1911 Reliability, What Does It Really Mean?

After attending the Viking Tactics Handgun 1.5 class last weekend, I watched various student 1911s perform very poorly over the three days.  About 1/4 of the students had 1911 platforms, and two of them, a double stack .40 and another a cone barrel Commander sized gun, certainly did nothing to further the cause of the 1911 or its modified formats. Both guns had frequent cycling and feed way issues. Some other guns, 5" .45's, fell victim to the usual feed way malfunctions, some caused by worn/defective magazines. While I personally found all of these malfunctions quite distressing and unsatisfactory, their owners seemed to take them right in stride or otherwise declare that their guns worked well. The reality is that they did not, and the owners should have been working harder to sort those guns out rather than making excuses or lowering their standards.  This got me thinking about what 1911 owners should really be seeing when their guns malfunction, instead of experiencing selective amnesia.

Let's take a look at some of the common excuses,  their root causes, and the fixes. 

Defective magazines:
If a magazine is bad, for goodness sake don't just roll with it. After the first malfunction, label the magazine as suspect. If and when it does it again, then it gets retired. The excuse of "it's just for training" shouldn't fly, as additional malfunctions experienced during training only serve to undermine your confidence in the weapon and cloud its true reliability record.  I could see saving them for training double feeds and such where mags can get damaged, but shooters have a tendency to let the defective mags back into the inventory, which is of course unacceptable. It is far easier and less tempting to just ditch the faulty mags.  Keep your inventory of magazines numbered so you can weed out duds, and don't be afraid to replace them regularly. 

Feedway malfunctions:
Feedway issues are very fixable, but they certainly won't go away with any combination of hope and ignorance.  The user needs to recognize this as a mechanical issue with many contributing factors. First, pick good quality ammunition with bullet shapes optimized for feeding in the 1911. Remember that some ammunition, like old Federal HydraShok with the square bullet profile and the Speer 200 grain JHP, just weren't destined to work well in all 1911s.  Second, make sure your magazines are doing their part and have proper feed lip geometry and spring tension.  Lastly, it is not uncommon even for new factory guns to have improperly cut feed ramps and barrel throats or chambers that are rough or tight.  Feedway issues need to be addressed by a competent 1911 specialist, and are not a home project for the untrained with a Dremel. 

"It just needs to be broken in."
No it doesn't. Most of the time, this really just means that the gun was not built correctly and you are completing some of the final fitting by firing.  Break in does not fix all the issues, so don't hope for the break in fairy to make an improperly set up weapon suddenly become right. Overly tight slide/frame/barrel fit, improper chamber finish, rough breech faces, etc. are better addressed on the bench than wasting precious time and expensive ammunition at the range.  The only really legit break in that I typically see is related to guns getting tightened up after they get refinished with a coating that adds surface thickness, such as the spray and bake paint finishes. Usually the refinished gun will work ok, but needs to be kept very clean and well lubed during this initial wear in period.  This break in can also be addressed on the bench instead.  

"It needs more lube."
Lube is good, but a clean gun with only a modicum of lube should work just fine.  It is pretty common to see shooters blame mechanical shortfalls like feedway malfunctions on lack of lube, where the actual root of the issue has nothing to do with application of oil. If you reference my Project Charlie gun, I ran it for 1000 rounds without any oil or cleaning.  Proper initial setup of the weapon is more critical than how much lube is slathered on the gun. Lube promotes good function and reduces wear, but it is not pixie dust.     

"It was dirty."
How dirty was it that it would stop working? Through my research and experience, most of the malfunctions that users attribute to a dirty weapon are actually mechanical issues that have nothing to do with cleanliness.  While every 1911 is going to have some threshold for its ideal maintenance state, most shooters tend to incorrectly attribute feedway issues and extractor problems to a dirty gun. The key here is to truly understand what the malfunctions are before dismissing them.

If all of this sounds pretty harsh on the 1911 platform, I suppose it is.  However, it is meant more as a wake up call to the 1911 users to stay on top of their guns as well as to keep their standards for function and reliability extremely high.

Bullseye Training

Bullseye training is not very sexy or high speed, but the ability to shoot accurately is essential.  Here's a simple marksmanship development set that takes little setup to do and will pay dividends in enhancing your trigger control (but maybe not your self esteem, especially at first).

All strings are fired standing.  Use whatever bullseye target you like, but use the same one all the time so you can keep track of your progress.  For the purposes of this drill set, "slow fire" means no time limit. Load with 5 round magazines, even if your gun holds more than that.  You'll see why below.

