Keep your range mags and your primaries separate
Gun magazines have various levels of quality. Some gun magazines are meant as throw aways i.e. 1911 magazines made in Tawain. I have several 1911 GI magazines that were pretty good range mags, but when they jammed up on me, and I could blame it on the gun springs, it was time to toss them. Buying Wolff gun springs that cost about $8 for an $8 magazine isn’t really worth my time, plus I’ve found that many of these have worn out followers and it’s really not worth the headach to tweak them, plus I’d consider them to not be worth using for self defense. Wilson Combat and Chip McCormick make very good gun magazines and both of them should help get your 1911 to be more tolerant of various types of ammunition.
The one thing I have learned over the years is that no matter how much money I spent on a firearm, I’m still going to have something break. When you put thousands of rounds through a firearm the you will eventually have to learn some level of gunsmithing. After taking some of my guns to gunsmiths and having to wait for months to get simple things done, it’s good to pick up an AGI video and do the changes yourself. The same goes for gun magazines. Parts on a gun magazine can wear out and depending on how much you spent on the magazine, you may want to just toss it in the trash. For some magazines, you will only have to replace the springs to get it back to reliable functionality.
If you are thinking about buying your first gun for inside the home, there is no better option than a shotgun. Some rookie gun shopper may think a shotgun is too powerful, but the reality is there is no better defensive weapon that can be so versatile when it comes to projectile ballistics. The difference in bullet penetration between a shotgun slug and size 9 shot is tremendous. Both are incredible leathal at close ranges, but energy is lost very quickly which is an assett in close situations. Due to modern home construction, there is no better reasoning than to consider what happens to a bullet if it misses the target or if it happens to hit the target and still go on. There is a saying that there is a lawyer attached to every bullet that exits your gun if it is used in a defensive situation and this very true.
Back when the 1994 assault weapons ban was into effect there were more headaches in the gun world due to the fact that factory handgun magazines were so expensive. People cut corners with other brands and had issues. When it comes to owning a handgun, especially an auto, I highly recommend having atleast 3 magazines. Not only can guns malfunction, but magazines do wear out and break at some points and its always good to have some extra comfort if one goes down. Most of the time it’s the floor plates that come loose and a loaded mag will just dump rounds on the ground. I’ve seen it happen with rifles and handguns. If you ever run a Carbine course, you’re defanitely going to want to have atleast 3 mags for your pistol, too.
There is another issue that I see come up when taking new students to the range. I usually bring various military style rifles with me to get people to adjust to recoil and realize the common military style weapons that exist in the world. Many of these individuals, after a day on the range tend to select the gun that fit them the best. When I first got into shooting rifles, I started out with all of the military surplus firearms that came into the Country in the early and mid 1990s. There may never be another time where Soviet style weapons are imported into this Country. The military warehouses got cleaned out after the fall of the Soviet Empire and American gun owners were the beneficieries.
In the early 1990s there was a surplus of military style rifles coming into the Country. There were goofy thumbhole stocks to avoid violating gun laws or cheap parts for kits. Many of these rifles had pretty ugle stocks especially many of the rifles coming in from China or Egypt. If you have one of those MAK90s or Maadis that works great, but looks like crap, you might want to upgrade your stock with a synthetic. Many of these stocks are made in the US and can be considered US Parts to add to your legal alterations of your gun.