Round nosed FMJ Hardball vs SWC vs Flat nosed FMJ vs Hollow point .45 acp.

I watched a documentary that stated the 1911 was designed around 230 grain FMJ hardball ammo to ensure proper feeding.
I was practicing racking mags of hardball and flat nosed rounds through my Colt. I had heard of "Garand Thumb" before, but when I tried the flat nosed rounds; I experienced "1911 Thumb" when the flat nosed continually misfed.

How much trouble or lack of with feeding have people had with the following?

Round nosed FMJ Hardball

SWC

Flat nosed FMJ

Hollow point .45 acp

Thanks,
Wes Tilson

None

My guns eat whatever I have fed them. The key is each round has particular characteristics and should be loaded to a certain length range that should make them feed just fine. I load all my 45's in SWC, JHP and FMJ.

Hand cycling rounds through your gun really tells you very little about how it may act when actually being fired.

DA/SA wrote:Hand cycling rounds through your gun really tells you very little about how it may act when actually being fired.

+1

No feeding issues with any of my M1911s.  As a stunt, some will feed sized/empty cases.

Jim

Seen a lot of 1911s choke on 185gr JWC factory ammo at Fleet matches.

JayhawkNavy02 wrote:Seen a lot of 1911s choke on 185gr JWC factory ammo at Fleet matches.

I would guess that's because inexperienced shooters don't hold firmly or consistently enough to allow the pistol to recoil and cycle properly. Surely not 100%, but certainly a major contributing factor. I'd bet you'd see similar results at SAFS (I don't know what make/model/caliber they shoot at SAFS).

You see all kinds of stuff at Fleet matches, and that's exactly the point - to help sailors and Marines gain marksmanship experience. At least that's what I've tried to do when I've shot Pac Fleet matches.

Oh, and be a leg donor. I did that a lot at Pac Fleet.

john bickar wrote:

JayhawkNavy02 wrote:Seen a lot of 1911s choke on 185gr JWC factory ammo at Fleet matches.

I would guess that's because inexperienced shooters don't hold firmly or consistently enough to allow the pistol to recoil and cycle properly. Surely not 100%, but certainly a major contributing factor. I'd bet you'd see similar results at SAFS (I don't know what make/model/caliber they shoot at SAFS).

You see all kinds of stuff at Fleet matches, and that's exactly the point - to help sailors and Marines gain marksmanship experience. At least that's what I've tried to do when I've shot Pac Fleet matches.

Oh, and be a leg donor. I did that a lot at Pac Fleet.

Absolutely true.


There’s some hard holders with the same results.  The TZZ 185 doesn’t seem to play nice in a quite a few pistols.  SAFS not so much since it’s M9s and ball ammo.

2 Salyer 1911's run any bullet profile i put through them. 185gr button nose swc took some fine tuning on my end as far as COL but once corrected no issues

I had some Winchester JSWC in the old yellow box that had a heck of a time feeding until I ran them through a crimper die to give them a less sharp edge at the case mouth.  After that they fed fine.  Roddy might have advised me on this.  It was long ago.

First, place a sized empty case in the magazine, insert magazine in the gun, pull back slide and let go. If your 1911 is like most, the case fed just fine.
Beyond that, feeding problems in the 1911 are addressed by:
1) getting magazines designed for earlier release of the round.
2) adjusting COL to feed properly  (ignore the manual's COL, as that is simply their tested COL)
Next, as I remember, JMB designed the 1911 for 200 gn bullets, but the Army wanted a bullet closer in weight to the .45 Colt they were basing their man-stopping needs on.