15 yards
1) Strong hand only, 5 rounds, slow fire
2) Support hand only, 5 rounds, slow fire
3) Freestyle (2 hands, standing), 5 rounds, slow fire

Check your work, record your score, post a new target.  Repeat at 25 yards.  The goal is to be able to train this exclusively at 25 yards.

This is pretty simple, but here's the catch.  When you press off a bad shot - you should be able to call it, or if you see a shot on target that didn't go where you wanted, stop and remediate.  Unload the pistol, and perform five PERFECT dry fire repetitions on target.  Don't just snap them off and call it good.  Line up the sights and press them off like you were just doing a second ago in live fire.  These reps effectively are to tell your brain/finger - "THIS is what you're supposed to be doing.  Ignore that horrible snatch that gave us the errant shot."  If you get a bad press during dry fire - your gun shakes or your muzzle dips - then start over until you get 5 perfect ones.  Then reload and continue.  Using 5 round mags will help you keep your round count straight.

GI Grip Screws for the 1911

I have long hated the trend of the hex and Torx head grip screws, neither of which are easy to tighten without the specific wrench. The screws always seem to loosen when you're away from the tools.  Flat head grip screws are a much smarter choice since multi-tools have flat head blades on them.  However, there's not a lot of choice available for them other than the OEM units on certain guns, and the few aftermarket choices vary wildly in quality.  

The original GI blueprint for the grip screw featured a concave screw slot which allowed you to use a case rim as a field expedient screwdriver. I updated the print a little bit, and am very excited about the new parts. They're made out of the correct 1018 carbon steel, heat treated per the GI print specs, and black oxide finished.

Currently available only in carbon steel with black oxide finish. Stainless will be coming later this year.  We're not doing shortened ones for slim grips, it'd be easier for you to just grind them down.  Sorry.

Check out the pic below.  I got to experience the joyful convenience of these new screws the other day on the range when the new grip screws (which I hadn't blue Loctited in due to my excitement in sticking them onto a bunch of guns) came loose.  I just picked up a piece of brass and got them fixed right up.  It's the simple pleasures...

Project C: Phase 3, Sand Testing

For the next phase of abuse, I wanted to see for myself how the 1911 would respond in a sandy environment. I thought about what would be a reasonable and realistic test, and concluded that I wanted to simulate having the gun exposed to sand while holstered and subsequently drawn and fired with a typical loadout of ammunition.

For the sand, I chose to use 180 grit aluminum oxide blasting media, which is a known and repeatable material. It is essentially very pure sand, with sharp crystalline structure and fine enough to stick to everything it touches. It has a consistency just slightly coarser than flour or confectioner’s sugar. I had considered using fine glass blasting media, but the particle structure of that material is actually a bit round and the particles do not stick to things on their own. Glass media actually feels smooth and slippery to the touch, while the aluminum oxide sticks to your fingers like chalk or flour.

The holster used was an old Safariland 6004. I typically carry 4 spare eight round magazines, so the gun would have to fire a total of 41 rounds after the sand exposure. To prevent introducing a second variable set, the magazines were not subjected to sand and were kept clean. That would be a whole additional set of testing which can be explored later.

The holstered pistol would be enclosed in a covered container with approximately 1/2 cup of aluminum oxide “sand”, then shaken with a crisp up and down motion for a total of 10 cycles of up/down. Lacking a dust chamber to blow the sand around, this was the simplest solution, though it is somewhat more sand exposure than you’d typically get from windy conditions.

For the first test, the pistol was lubricated with a moderate amount of 10-8 Lube, much as I would if I were going to shoot for an extended range session. After shaking, the holstered pistol was removed from the sand container, unholstered, then fired. The 6004 hood was actually pretty tough to move when it was encrusted with sand. The pistol had a great deal of sand stuck to it, and was left as is. The first shot went fine, after which all the sand on the outside of the barrel hood got dragged into the slide and the gun refused to go into battery on the new round. Tapping the rear of the slide sometimes would close the gun, but most of the time I had to rack the slide and feed another round. I repeated this one round sequence until magazine 3 when the gun started to shoot two rounds before seizing up. By magazines 4 and 5, I was able to fire 6 and 7 round strings respectively.

