Origin of the "Undependable" 1911 Myth?

[CWL]

Y'all, been trying to figure out where the myth of undependable 1911-style guns originated.

Prior to the 1970s, there weren't any complaints about 'old slabsides'. Enough veterans of WWI-WWII-Korea-Vietnam & LEOs were around to complain, if there was justification.

Near as I can figure, it began in the 1970s largely due to 2 reasons:
1) Colt got lazy and flushed their QC right down the drain. Series-70 guns started to suck, followed by Series-80 including the Gold Cups. Retirement of old-timer gunsmiths, cheaper parts plus the careless manufacture of 1911s resulted in truly bad guns, this was a parallel to overall downturn in America's pride & affected ALL American manufacturing during this time.;
2) Increase in late 1960s-1970s of IPSC & related gunplay. People started to soup-up their guns like teenagers soup-up cars -with same results, usually unknowledgable tinkering & untried parts/modifications destroyed reliability of many classic 1911s. These same guns then started showing-up for resale -and pissed-off a second generation of owners.

(Other factors probably influenced this trend/belief like cheapo clone manufacturers as well importation of alternative guns such as 9mm displaced demand.)

So I guess it isn't really a 'myth' after all, there were justifiable reasons why the 1911 went downhill during this time. It wasn't the gun design itself, just carelessness in quality and modifications.

Which lead us to today, Kimber has displaced Colt, but they are also starting to slip (Series II & uneven QC). But other manufacturers like SA, Wilson, Caspian & even Colt is stepping up to take the place if Kimber completely falters.

So I guess that it is just a cyclical happenstance?

 

[Stephen Ewing]

I suspect you've pretty much nailed it. The only additional possibility I'd suggest is that all the military guns had been living a hard life for 40 years before they were replaced.

Steve

 

[TheFrontRange]

Ditto Stephen Ewing's comments. Plus, I recall reading an article some years back in "Handguns" magazine that was attempting to debunk the validity and safety of carrying 1911s cocked-and-locked. The author, a former police officer IIRC, detailed how he'd purchased himself a minty Government Model for plainclothes use and how said pistol promptly went off "all by itself" while he packed it in an IWB holster. He escaped serious injury, and under examination the weapon was found to have been unsafely modified (I don't recall those details) by some previous owner. The writer went on to proclaim that cocked-and-locked carry was essentially like trouble looking for a place to happen.

The heck was...this incident happened in the 70s or 80s with a 1911 that dated back to at least the 1930s or so. So he was carrying a gun that was at least around 40 years old that he'd not had gone over by an armorer or 'smith! No slam intended on the longevity of Ol' Slabsides...I carry a 1911 myself...but to blame the gun and a well-accepted carry method seemed a little silly.

The magazine did have the deceny to print at least one reader's letter in the next issue calling this detail out.

 

[Still Learning]

You are on the right track but there are even more reasons.

The proliferation of shoddy, cheap, aftermarket magazines and parts along with a legion of not-too-great gunsmiths didn't help matters a bit. The bullseye competitions that were so popular years ago also led to a lot of people wanting "accuracy jobs" that often adversely affected reliability.

My older Series 70 Colts have no problems and I have had no troubles with my Kimbers to date. I insist on best quality magazines and ammo.

 

[BHP9]

I think the big problem these days is that in the pursuit of higher and higher profits the gun industry is all playing follow the leader. The thought being that guns like other consumer products can be made as throw away items that are designed to last only X amount of days.

The use of MIM cast parts is proving to be a real disaster both in terms of reliability and in terms of consumer trust in even name brand firearms.

Lack of quality control and lack of hand finish in the pursuit of higher and higher profits have also eroded consumer confidence in new fierarms.

Even with todays CNC machining the process has still not been perfected to the point where handguns can simply be assembled without any final hand fitting especially in regards to barrel lock up and trigger pull.

So what does this all mean to the consumer. It simply means that when he purchases a new handgun he will more than likely have functioning problems, parts breakage problems, poor trigger pulls and and pedestrian accuracy if he is lucky.

Its not just a problem with 1911's but with most handguns being made today.

Many people like myself who have been shooting and collecting all types of firearms for decades have become so disgusted with the present situation that we have quit buying new guns altogether, preferring to often pay a lot more for older weapons that are of known quality and reliablity.

 

[Old Fuff]

In addition to all the other reasons previously stated, so-called "high performance" ammunition arrived during the 1960's. These featured lighter weight hollow-point bullets with blunt noses and shorter overall cartridge lengths. The Government Model was designed to use 230 grain ball ammunition. It will of course function with something else, but reliability often requires modifications to the gun, and particularly to the magazine. It should come as no suprise that the old warhorse can't be expected to be reliable with anything that's fed it. Ammunition is a functional part of any automatic pistol.

