:
My Kimber Grand Raptor feeds Federal Hydra Shok flawlessly. All other hollow points, including Speer and Winchester, jamb in my gun.

Speer and Winchester have some of the widest mouthed bullets I've seen. It's something easily fixed by a competent smith though.

Do they hang on the 6 o'clock position on the feed ramp/barrel interface or are they not getting all the way into the chamber?

1911's are a "hit or miss deal" when it comes to reliability. Yes, all current 1911's are fully throated yet some will still jam even on ball ammo. The cure is usually simple such as tuning the extractor or changing the mags, but there's just no guarantee.

I've owned Colts, Paras, and Springers and each of them exhibited some form of small problem that needed to be tuned or fixed.

I have a Sig C3, a Kimber Warrior and a Colt 80 that eat HP's without a problem for the most part. The Kimber doesn't like TAP ammo, but I think that may have more to do with the +P then the bullet. My Sig has only had HydraShock and Gold Dots and it worked fine with both, and as Mars Attacks said out my stock 80 also eats absolutly everything I have ever thrown at it. I had a Springfield GI and it wouldn't work reliably with anything but 230gr WWB and even then I had issues.

quote:

Originally posted by AaronP220R:
With most people feeding their 1911s a steady diet of hollow points these days most manufacturers make sure their 1911s will feed hollow point rounds. With modern polishing, feed ramp shape and contour and barrel throating practices most 1911s will feed hollow point ammo. In the rare instance your 1911 doesn't it is something easily fixed by the maker of the weapon.

With shorter barrel 1911’s most feeding problems come from magazine spring and recoil spring issues. The recoil spring is a heavier weight to keep the slide velocities down and when the recoil spring wears out (much faster than Government length springs) the slide velocity increases and the magazine can’t keep up or the magazine feed timing gets thrown off. Shorter 1911’s can be quirky and bitchy when they want to. When you make a 1911 smaller things have to be more “correct” than when it’s a full length.

All in all you will likely be safe in your selection of 1911 that it will fire a hollow point round without any problems. You want to make sure to fire at least 100 (and many say as much as 500) rounds of your carry ammunition to make extra sure it will work 100% of the time.

Springfield makes damn good 1911s for the money; I just wish they would fit the beavertail a little better as every Springfield other than the professional model I’ve ever handled has had a wobbly beavertail. Sig is getting a lot better at the 1911 but they’re still sketchy in my book. Keep in mind that if you pay a little more money you often get a lot more 1911. I would say that places like Wilson and Nighthawk are a little expensive for my taste as they make just beautiful 1911s but I can’t bring my self to pay $3,000+ (and some crest the $4,000 mark ) that will see the abuse I put guns through. I would say for the money VS options; Les Baer is hard to beat. For almost the same cost as a Springfield TRP you can get a MUCH better gun from Les Baer. But I can honestly say that I’m really biased towards Baer guns too, and maybe giving them an edge over other guns because of what I’ve seen and have from them compared to other 1911’s I’ve seen and had in the same price range. Either way, enjoy your new 1911 when ever you get it! It won’t be the last!

Excellent post, thank you!

So, thank you all for the great feedback!
Should I get Les Baer, TRP, Sig 220 DAK, or HK 45/45c?

quote:

Originally posted by AaronP220R:

quote:

Originally posted by jerseyshoreshot:
My Kimber Grand Raptor feeds Federal Hydra Shok flawlessly. All other hollow points, including Speer and Winchester, jamb in my gun.

Speer and Winchester have some of the widest mouthed bullets I've seen. It's something easily fixed by a competent smith though.

Do they hang on the 6 o'clock position on the feed ramp/barrel interface or are they not getting all the way into the chamber?

They do hang up at 6:00, just as you stated. The gun just eats Hydra Shoks, 200 in a row, last time that I shot it.

jerseyshoreshot
That's something easily fixed. Is there a gap between the end of the feed ramp on the frame and the start of the barrel feed ramp??

ManfredWader,
As I stated, I'm partial to Les Baer. I think the TRP is a great gun but I find the checkering to be way too sharp and uncomfortable.

Here's a write up I did on my Les Baer.

(copied from the post)

I've recieved a lot of Emails about this lately since it's been a few months. I know a lot of people have been waiting for this little write up. Stu, I'm sorry it took so long...but here's my one last contribution to the forum.

Les Baer Premier II / Shooters Choice Red Grease Write up.