The pistol was then field stripped and hosed down with aerosol brake cleaner to remove the sand and oil. After air drying, it was reassembled dry and the above protocol repeated with the dry gun. When the gun came out of the holster, very little sand was stuck to it. However, much to my surprise, the trigger would not move! The trigger way was seized up with sand and after some force, I was able to fire a shot. The gun cycled normally, but the trigger would not reset for any shots as it did not move freely in the frame. I was able to fire all 5 magazines while manually resetting the trigger. Upon later reflection, it was determined that the brake cleaner introduced into the frame during the above cleaning must not have dried and allowed sand to stick to the trigger.

The pistol was again field stripped and cleaned with brake cleaner. The next test was to lube the pistol with a thick grease, in this case Brian Enos Slide Glide. This grease actually has a gummy/tacky feel to it, but is an extremely efficient lubricant and stays where you put it. Introducing the pistol to sand caused the thick grease and sand to turn into a cement like paste, and caused it completely seize up. After the first shot, no amount of effort could cause the gun to open or close to effect further firing. I called it quits at that point.

During the final cleaning of the gun, I detail stripped it and found that the trigger and trigger way in the frame was hopelessly contaminated with sand. Even after brushing, spraying, more brushing, and swabbing, the trigger did not move freely in the frame. I had to manually work the trigger back and forth to free up remaining particles embedded in the soft trigger shoe. Thanks to the coverage of the holster, the rest of the gun was not that horribly filled with sand. The mainspring housing spring cap had a lot of sand on top of it, as that area is almost fully exposed to sand. The hood of the 6004 kept sand from getting into the hammer/sear junction, which is a problematic area on the gun.

There has been a lot of discussion about sand cuts on the slide/frame rails of the 1911, but the reality from the context of this testing is that the rails and grooves barely even see any sand. The show stopper for the 1911 is the intrusion of sand into the radial lug area on the slide/barrel and the contact between the lower lugs and the slide stop pin. Since these are critical contact areas for lockup, it can be hard to create much meaningful clearance here. More realistic would be to work toward limiting the introduction of sand into this area. For snipers and others who might be crawling around in the sand, a flap holster makes a lot of sense.

Another commonly used solution in regards to sand contamination is to run the gun completely dry. Speaking only in regards to this particular pistol, we have seen that it did indeed run acceptably without lubrication, and for a much longer cycle than the 5 magazines that I would have on my person. Further, the dry gun did not attract any sand. Examining the gun minutes after the dry testing, it was not apparent that it had been recently covered in sand. Some of the new high tech finishes boast the ability to run the gun without wet lube, but in light of my previous testing, this capability would not seem to be as valuable as their prices would seem to indicate. What would be of more interest to me is their ability to improve corrosion resistance.

These first three protocols were quite time consuming and exhausting, so further tests will wait until later. I look to repeat the dry testing, as well as testing TW-25B, Slip 2000 EWL, and a grease/oil mixture (Lubriplate and Militec). I do not expect radically different results with the other lubricants, but I do want to be reasonably thorough in my findings.

Project C: Phase 2, Lubricant Free Testing

With basic function confirmed, it was time to move on to the first simple abusive test. I wanted to see how long the gun would function without lubrication of any kind. Clearly we know that generally weapons will function better WITH lubrication, but I wanted some more concrete data. Keep in mind that this gun is assembled to what I would consider average factory tolerances for fit, but minus all the lumps and bumps that lower end factory guns tend to have. In other words, your mileage may vary depending on how well your gun is set up.

I felt that a reasonable goal would be to try to shoot at least 1000 rounds without lubrication and cleaning to see what happens.

Day 1: 200 rounds through the gun with nothing worthwhile to report. It is still running great.
Day 2: 150 more rounds, for a total of 350 without lube. The pistol is still boringly reliable and wonderfully nice to shoot.
Day 3: 200 more extremely uneventful rounds without so much as a hiccup. The gun even devoured about 100 rounds of vintage Federal Hydrashok, back when square was deemed to be an effective bullet shape. I was impressed that this gun would digest this junk, as I have had many clean guns fail on these horrible rounds. Total round count, dry and dirty: 550.
Day 4: 150 rounds fired. It would appear that I spoke too soon regarding the Hydrashoks, as I experienced a feedway malfunction with one of the rounds coming out of a Tripp 10 round Cobra magazine. This may have been the worst possible combination of factors - a 10 round magazine, which are known for being tough to feed, a square nosed bullet, and a dirty gun. The malfunction occurred approximately halfway through the firing session, and no further issues were experienced. Total round count, dry and dirty: 700.
Day 5: 300 rounds fired. I shot the gun at a local steel match, and even other shooters noticed how dirty the gun was when they heard the scraping sounds during the loading sequence. I shot all ball ammunition and experienced zero malfunctions. Total round count, dry and dirty: 1000.