 

[Pendragon]

I was going to say the advent of newer ammo.

Kitchen table gunsmiths.

Poor mfg.

 

[blades67]

Origin of the "Undependable" 1911 Myth?

It's no myth, Auto Ordnance makes more undependable 1911's than anything that works.

 

[Kahr carrier]

So does AMT its hard to find a good one.

 

[Al Thompson]

I think Old Fluff hit the nail on the head. Once you get away from 230 ball or round nose ammo in a stock 1911 your asking for trouble. I qualified many times (and many soldiers) using 1911A1s and 230 ball ammo. Some of the 1911s were so worn that they wouldn't group, but reliability wasn't a problem.

 

[Big Mike]

I thought it was originally hollow points?? Mike

 

[Gerald McDonald]

I agree with all of the above. I will say though that I have a friend who has shown me that you can take one of the sows ears such as AMT or Charles Daley. play with it a little and get a very servicable arm. He has owned more variants of 1911's than I have seen, also probably owned more Gold Cups than I have owned guns. He bought a CD on a whim as a beater and changed a few parts (used govt surplus parts) and told me at last count he had gone thru about 4000 hardballs and +P loads.

Dont know if anyone brought it up but they have also tightned up the tolerances quite a bit. The 1911 Colts I have owned all had that shake it hard to field strip feeling. Nice loose tolerance's might have kept jamming to a minumum.
Gerald

 

[BigG]

The shake in the original government pistols and Colts is intentional courtesy of Moses, hisself. According to Jerry Kuhnhauser, who should know, the mark of a complete tyro is focusing on slide/frame fit to judge quality of a 1911-type (however this is what most gunshop salespeople extol the most to me as a selling point.* Go figger). Kuhnhausen's experience shows shows slide frame/fit has about 5% of the total potential to increase accuracy, in other words, statistically insignificant. Where you get your bang for the buck is in bbl fit between bushing and lockup. That is at least 50 % of the slack between a garden variety shooter and a bullseye masterpiece. The rest comes into a nice trigger, better sights, and more uniform tailored ammunition.

Imho, most of the doodads found on the current generation Colts and clones are cosmetic or to prevent hammer bite which is a pretty big bugaboo on the original design (at least for me). YMMV

EDITED TO ADD: *I suspect that the full length guide rod craze is just a cheap way to add the illusion of better slide frame fit because it adds an additional point to tie the front of the slide down. However, manufacturers/assemblers would not try to fool us now, would they?

 

[dfariswheel]

If you read much on the gun forums, you will hear a lot of questions about unreliable 1911's that start off: "I'm having jams in my gun, it's failing to feed/eject, I've replaced the stock spring with....".

It seems the first thing people just HAVE to do is start switching springs. Most gun makers put in the appropriate spring for the gun they build. However, everybody just KNOWS that a different rated spring will "improve" the operation of the gun.

When they have trouble, they wonder why.
So, when their gun fails to extract and eject, or fails to feed, instead of looking at the extractor/ejector, or the magazine, they start switching springs.

Another "unreliability" issue is dirty/cheap/defective/abused magazines. A recent poster had a 1911"'jammer" and apparently didn't realize that after several THOUSAND rounds, he "might" need to clean the magazines.

Still another, is "My 1911 .45 jams. I'm shooting Raoul's Fly-by-Night Ammo Company $2.50 per hundred ammo. What's wrong with this crappy gun"?

It's been my experience, since the 60's, that most firearm malfunctions are owner induced. Yes you get bad guns, but not that many.

 

[Bergeron]

I think that perhaps the root cause of this has to do with the origins of IPSC. 1911s were among the most suitable guns for IPSC at the time, and I'm betting that a lot of newcomers to the sport wanted something better than the stock "GI" gun. Just about the only "competition" model 1911s at the time were bullseye guns, so if you wanted something better, that was the route to use. Bullseye allows alabies, IPSC doesn't. Plus, the round count to be a good shot and to shoot matches went way up. If you've got a Bulleye 1911 that'll jam, say, once ever two rounds of 2700, no biggie, especially if the pistol is extremly accurate. That's a horrible disadvantage in IPSC. In addition, if most people are using 1911s, those will be the guns that rack up the most number of total jams. It's a selection effect.

I'm sure that the reasons posted above are also correct.

 

[Nick96]

Well, I don't know that I would single out 1911's. Though I've only shot two in my entire life - and both jamed inside of 20 rounds (one Korean War vintage, the other an 80's Gold Cup). And I've seen multiple others on the range that quit working for one reason or another. That said though, I've shot lots of other autos. And guess what - they all jamed too at one time or another.

Maybe it's just me, poor ammo, maintenance or quality issues - whatever. One type of handgun that has never failed to operate for me though is a revolver. Big or small. Cheap ammo or expensive. Pot metal "Saturday Night Specials" to beautifully polished and exotic wood grip adorned jewels. They all worked every time the trigger was pulled.

