mnw42
Member
My 70 Series Gold Cup will feed damn near any thing. I have seen, and shot many an old USGI gun and very few of them had problems feeding much of anything. If they did balk on ammo nine time out of ten it could be traced to a wooped magazine. As it has been explained to me and I have observed, the 1911 is more or less controlled round feed. If Colt could get the Government Model to work with .38 special wad cutters and a standard unramped barrel then I don't think that rapped barrel is all that necessary.
On a compact pistol, on the other hand, this may not be the case.
If I recall the 1911 was designed around the .45 ACP. A friend of mine has a Llima (?) .380 that in nearly respect is a scaled 1911 - including the .380 ACP chambering and is 98% reliable. The smaller you go the harder it is to engineer something to work. Timing has to be more precise 100% of the time, yet tolerate variance in ammunition and environment. A 5" gun has (as designed) a larger margin for these factors than a smaller variant.
I believe this is why most of the sub-compacts sell for over a grand. The greater precision in design and operation requires a greater amount of precision in production. Something that you could get away with producing a 5" gun would have a greater effect on a smaller one.
On a compact pistol, on the other hand, this may not be the case.
If I recall the 1911 was designed around the .45 ACP. A friend of mine has a Llima (?) .380 that in nearly respect is a scaled 1911 - including the .380 ACP chambering and is 98% reliable. The smaller you go the harder it is to engineer something to work. Timing has to be more precise 100% of the time, yet tolerate variance in ammunition and environment. A 5" gun has (as designed) a larger margin for these factors than a smaller variant.
I believe this is why most of the sub-compacts sell for over a grand. The greater precision in design and operation requires a greater amount of precision in production. Something that you could get away with producing a 5" gun would have a greater effect on a smaller one.