At this point, I declared the test good enough as it was sufficiently uneventful. As you can see in the pictures, the gun was dirty but not unmanageably so. The feed ramp, chamber mouth, and frame bridge under the barrel had some very hardened carbon deposits which required scraping, but the rest of the gun wasn’t too bad. After about 10-15 minutes of cleaning, the gun was lubed up and reassembled. What a difference! Gone was the scraping and grinding sensation, and back was a slick smooth action.

Shooters are often quick to blame any particular malfunction in their 1911 on insufficient lubrication, when the reality is that the cause lies elsewhere. This test shows pretty well that a properly built 1911 with good magazines and good ammunition will function quite well without lubrication of any sort. Note that the lone malfunction during the 1000 round test - with square nosed Hydrashok and a marginal feeding 10 round magazine - highlights the significant role played by ammunition and magazines.

Further, while top quality components of course a better choice for long term performance and wear than bargain basement, the gun was composed entirely of middle of the road factory grade components - old Series 70 Colt parts, recent production S&W parts, and a slide comparable to that of most current factory 1911s. For the relatively short service cycle we studied, the setup of the parts was more critical than anything else. New 1911 owners should pay attention to this, as the itch to change the parts around for sport should take second priority to ensuring that all parts are fit correctly first. A properly fit factory extractor will do better than some high end unit that you throw in without proper adjustment or fitting.

As far as the inevitable counter arguments I’ve already heard of “Well my (fill in modern service pistol design) will work for thousands of rounds without lube/cleaning too, so big deal.” Agreed, so what’s your point? Feed that same modern pistol with low quality ammunition and damaged/worn/out of spec magazines and let’s see what we get. I see plenty of modern service pistols fall victim to these issues, and most of you running firearms programs for your agencies likely have seen the same thing. This test is not intended to compare the 1911 to modern service pistol designs - that’s an apples to oranges comparison - but rather to study the limits of the design in a modern setting.

In review, everything seems to keep pointing back toward the 1911 user needing to know if his weapon system (the gun, magazines, AND ammunition) is set up properly or not. As I and others have said countless times before, if you want to run a 1911, you need to be a switched on user.

Check back soon, next we’ll be doing some sand testing.

Project C: 1911 Abusive Testing, Phase 1

Project “C”, or “Charlie” in the radio alphaphonetic, is the third build project for 2010 (you can see Alpha and Bravo on my 1911 Projects Page).  While it can hardly be classified with the Alpha and Bravo guns in the investment of resources and time, it is significant enough to get a call sign in that it will hopefully represent an important platform for research and development.  Back in 2004, a concept gun I’d built for a tactical team was featured on the cover of SWAT magazine.  In the article, I quipped that some features of the gun would remain only conceptual until someone paid me to do the destructive testing.  To date, no one has yet stepped forward with such a generous offer.  I grew tired of waiting, which led me to Project Charlie.

First, a little bit about the build.  The gun is built on a frame from an old base model Smith & Wesson 1911 that I had laying around, and finished off with takeoff, leftover, and junk parts from my pile.  While the frame has not seen the top half of the original gun for a long time, it has been the host for a Simunition conversion kit and has seen much action over the years.  If it could tell stories...  The slide, a closeout from the now-defunct Lone Star Armament, sports a new 10-8 Performance logo stamp, an old Colt Series 70 barrel and all the Colt small parts.  The frame is filled with a hodge podge of the original OEM S&W parts, some early production leftover 10-8 parts (mag catch, grips, and the original prototype flat trigger), a lanyard loop mainspring housing from a Kimber Warrior, and a Dawson Light Speed Rail.  One of my 02-140 rear sights from the “scratch & dent” pile is paired with a very old and beat up Dawson fiber optic front sight.  The gun is roughly the same overall tightness as a typical Kimber in regards to barrel fit and slide to frame fit. There is approximately .004” total side to side gap between the slide and frame, which is similar to how many modern factory guns fit.

Not much else to report about the basic function.  Stay tuned for Phase 2, the Lubricant Free Endurance Test!

Welcome!

Welcome to the new 10-8 Performance Blog!  Bear with me while I figure out how all this stuff works.  This will be a place to see the latest project updates and random 10-8 stuff.