I recently purchased a Les Baer Premier II. Though I liked the standard Premier II I figured if I was going to pay upwards of 2,000.00$ for a gun, it needs to be what I want. So I asked for fixed non night-sights, as the standard comes with adjustable and I’m just not a fan of adjustable sights. I also asked for a single sided safety, no front cocking serrations and a two-piece magazine well.

Before I start about the gun I most also say that STUGOTSIG was kind enough to send me some Shooters Choice Red Grease to try out and see what I think about it. I’ve been putting this write up off for a long time so, now is as good as any time to fix it. The preface of the test was to take a brand new 1911 and shoot 5000 rounds down it while cleaning it every 1000 rounds and base my impressions off it. Since I though I would have two brand new 1911s to run this test I planned one doing it a certain way but since I didn’t this will kind of be just a look and see. Keep in mind these are just my opinions and nothing is absolute fact (why I wanted two identical, new, 1911’s)

We’ll start with the gun. As mentioned before it’s a Les Baer Custom Premier II. Les builds his guns using National Match frame and slide both which are forged. I’m not sure what steel he’s using, but if I had to guess I would say 4140 or maybe 4340. The frame is hand checkered on the front strap at 30 lines per inch. Upon inspecting the checkering I found that it’s perfectly executed. All the pyramids are even, square and uniformly deep. The only thing that you could really catch by looking really hard is where the checkering stops on the side of the frame (where the grips go) the lines are a LITTLE un-even, but it’s barely noticeable. The front strap has been up lifted. Meaning where the trigger guard meets the front strap there’s a really tight radius there where most 1911’s have a big long sweeping radius. What having an uplifted strap and a good beavertail does is it allows you to get REALLY high up on the gun with your grip. It’s a distinct and really comfortable feel. I like it more than the standard radius. Other than that it’s just a normal 1911 frame.

Moving up to the slide there’s nothing extraordinary here. It is again a NM forged piece of maybe 4140 or 4340 but I’m not 100% sure. It’s got an internal extractor, lowered and flared ejection port. The right side of the slide (holding it like you would fire it) simply says “Baer Custom” while the left side says “45 ACP”. It’s clean, elegant and simple; just the way I like it!

Putting the slide and frame together must have been a chore. It’s extremely tight. Everything Les Baer does is hard fit out of the box which means it has an extraordinarily tight slide-frame-barrel fit. When I first got the gun I went to rack the slide and it wouldn’t budge. I checked to see if the safety was off and it was and I tried again to which after applying a lot of force it opened with a snap. Most people don’t understand what it means when they get a hard fit gun. Most people will take a factory fit 1911 out of the box at the local gun shop and work the slide and because it moves easily they think it’s a great fit gun. On a hard fit gun you just about have to throw your shoulder out of joint to break the action. At 500 rounds this starts to smooth and by 1000 rounds it’s just ball bearing smooth and if maintained it stays that way for a very long time. I’ve seen factory 1911’s become rattle traps after just a few thousand rounds. Suffice to say, Les Baer has at the very least fit my gun extremely nicely. There’s no horizontal or vertical play in the slide. None! The barrel doesn’t spring if you push down on the hood while the gun is closed. There’s no movement in the bushing at all. This thing is a bank vault. Excellent!

The carbon steel barrel (Les doesn’t use stainless steel barrels in 1911’s) is fit just as tightly as the slide and frame. The barrel fit is part of the hard fit equation. Checking the barrel hood fit to the slide against a strong light reveals no light at the back and the shims say there’s .003 (three thousandths of an inch) gap on both the sides. By anything I’ve been told about barrel fitting, that’s about as close to excellent as it gets. Checking the lower lug fit to the slide stop pin reveals two evenly worn marks on the pin indicated the barrel is locking and unlocked on the lowers lugs evenly. Excellent! The bushing is SUPER tight in the slide. You absolutely NEED a wrench to turn this thing and must pull the barrel pretty hard to get it out. I don’t really see a reason to have the bushing that tight into the slide. I think it’s a little much. The barrel lock to the bushing was right at the sweet spot and tight, but when the barrel tilts and starts to move back it loosens up its grip on the barrel just like it should!

