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Which 1911 45acp Mag for competition?


zdog

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I have started knocking the base pads off my 8 round Tripp Cobra mags and also been having problems with their 10 rounds mags as well. The folks there have been great at trying to resolve the issue but they finally gave up and are going to refund my purchase price. I agree with them that either my SA TRP operator or my Colt gov model 70 is causing a problem. So....long story short, I need to find a different mag to use. It has been my experience that the springs are wimpy in the Wilson mags and the lips keep deforming on the CMC stuff. I would welcome suggestions.

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I have been using CMC Shooting Star in 8 & 10 rounds for years(15+) and have never had to do anything to them except maybe clean them once in a while. What kind of problems are you having specifically. There is a lot of knowlege here someone will be able to provide you with a solution.

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I have been using CMC Shooting Star in 8 & 10 rounds for years(15+) and have never had to do anything to them except maybe clean them once in a while. What kind of problems are you having specifically. There is a lot of knowlege here someone will be able to provide you with a solution.

On the 10 rounders lips spread and they will not fall free. Once you bend them back they will do that often. I emailed cmc support and got the following reply.

Hi Folks, I have 3 of your 10 round 45 acp power mags. 1 does not drop free f...

11/19/10

Reply

CmcMags Tech Support

ZDog

Often, when a magazine that used to fall free of the pistol upon ejection but at some point begins to hang up and cease fall free, the cause is spreading of material in the area of the feed lips. Unfortunately, in the case of high tensil strength spring grade steel like that used in the fabricaton of Power Mags, once the material is heat treated and fatigue causes the material to deform any additional bending or flexing of the material will only weaken the material even more. Therefore, any reforming of the material to bring it back to it's original shape will only result in the material soon deforming again. For this reason CMC does not offer reforming because it does not yield results we can stand behind. Please read and consider the information below and understanding it should give you a clear idea of how to proceed and whether or not it would be appropriate to return the faulty magazine back to the factory for inspection?

Based on our understanding of what you have described, it sounds like the feed lip area of your 10rd mag have spread from metal fatigue resulting from the amount and types of usage.

To maximize service life, CMC's Power Mags are made from the highest grades of 410 stainless steel available then heat treated for optimum hardness to yield ultimate resistance to fatigue and damage from usage. Due to the limitations between the diameter of the .45 cartridges and the width of the magazine well in the pistol receiver, the width/gauge of the material that can be used to produce any 1911 magazine (regardless of brand) is determined by those limitations.

When, for example, rapid/aggressive reloads are implemented with the pistol in the slide lock condition, the feed lips are the only features that retain the full weight of the 10 rounds of .45acp cartridges. 10 rounds of .45acp is a 42.8% increase in the weight of the stack as compared to what the 1911 pistol and it's magazines were originally designed to withstand with 7 round capacity magazines. Multiples of aggressive reloads at slide lock are one of the most common causes of fatigue to 1911 magazines, even more with 10rd mags. Reloads at slide lock are best limited to situations of necessity and/or kept to as much of a minimum as practice standards will allow. Whenever possible, if reloads are made/practiced with the slide forward and in full lock up then no load, whatsoever, is placed on the feed lips. Thus no fatigue and virtually unlimited service life.

Another common way fatigue accumulates is when magazines are dropped on the ground. In this scenario, especially when there are rounds remaining in the magazine, it is just a matter of time before feed lip fatigue is likely to occur.

If any of the above types of usages have occurred then please consider if any of those factors or other types of similarly damaging usages may apply to your magazine(s)? It is not difficult to determine if the causes of magazine failures are related to types of usage and/or abuse. Power Mags are covered by a 3 year warranty against any failures due to materials and/or manufacturing defects. The number code on the top left of the magazines indicates the year of production. If you ever feel that your 10rd mags, that were working fine, have begun to fail as the result of either defective materials or manufacturing; and the magazines are within 3 years of age, then you can return the mags and CMC will always be glad to implement a complete examination and subsequent warranty replacement whenever appropriate.

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Wilsons. If the feed lips start opening up, i just send them back.

This is a possibility.....or if I buy any mag from Brownells they have a lifetime warranty on things you buy from them. I am looking at the metalform mags. The folks at Tripp Research mentioned this name when I asked what I was going to do now. The said that metalform mags were heat treated and instead of the lips bending they cracked when they got used too much.

When I think about Wilson mags I remember that their springs are less than robust. I remember a call to Wilson customer service when I had a 8 round 47D that would not lock the slide open after the last round. The rep told me to replace the spring and implied that I should do that once a year anyhow. He also told me I could remove the spring and stretch it to solve the problem but that remedy would not last long. I stretched the spring and that solved the problem. That is when I switched to Tripp Research mags that have springs that last, but like I said the problem now is that I am knocking off base pads and spreading the lips on the 10 rounders.

Zdog

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I seem to be the only one using them, but I use the Wilson ETM mags with great success. I have some 47d's, CMC powermags and the CMC 10 rounders. I like the base pads on the ETM's and the fact that it says right there in the name that they are TACTICAL. That instantly makes them better than non-tactical ones.

