1911 JHP Issue

[Mage218]

Agreed - the feedramp is the very last thing you want to touch, and then only by someone who is very familiar with the 1911 controlled-feed design.

I "tinkered" with one of my 1911's one time, then took it to Ed Vanden Berg who has been building, modifying and repairing my guns for years. He made me an offer I couldn't refuse; "Charles, I won't try to practice law and you don't try to be a gunsmith." That arrangement has worked well for years.

Seriously, I'll do very minor things, grips, magwell, etc. but nothing with feeding or fire control.

Chas.

Yea when the guy at the gun store told me about it, I asked if it was something I could do. However the words "Dremel" and "your gun" is not something I want to do on my own and quickly asked them what they charge. They charge $45 to do but I dont know how long they will take. Gonna give them a call here in a bit. Thanks everyone for your advice.

Oh yea, the Winchester rounds hang up even when I hit the slide release until the last 3 rounds, then it loads and cycles fine.

[b322da]

I had a similar problem with my Springfield micro compact GI. Solved by the purchase of a couple of Wilson Combat mags. I think that using the mag coming with the 1911 I would aggravate the problem by slamming the mag into the pistol, which caused the first round to slide forward almost 1/8", leading to its not feeding correctly.

While I have been using the full-sized 1911 for untold years, ever since recruit training in the early '50s, where I was trained that the "slide stop" is not a "slide release," I must concur with the advice above that using the slide stop as a release (I shudder when I say that) gives me a much better feed with the little guy.

[G.A. Heath]

Agreed - the feedramp is the very last thing you want to touch, and then only by someone who is very familiar with the 1911 controlled-feed design.

I "tinkered" with one of my 1911's one time, then took it to Ed Vanden Berg who has been building, modifying and repairing my guns for years. He made me an offer I couldn't refuse; "Charles, I won't try to practice law and you don't try to be a gunsmith." That arrangement has worked well for years.

Seriously, I'll do very minor things, grips, magwell, etc. but nothing with feeding or fire control.

Chas.

Yea when the guy at the gun store told me about it, I asked if it was something I could do. However the words "Dremel" and "your gun" is not something I want to do on my own and quickly asked them what they charge. They charge $45 to do but I dont know how long they will take. Gonna give them a call here in a bit. Thanks everyone for your advice.

Oh yea, the Winchester rounds hang up even when I hit the slide release until the last 3 rounds, then it loads and cycles fine.

1911s and Dremels do not go well together, Try the mags before having the gun modified, especially by someone who wants to use a Dremel on it. Also contact Springfield they will want to fix it.

[Mage218]

1911s and Dremels do not go well together, Try the mags before having the gun modified, especially by someone who wants to use a Dremel on it. Also contact Springfield they will want to fix it.

My thoughts exactly. They also told me the wrong price at the gun shop. They want $75 and will have to keep it for atleast a week and said it may not even fix my problem...

Got a new wilson combat 47D magazine and same issue, hangs up on the feed ramp. I will take a picture of the round when this happens and post back so yall can get a better idea of whats going on.

[G.A. Heath]

Just a thought, are you riding the slide, or releasing it so that it can "snap" forward"

[Mage218]

Just a thought, are you riding the slide, or releasing it so that it can "snap" forward"

No im not riding the slide, Im hitting the slide stop so my hand is not anywhere on the slide

EDIT: I tried to take a picture of the malfunction but all my cameras suck and the picture is way to blury to see whats going on. As best as I can describe it, the round is being pushed straight into the feed ramp and not following it up into the chamber. The feed ramp has many horizontal tool marks that are collecting the copper from the bullets.

[Mage218]

[G.A. Heath]

It looks like (From the photo) that the feed ramp has too sharp of an edge at the base which is catching the mouth of the hollow point. A number of other issues could cause this as well such as the magazine catch being in the wrong location. Calling Springfield is still the best bet. Their phone number is 1-800-680-6866 With that said my solution would be to shoot it with ball ammo (300-500 rounds), then see of the issue remains.

