Plastic followers on 1911

[newton]

So I was cleaning things the other night and noticed something about my mags. The very tip of the followers have significant wearing going on. Is this normal for plastic ones?

126857

[waksupi]

Yes, that's normal. When you start having feed issues, just replace the followers.

[mozeppa]

John Browning is spinning dervishly in his grave .....plastic followers.:groner:

[35remington]

Yep. JMB would do a face palm if he saw some of the "improvements" made to his pistol and magazine designs. Most really don't understand that most of the changes made to his designs are a step backwards in terms of functionality and reliability.

A plastic follower is, sadly, just one among many. A whole thread could be devoted to dumb 1911 "improvements."

[Animal]

I'm kind of curious about this concept. I've heard great things about plastic followers from folks who use, or have used them. I haven't tried them so I have no opinion. But, if John Browning had the same materials available to him that we have today, how would the 1911 actually be designed? Plastic technology would have put a great deal of different options on the table. He got it right with steel and wood, but there wasn't the same set of options that manufacturers like Glock happily use. Just something to think about. It is hard to believe he would have done it any differently though.

[35remington]

No full length guide rods, especially the idiotic one piece type that overly complicate takedown.

No shok buffs

No eight shot magazines in a flush fit format with their weaker than standard magazine springs. He understood what this meant to feeding reliability, and he declined to go there.

No plastic followers.

No straight feed lips on magazines. He specifically rejected that idea as not being ideal for the 1911, and then guys come along 70 years later to sell it to the public as the best thing since sliced bread.

No smooth followers in magazines.

No extended slide stops or oversize magazine releases. Either can deactivate the gun when you're trying to get it to go bang and at the worst possible time.

No large radius firing pin stops.

All these "improvements" are not that at all.

[newton]

I've thought about drilling a small hole in my follower and then filling, to a small bump on top, with two part epoxy. I have wondered if it might help with the 8 rounds(Para mags are slightly extended) feeding the last round.

Ive ve just been running 7 for the last 100 rounds and have not had a hiccup yet like I was having with the last round when running 8. I've read that the bump was put there to help with that last round.

[35remington]

It is, but your follower shape really doesn't lend itself to modification. Such a modification has to be present from the get go or it won't last as an epoxy bump is not all that durable. The bump also has to be at a precise location, which is barely before the point the magazine releases the round. Further forward is no help at all.

Eventually when your springs take a set it will malfunction on the last round whether you put 2, five, or seven of them in there. You're living on borrowed time. A better fix is a stronger spring, but they may not be available for your particular magazine/follower style for all I know.

Get a Checkmate GI seven round magazine with the flat follower and the dimple with the extra power spring (2.25 more, cheaper than buying Wolffs afterward) in seven round format and see how the master dictated that it should be done. This feeds the 1911 precisely as he intended it to be fed, with less angularity than the "improved" magazines and better chance of feeding in the majority of 1911's made. These now have the "D" shaped dimple for maximum prevention of last round problems. This and the spring give a very good chance of avoiding your problems even with full power ammo. You'll notice reduced power ammo does not do it, which proves it's an inertial issue.

Despite what you have heard elsewhere, the magazine design most likely to make the gun work every time is the design the maker intended to be used in it. This and the hybrid (tapered plus controlled release point for HP's and shorter OAL rounds with the exception of the very short target wadcutters) are it.

[2shot]

Thank God a voice of reason!

"Get a Checkmate GI seven round magazine with the flat follower and the dimple with the extra power spring (2.25 more, cheaper than buying Wolffs afterward) in seven round format and see how the master dictated that it should be done."

Checkmate GI 7 round magazine is all I have been using for the last 10 years and have never had a problem.

2shot

[MtGun44]

I purchased about a dozen unmarked "GI overrun" magazines in about 1981 as part of
a group buy of 100 for a group of IPSC shooters. At 100 we got the best price break
to $3.00 each (!). I have NEVER had a single one of these magazines crack the
lips at the back like many do after many, many thousands of rounds or lose a floorplate
(spot welded on). Two of them are in my carry pouch for daily carry backup ammo
today and are tested every couple of months. The magazine in the gun is a really
precious find, a VERY early original Colt with the milled and pinned floorplate which
has been nickel plated. IME, nickeled mags are THE absolute smoothest and slickest
both for ammo feeding and loading/reloading in the gun.

No clue who made them, but they are true GI type, and the steel is clearly a very
high grade not to have a single crack after over three decades of use.

Can't vouch for the durability of the Checkmate mags, but the John Moses Browning
design is correct for normal ammo (230 ball, long JRN like 230 Gold Dots and Win
white box, and H&G 68 200 LSWCs) and some guns need the hybrids for short
JHPs and target SWCs.

That said - I have a number of 1911s that are entirely unruffled with any reasonably
decent magazine and cartridge, pretty amazing that such wide variation in the
design of the mags can still work with a lot of the good 1911s out there now.

We are truly blessed that there are something like 20-25 different manufacturers
turning out 1911 clones these days, although some of them are not really built
to proper standards and give the type an undeserved reputation for not feeding
anything but 230 JRN. The reality is that any of the top makers like Dan Wesson
Colt, Kimber, Ruger, Springfield and a few others are putting out guns that will
work essentially 100% of the time with any normal factory ammo. Unfortunatley,
many folks are still trying to rediscover what works in the handloading world,
even though the answer is widely known and has been published here repeatedly.

Stay safe and stick close to J M Browning's original design. There are many REAL
improvements to the sights and such, but straying from the original design of the
functional parts is frought with hazards to the reliability.

Bill

[newton]

Yea, I figure epoxy won't last. But figure it cannot hurt it and could be easily reversed. Kind of like finding your intake is leaking air on a trip to town and patching it with duct tape until you can get the right part.

I am for sure going to go with standard 7 round mags from here on out and will get metal followers with dimples for the obvious reasons. I only have this particular gun for around the home plinking. I figure trying this won't cost anything but time and it would be interesting to see if a dimple would make these mags feed that 8th round.

As they say, nessesity (in this case curiosity) is the mother of all inventions. I wonder what the typical life span/round count is for plastic followers?