1911 magazines wearing out too fast?
I’ve owned more than a few 45acp guns, basically for tests and evaluations, but I still love my 1911 handguns. I have to admit that it still shocks me to see the number of gun malfuntions on firing ranges due to bad magazines or shooters not disengaging the thumb safeties during competitions. In my humble opinion this should be a big warning to anyone that is carrying a 1911 style handgun, that they really need to do some research into the right type of 1911 magzines they should be using. Although I would never feel out gunned with a 1911, I stopped carrying them due to too many times I have missed the thumb safety during practice that I felt it wasn’t worth the time to keep practicing it when I could easily just switch to another type of gun. I’m still not on the Springfield XD bandwagon, but many of my friends have jumped on that. I do not think it’s a wise thing to carry a 1911 around without the safety engaged, but I would say that although the 1911 is a great competition and military gun, it has it’s place in the handgun community as much as a j-frame 38 special does.
There are many gun forums and places you can research 1911 gun magazines, the 1911 forum was where I first learned about swapping out various parts on my Colt 1991A1, and I have improved my shooting and reliability dramatically. Wilson Combat magazines are my favorite, but Chip McCormick magazines seem to look more traditional and also have a very good reputation. I have not had good experiences with GI magazines holding up for very long, and I also highly recommend paying attention to round counts in your magazines and recoil springs. Out of all of the guns I have owned, the Colts and Springfields I own do start to choke up after about 6000rds and become less tolerant of even just plain FMJ rounds. If I had a round count like that using defensive HP ammo, I would expect problems much sooner.
I first stepped into the world of tactical carbines after years of toting around an M16A2 for close to 10yrs. We basically had to clean and maintain our firearms daily when deployed and I often wondered what we might have been able to do during the day if we didn’t have such a high maintenance rifle. Looking back, I realized there wasn’t much else to do and this was something that we did to just occupy time. The M16A2 is not a very clean running firearm, but it can go for hundreds if not thousands of rounds without cleaning if it was lubed correctly from the beginning. In all of my years of service with the M16A2, and the years standing next to operators with AR15 rifles, I’d say 90% of malfunctions were bad magazines or improperly loaded, and bad ammo. The next was improper lubrication. It’s been a few years since I’ve been on the range during hunting season, but It was about 5yrs ago that I ran into an AR15 owner that said the key to running an AR15 reliable is to run it dry. Well, if you own an AR15 and you think this is true, I can’t help you.
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.
1 was a Colt 1991A1 and It came with 2 Colt 7rd magazines. I shot about about 500rds through it and I had an occasional malfunction. The problem I kept having was the slide would close on an empty chamber. I did some reading and found that it was most likely the magazine slide stop tab was bending and wasn’t full engaging the slide stop. A pair of needle nose plyers fixed that for a few hundred rounds more then the problem came back. I found out about 
The 1911 Pistol is one of the most popular competition pistols in the shooting industry and on the firing range. Not only is it about nostalgia, but the 1911 is one of the most tweakable and customizable handguns you can own. Shooting a 45acp is not always the easiers, but you will have more fun reloading 45acp than any other caliber if you are a target shooter.