So guess what I favor for "serious" business.

 

[JohnKSa]

There were no complaints back in "the old days" for several reasons.

1. People EXPECTED Autopistols to jam. They were taught to clear the jams and continue. That's why police stuck to revolvers into the 80s--all autopistols were considered unreliable to one extent or another.

2. Everyone pretty much shot ball ammo in "the old days". Ball ammo will make any pistol pretty reliable.

When autopistols that would feed anything all day without ever choking began to appear, people realized that:

1. Some autopistols COULD be as reliable as revolvers.

2. Some autopistols weren't--especially with "this newfangled ammo".

Then the complaints began...

 

[Boats]

Well I suppose the good news is that the 1911 can be as reliable as anything man made can be. The only pistols I have never seen malf are Berettas, but I have no doubt someone has seen some fail. I have also seen 1911s that simply do not go down unless it is from out of spec ammo or worn springs, two things that will tie up almost any autopistol.

What I do not get is all of the "modern" versus "obsolete" talk. I have seen HKs, Glocks, SIGs and other "vunderpistoles" choke and I have seen flawlessly operating 1911s and BHPs in far greater numbers than total jammomatics. It also does not take several hundred or several thousand dollars to have a reliable 1911, what it takes is someone who understands how it works and knows how to troubleshoot it if it starts misbehaving. Usually, it is a cheap magazine or a shot out or incorrect weight recoil spring tying up a factory 1911. Both are easy and cheap fixes

 

[Amish]

Crappy factory mags, small ejection port, and sometimes ammo.

 

[arinvolvo]

one word for the downfall of the 1911........







Llama

 

[mini14jac]

I think there a lot of manufacturers making unreliable guns.
You are really not surprised when your $239 Llama jams, but when it happens to a $1000 SA gun, it seems like word gets around.

Bad gunsmithing has a lot to do with it too.
I've heard many people badmouth AR15s.
I'm betting that most of the crappy ARs out there were built from bargain parts on somebody's kitchen table.
I know several guys that built them, and a few of them didn't work.
But, I had a factory-new Bushmaster, that never missed a beat.
(Except for the one time I tried a USA mag. )

Cheap mags, appparently also contributes to the "1911s are crap" belief.

 

[Master Blaster]

Bergeron, Hows Puck?

If you've got a Bulleye 1911 that'll jam, say, once ever two rounds of 2700, no biggie, especially if the pistol is extremly accurate.

Actually it would cause you to loose the match, You only get 2 alibis in a 2700 match. and each time you drop the best shots
(jam on round two is a three shot alibi, you reshoot five, and drop the best three shots)

The NRA Rule on Refires or Alibis

9.14 Refiring
(a) No competitor will fire more than one score for the same award except as provided in the program or in accordance with Rule 9.18.

(b) In single stage matches composed of several strings of fire only one refire per match will be allowed.

(c) In multiple stage matches one refire will be allowed in the slow fire stage and one refire will be allowed in the combined timed and rapid fire stages.

(d) Refires of slow fire refires are to be fired immediately after the relay in which the refire occurred.




So jams are unacceptable in bullseye.

I see alot of custom guns at my club, rock river is the new favorite, but I see 30 year old goldcups on their 4th rebuild, LesBaers, and guns custom built by bullseye smiths, like George Madore etc., when I line officer 2700 matches. The last outdoor match the only .45 to jam out of 15 competitors was a Kimber gold match. The jamming was caused by the owner's fogettting to change the seating plug setting on his dies when he went from 200 LSWC to jacketed 185 swc.


After the third jam he dropped out of the match.

A tight slide to frame fit is essential only if you are using a frame mounted red dot.

 

[Bergeron]

Ooops, My Bad.

Oh well, my advice is generally worth exactly what you pay for it. Absolutly nothing.

 

[Bronson7]

A lot of good stuff here. Here's my take on it:
1. 1911 was designed to shoot ball.
2. With the gazillions of aftermarket parts for this gun, it leads the novice to believe there's something inherently wrong with all new 1911s.
3. Novice starts buying aftermarket parts to trick-out his new 1911 and install them himself (after all, they're drop-in)
4. Now, he has all sorts of problems and may blame it on the mfg.
Bronson7

 

[Gearhead Jim]

You guys have pretty much said it all. My only comment is that I had, over a period of years, six Colt Series 70 1911s. All purchased new. NONE of them could go 200 rds of factory hardball without a jam, even after breakin and careful cleaning. Tight bushings and bad extractors were the biggest problems. All were eventually made reliable, but you shouldn't need to do that.

I've also owned 4 Browning HiPowers (9mm) made since 1991, every one of them was totally reliable with any ammo right out of the box, if you had enough strength to pull that trigger.