Now that we’ve covered the heart of the gun we can look at some features. The ignition system of the gun (trigger, sear, hammer, and disconnector) are all machined parts. No MIM in this particular 1911. The trigger is a long unit with three holes in it. There’s no vertical play in the trigger movement. The pad is stainless steel and has been beveled for trigger finger comfort. The hammer is an oval slot design made of stainless steel and has also been beveled for thumb comfort. The book says the PII triggers break at 4.0lbs. By my pull gauge it broke at exactly 4.0lbs. With 15 pulls there was no deviation of those 4.0lbs by more than 1-2 ounces in either way. Talk about truth in advertising. There’s also no internal firing pin safety. No series 80 of “II” prefix. It’s simply old school 1911. But now it’s using a light firing pin with an extra power spring to be drop safe instead of some intricate levers and crap messing up the gun.

I ordered this gun with a two piece magazine well. The mainspring housing has been checkered at 30LPI to compliment the front strap checkering. Though I’m not a fan of two piece designs I am a fan of the gun smith installing the magazine well and then milling the well and the frame together to get that smooth HUGE opening. Les has done that on this gun and it’s extremely nice. I guess the good thing about the two pieces is I can remove the well part of it for just a flat bottom. Either way it’s a good looking part.

The sights are just plain Jane Novak sights with out tritium in them. Nothing special here to see! They have been set to point of aim / point of impact at 25 yards though which is something I like. They were dead nuts on straight from Les in both the horizontal and the vertical which tells me someone actually took the time to shoot and adjust these things. I like that a lot more than slapping something on there and calling it good. Attention to details is a good thing.

The thumb safety is a single side unit. The PII normally comes with an ambidextrous thumb safety but since I’m not left handed I just ordered it with a single safety. I was a little surprised when I opened the box and saw what I got. I’m not sure if this is the standard combat single safety or what but the shelf is HUGE. It reminds me of the old Kings Thumb safety called the GAS PEDAL! Though it looks kind of goofy I’ve got really large hands so my thumb rests on it just perfectly. I only have one complaint about the safety. Getting it off is really easy. But getting it back up with just your thumb is impossible. Two reasons; the thing is too damn tight and the bottom edge of the safety is too sharp. Les, you might be getting a call from me soon to fit a new safety. I don’t like being caused to bleed from a goddamn thumb safety!

The grip safety looks like a machined forged part. I wasn’t able to find a casting mold line or pit on it anywhere. It’s probably the most comfortable grips safety I’ve felt in a while. It’s nicely sensitized for about ¼ movements for deactivation of the safety which is good for the straight thumb shooters like my self that doesn’t get a death grip on the safety. It’s been fitted extremely well. There’s no movement except forward and back. The edges are tight to the frame so there’s no pinching going on. It is just over all a well build gun.

The finish on the gun is something to talk about. With all the new age finishes that are baked on and all that good stuff it’s good to see someone doing good ol’ honest to goodness bluing. And damn good looking it is too! The slide and frame flats have been blued and then polished while the rest of the gun has a bead blasted matte look to it. The bluing is deep, dark and rich. Not quite as good as the old Colt Revolvers, but damn nice. I’m REALLY happy with the finish. Not a flaw anywhere.

Accuracy is something I’ll have to test at a later day as my 5,000 rounds was CCI Blazer Brass and I didn’t have much match ammo on hand. I had a little carry ammo that I was able to test but I would rather wait until I’ve got a good assortment before making any claims. Les Baer claims that this gun is good for 3” @ 50 yards. I wasn’t able to test that but off the bench at 25 yards with Federal Hydoshock it pulled a 1” group center to center. But, I’ll get more into accuracy at another time.

The gun shipped to my door costs 1,787.64$ From John at Pro Load Distributors. If you’re maybe looking into a Les Baer, give this guy a call. He’ll take care of you with out a doubt.


On to the grease now!

As mentioned earlier STUGOTSIG sent me a tube of Shooters Choice Red Grease. I told Stu what I planned on doing and he asked me to write my findings for you Sigforum guys. No problem! The original plan was to use two identical Les Baer 1911’s and test one with the tried and true Slide Glide and the other with the Shooters Choice for 5,000 rounds each gun while fully cleaning them every 1,000 rounds. Well, as it turns out the wife wouldn’t let me spend 4,000.00$ on two guns in one year if I wanted to continue my sex life. I contemplated using my stainless GSR that Bruce Gray built for the test, but considering the GSR wasn’t as tight as the Les Baer and it was stainless instead of carbon steel I figured that would be an un-fair test. So in the end I just used this PII and the best I could do was check wear patterns.

