Strange 9mm 1911 Magazine Issue?

[RickT]

I don't know how many folks hereabouts are shooting essentially stock 9mm 1911s, but I thought I'd give it a shot and describe my problem. I've got an SA 9mm 1911 than I've run about 12K rounds through. Wife and I shoot steel challenge BTW. I use 10-11 mags mostly SA, the ones with the spacer and patent number on the follower (no split "tongue"); the mags would have seen >1K rounds each. I have one Tripp Cobra mag I've been using. The SA mags used to lock the slide back, but not one of these suckers will do so now, not even when I'm hand racking the slide with an empty mag in the well. The Tripp mag with a very similar follower (same patent number, but split "tongue", locks the slide back when it should.

I know it's not the gun since the mags do the same thing in my wife's identical backup gun which has seen very few rounds.

Fortunately, shooting steel challenge this is not a critical issue, but I really would like to figure out what's going on. Just as an experiment I've ordered six (6) of the Tripp followers to try in the SA mags. Any suggestions out there?

Thanks,

Edited July 18, 2015 by RickT

[nmbpman]

Probably weak mag springs if they are fairly used.

[jcc7x7]

Mag springs and the follower has been "moved" out of shape/position to act on the slide stop

Sounds like its time to rebuild the mags

I do mine whenever it stops feeding smoothly or in other words I start feeling "ker chunk" when the gun is cycling

For me that means the mag spring is moving slower and the round is being picked up lower by the slide and being

rammed into the barrel ramp lower causing the "ker chunk" feeling

Once the new spring and follower is in, the round is popping up in the mag faster and is being picked up as high as possible in the mag

and being almost fed right into the chamber making the gun run much smoother.

New spring and follower also take care of locking the slide back on last shot etc

[RickT]

I'm definitely going to try new springs. 100+ cycles on a magazine doesn't seem like much, but the springs are either over-compressed when fully loaded or not very high quality springs to begin with. I'll see how the new springs work with the stock followers, but will also have a few of the Tripp followers to try.

[StraightSh00ter]

I'm new so take this for what it's worth:

I was reading somewhere that the followers can bend out of shape, and the guy who posted the article would sort of massage them back into shape during rebuilds.

From my mechanical experience (not shooting): Any spring will take a set (get shorter) but the spring force generally doesn't go away. If you think the problem is the spring, you can temporarily put a shim under it (maybe a piece of cardboard) and see if that gets the slide to lock. This would help isolate the problem to the spring or something else, if that's what you're interested in doing.

[bountyhunter]

Seen the same. The older Mec Gars had followers that were stamped steel so I could tweak the follower "foot" as needed to engage the SS tab. However, the new mags had MIM followers that shatter if you try to bend them.

The problem has to be either the follower foot or the slide stop tab. Make sure you have a 9mm slide stop, the .45 one has a smaller tab on it.

[RickT]

I did replace one of the mag springs and the mag not locks the slide back even with the old follower. I'm going with a combination of weak springs aid some dirt in the magazines.

How many out there keep their magazines loaded between sessions? The prevailing rhetoric revolves around the idea that it's the cycling of "springs" that degrades them, but mag springs seem very highly compressed when fully loaded so I'm wondering if this is degrading the springs. Thoughts out there?

[ambluemax]

Time to rebuild mags. Spings are cheap...add to cart.

[RickT]

I had 10 Wolff springs on hand and put those in my wife's magazines; they now work just fine. The Wolff springs as well as the stock springs in the Metalform magazines have two more coils than the SA mag springs in the "unbranded" mags. How much can a slightly better spring cost? All's well that ends well; more springs on the way.