[dicion]

It looks like (From the photo) that the feed ramp has too sharp of an edge at the base which is catching the mouth of the hollow point. A number of other issues could cause this as well such as the magazine catch being in the wrong location. Calling Springfield is still the best bet. Their phone number is 1-800-680-6866 With that said my solution would be to shoot it with ball ammo (300-500 rounds), then see of the issue remains.

Call Springfield. If the ramp is out of spec, they need to fix it, and they should have no problems doing so.
If you can see tool marks on a feed ramp, well, I'd surely be sending that back ASAP.

[MoJo]

EDIT: I tried to take a picture of the malfunction but all my cameras suck and the picture is way to blury to see whats going on. As best as I can describe it, the round is being pushed straight into the feed ramp and not following it up into the chamber. The feed ramp has many horizontal tool marks that are collecting the copper from the bullets.

Does the gun feed FMJ? If it does the tool marks on your feed ramp are causing the problem. Do one of three things. 1. Send it back to Springfield and have them polish the ramp. 2. Take it to a gunsmith that knows his sturr about 1911s and pay him to do it. 3. Buy some 600 grit wet or dry sandpaper (at the auto supply) and polish the darn thing yourself.


To do it yourself take a small piece of the wet or dry sandpaper, wrap it around a fired case, then sand lightly across the marks until they are smoother. They don't have to be gone and the ramp doesn't have to look like a mirror just break the edges of the tool marks so the mouth of the hollow point slides over the ridges rather than digging into them.

One other thing to do buy some quality mags I like McCormick, Wilson and MecGar and I have put Tripp kits into several mags. Tripp mags and upgrade kits are worth the $$$.

[Mage218]

Does the gun feed FMJ? If it does the tool marks on your feed ramp are causing the problem. Do one of three things. 1. Send it back to Springfield and have them polish the ramp. 2. Take it to a gunsmith that knows his sturr about 1911s and pay him to do it. 3. Buy some 600 grit wet or dry sandpaper (at the auto supply) and polish the darn thing yourself.

To do it yourself take a small piece of the wet or dry sandpaper, wrap it around a fired case, then sand lightly across the marks until they are smoother. They don't have to be gone and the ramp doesn't have to look like a mirror just break the edges of the tool marks so the mouth of the hollow point slides over the ridges rather than digging into them.

One other thing to do buy some quality mags I like McCormick, Wilson and MecGar and I have put Tripp kits into several mags. Tripp mags and upgrade kits are worth the $$$.

It does shoot/feed FMJs without a hitch. I know the basics of how to polish the ramp I just dont trust myself enough to not screw it up. I bought a new wilson combat 47D magazine today, going to see how that works before I buy more.

[jimlongley]

I bought a Charles Daly 1911 at a gun show, less than $300.00, with the express objective of doing a very extensive rebuild into a "night fighter." When purchased it would not reliably feed JHP, as finished it will reliably feed anything and function as long as I keep it clean and well lubed. It required a feed ramp polish to make it feed reliably with anything other than FMJ, but the feed ramp originally looked like it was cut with a mill bastard file.

[Mage218]

You can polish the feed-ramp yourself, but a few words of caution first:

1. We're taking about the feed-ramp on the frame where the nose is catching - not the barrel.

2. There's a transition-edge where the feed-ramp breaks over suddenly to run horizontal (marked in my pic by a red line)- do not mess with that angle by trying to round it or whatever, it has to stay sharp otherwise the noses will start catching on the base of the barrel's feed-ramp - and that is expensive to fix, involving welding a plate in place, etc.

All you're trying to do is get rid of the majority of the tooling-marks, especially if they run horizontally. Like Mojo said, they don't have to be gone entirely, just flattened down as much as possible, and it doesn't have to be mirror-smooth.

Well if I do attempt to do this on my own, does the sand paper need to be dry or do I need to wet it first?

[MoJo]

Wet stays sharp longer, dry slows down the cutting power of the paper. I always use it dry for this kind of job.