So off to the range we went. I took my life long friend Ryan with me to help the shooting, cleaning and loading magazines. I planned on doing this in one day so it was going to be a long day. We got to the private range at 7:30 am. I had 30 8 round Wilson Combat 47-D magazines on me for 240 rounds at a time the good news was we were only looking at loading 30 magazines 20 times…hmm.

The ammo was CCI Blazer Brass in .230 grains. I must say that the cost of the ammo for this test was almost the cost of the gun. LOL. Take that wife! HA!

The gun was cleaning and heavily lubricated the night before with the Shooters Choice Grease. The system would be we would switch shooter after all 30 magazines. We would both load magazines and we would both shoot. I would take the gun down and clean it. The cleaner was M-Pro7 and Hoppe’s #9 copper and powder solvent.

The first 240 rounds was kind of bumpy. It was a new Les Baer and it was the first time being shot so it had a few problems. By then end of the 480 mark the problems where gone and the gun was just silky smooth. The grease seemed to be holding up pretty good, though it was getting dirty the heat of the outside and the gun didn’t seam to break it down and cause it to start running all over. At the 960 mark I took the slide assembly down, blasted the frame with some M-Pro7 and looked at the rails. The bluing was completely gone on both rails. After cleaning the slide and looking down the slide rails I noticed the bluing was removed from them too. The test for tightness came when I put the slide on the frame with no barrel. It was still as tight as it felt the day it was new but it moved like it was on bearings and that was with out lube. So on some more grease went and after putting it back together we got back to shooting.

At 1920 it was pretty much a repeat of 460 except things where getting a little shinier. I figured it would be a good time to weight the trigger so I did. It busted out with 3lbs 9 ounces so it had lost a little weight in the break in period. The slide was still extremely tight to the frame and the barrel lock up was still stupid tight.

I must say out of all the things we brought, I forgot to bring a camera and I didn’t feel like making the 70 mile drive back home and back out to take pictures. But my note taking skills are impeccable so if you don’t believe what I write that’s okay. Back to the test!

At rounds 3822 we had a fail to fire. The primer was punched but the bullet just didn’t go. I can only assume it was a bad primer. The test went on with out a hitch from there.

Almost 11.5 hours into this thing we finally reach the 5,000 round mark. The Les Baer had survived with outstanding performance. After the initial break it there was no problems until the failed round. I’m really happy with this gun and its comfort. The grease seemed to have performed really well, but since the light was fading I decided to wait until I got home, cleaned and into some good light to really fully inspect the gun.

Taking it down to its bare parts and mainly focusing on the slide, frame, barrel and barrel bushing for wearing I couldn’t see anything that would cause alarm. The rails have been polished with out any question. But other than that I couldn’t tell this gun had 5,000 rounds go down it just by looking at it. I would maybe guess if someone handed it to my and asked me “How many rounds do you think has been down it?” I would say something like maybe 750-1000. And that wouldn’t be because of the wearing but simply because how smooth the gun got. It lost almost nothing for tightness. It has just been lapped in to run like everything is a ball bearing surface. The grease seemed to do its job really well. I did this test in the heat of August (yes, I know it’s now damn new October 1st) and the grease never got too runny or broke down. It stayed were I put it and did what it needed to do. This was protecting my Les Baer from being destroyed by heat and friction.

To be brutally honest though, I cannot say with any certainty that this is the best grease out there. I really wish I had another gun on hand to compare side by side, but I’m not rich. I can say that the Red Grease did an admirable job of lubricating and protecting. The bottom line is in today’s age of lubrication if you pick something out that isn’t “Bob’s Super Gun Saver Plus CLP” then you will probably be just fine in your choice be it grease or oil. The Shooters Choice Red Grease has proven to me that it is worth keeping around and using on my Les Baer. And it will continue to be used on that particular gun. Since the AR is using Wilson, the P226 is Slide Glide and Les Baer will get Red Grease. All in all I would have no problem telling someone to use this grease. I want to thank Stu for sending it to me and being patient on my little write up. I know it’s not a dazzling write up or anything like that. Just a guy’s opinion which doesn’t really stand for anything. LOL.

I will post pictures tonight when I get home from work of the gun and the wear points that I’m able to get a good picture of. Thanks all for taking the time to read this. Hope you found it a little helpful!

Thanks,
Aaron