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I seem to be the only one using them, but I use the Wilson ETM mags with great success. I have some 47d's, CMC powermags and the CMC 10 rounders. I like the base pads on the ETM's and the fact that it says right there in the name that they are TACTICAL. That instantly makes them better than non-tactical ones.

LOL.....You are right....paint it black and give it a name and you can double the price.

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I have 6 CMC 10 rounders and 4 CMC Power Mag 10 rounders that I've used for years (10+) with no problems at all. I've never had a feed lip problem with them or any of the 6 CMC 8 rounders I have. I do have to admit that I don't do many speed reloads at slidelock so this may be a big reason why they have held up so well.

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I have 6 CMC 10 rounders and 4 CMC Power Mag 10 rounders that I've used for years (10+) with no problems at all. I've never had a feed lip problem with them or any of the 6 CMC 8 rounders I have. I do have to admit that I don't do many speed reloads at slidelock so this may be a big reason why they have held up so well.

Yep....those mags work fine unless you use them for competition. You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned a hard speed load at slide lock which I believe is the culprit. The idea of buying Wilson 10 rounders and exchanging them when the lips spread sounds to me like the way to go. As you can see from the email I got from CMC, they don't stand behind this problem with their mags where Wilson apparently does.

ZDog

Edited by zdog
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I like the base pads on the ETM's and the fact that it says right there in the name that they are TACTICAL. That instantly makes them better than non-tactical ones.

Oh yeah? My CMC mags are POWER mags! Who needs tactics when you have raw power? Besides, Chip McCormick looks like Chuck Norris, so you just KNOW these mags will kick ass! :sight:

In all seriousness, I think you just have to match the mag to the gun All my guns run fine with CMC, Wilson and Tripp mags, but my favorite gun locks back more consistently with CMC, so the Wilsons and Tripps I use for practice and in my other guns that aren't so picky. I could probably change out my slide stop and make it run 100% with all of them, but why bother when I have a pile of CMCs that run 100%?

BB

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Zdog, How exactly is the pistol causing the problem with the mags? I use my Wilson mags with 2 Springer, a Les Bear and Gcup and don't have problems. A bit more info would help.

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Zdog, How exactly is the pistol causing the problem with the mags? I use my Wilson mags with 2 Springer, a Les Bear and Gcup and don't have problems. A bit more info would help.

The speculation that the gun was the problem came as a result that I was using the mags in two different 1911s. One was a 1911 colt model 70 government model and the other was a SA TRP operator with a mag well. It was speculated that one or the other of the two was somehow causing a problem. After considering the problem for a few days now I feel that the following was the problem. Please remember that I am using both the 10 round and the 8 round mags for competition and I frequently had the opportunity to really slam the mags home during a slide lock reload. The problem with the 10 round mags was as described in a previous post from CMC on this subject. The lips were being bent open from a vigorous slide lock reload. The problem with the 8 round Cobra Mags was that I was knocking off or base plates. The base plates on the Cobra Mags are generously wide. If you insert the mags carefully without any side load things are fine, however during a match reload I found that I was putting a side load on the mag when I inserted it causing the wide base of the mag to catch on the bottom of the grip before encountering the mechanical stop thus causing the base to separate.

Here is my personal opinion about 1911 mags:

Wilson....nice mags with wimpy springs. Great customer service.

CMC....OK mags with not so great customer service

Tripp Research....Great mags with great customer service.

ZDog

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I have 6 CMC 10 rounders and 4 CMC Power Mag 10 rounders that I've used for years (10+) with no problems at all. I've never had a feed lip problem with them or any of the 6 CMC 8 rounders I have. I do have to admit that I don't do many speed reloads at slidelock so this may be a big reason why they have held up so well.

Yep....those mags work fine unless you use them for competition.

ZDog

I've been using them in competition ever since I bought them!

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I like the CMC Power Mags. I shoot SS, so run the 8 rounders, but I have had ZERO problems with mine. Although they are quite new, they do not appear to show much wear. I like the little bit of a base pad, so that's partly why I like 'em. I also like the holes on the sides so you can see how many rounds you've loaded so there are no suprises during a stage when you forgot to top off a mag.

Bottom line from what I've seen so far is I don't think you can go wrong with either the Wilson or CMC's. There's a reason they're so popular.

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does the power mag 10 rounder in springfield trophy match will fit in ipsc box or can someone post a pics with 10 round mags in it please and thank you

If you mean .45 cal 10 round mags in the USPSA box, nope it won't fit.

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Love the Wilson ETM mags -- load much easier than the 47D. That being said, my wife has 11,000 rounds through her gun and I have 16,500 through mine and we shared

twelve 47D mags during that period and never had any problems with them and never changed the springs and rarely if ever cleaned them. Starting to transition over

to the ETMs -- during the first match with them somebody stepped on one and put a small "dimple" in it from a rock when it got stepped on --- this interfered with

the follower -- sent it to Wilson and they replaced it at no charge.

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