1911 Magazine Follower "problem".

[prs]

I put the word problem in quote marks because maybe it is not so much of a problem, but still a bit annoying. I have several each 7 round stainless steel mags from Wilson Combat, Colt, and Ruger for my 1911 pistols. The magazine bodies of these three brands seem to be totally identical renditions of John Browning's design with tapered control feed lips. I speculate all three brands are really Check Mate and the Colt and Ruger ones even have the little "s" to so designate, although the Wilson Combat do not. The Ruger branded ones have the nice broad dimpled follower and a shield on the follower that extend back down into the front of the magazine to keep the follower firmly retained. Those Ruger examples also have nice robust springs. The Wilson Combat specimens had somewhat weaker springs and no shield on the dimpled follower. The Colt units also had the shieldless followers and very wimpy springs. I put Wolff extra power springs in the Colt and WC branded ones, no problem. But those shieldless followers do bug me some because that design with the extra power springs tends to have the follower's front tip getting caught on the top front edge of the magazine when empty, thus feeding that first round into the mag is a little tedious. Is this a common bug, or just a side effect of using the Wolff spring with that shieldless follower? I wonder if Check Mate lists their good shielded follower; my next action will be to check.

Update: I just checked and CheckMate does offer their followers and have 3 variants: a stainless steel "bull nose" type, a stainless steel dimpled type, and a blued steel dimpled type. The Ruger brand mags I have by CheckMate have blued dimpled steel followers. The pics shown on the CheckMate site are just too poor quality to see how each style is really made. So I am not sure what to order.

prs

[Tatume]

It sounds like the dimpled follower is correct, either blue or stainless.

[Groo]

Groo here
Thats why I use Metalform!!!!!!!!!

[35remington]

The bullnose follower's front does extend into the front of the magazine. That sounds like what you want, but in terms of feed reliability it is no different than the regular open front follower.

I have never found the standard folded follower to be a problem in loading, truthfully. The Wilson Combat "Service" 7 shot tapered lip magazines are supposed to already come with extra power springs. Says so on their website, anyway.

"C" designates Checkmate, not "s" which actually means stainless. Wilson got Checkmate to leave off their identifying stamps so their version would have a distinct product identity.

There is no reason why you could not take a tiny bit off the front of the follower.....the "pointy" bit on the end......to make a little more clearance for the front of the magazine. Don't overdo it. Mine do not strike the front of the magazine when loading, so yours might be s skosh long.

The "broad dimpled follower" if it has a flat front end is called a "D" shaped dimple. Checkmate added them to their followers in preference to the round dimples some years back. I know this because I have examples of both from Checkmate. In theory they hold the cartridge in place on the last shot better than the round dimples (bumps, really) but the main thing is that the bump be high enough and in the right place.

[scattershot]

If they feed and function well, I'd leave them alone.

[prs]

Thanks for the responses. I read about magazines in the vol. 2 shop manual and noticed the open style are shown as the originals. I think the Wolff springs may be shaped differently. Like I mentioned, once loaded they function well. When I get some time, I will investigate more.

35remington, I think all of my pimple bumps are round, but will take closer notice. The problem of mine catching the front of the mag is not that the follow is too long, its just that the spring is not pushing the follower against the back of the magazine. This occurred after installing new Wolff springs. I have the old springs.

Groo, I have some of the Metalform mags too and they are reliable in my pistols. I also have two of the new Wolff 8 round mags that are made to that same pattern.

prs

[35remington]

Do you have the springs installed correctly, with the loop on the spring behind the tab underneath the follower? What you describe shouldn't happen.