"It's the magazine, stupid!"

My 1911 is reliable, but it's not GLOCK reliable. One to three out of 100 rounds would fail to feed (nose up, partial feed). It always seemed to be the last round in the magazine, but occasionally, it was not. I chalked the problem up to the carbon buildup on my factory-rough feedramp.

Everywhere I went with questions, I was met with the answer that is the title of this post.

Me: I'm having some odd problems with my 1911.
Some guy: Are you using the Ultra combat II elite tactical $50 magazines?
Me: No, just some Chip McCormick 8 rounders. But even when I download them--
Some guy: It's the magazine, stupid!
Me: But people say the CMC mags are just--
Some guy: It's the magazine, stupid!

Douchebaggery aside, some people whos' opinions I respected were saying the same thing, so I figured before I concluded anything was wrong with my 1911, I would need an uber mag.

$35 and one week later, I was at the range this weekend with 200 rounds, trying to get a failure with the new mag. I put the full mag in with one in the chamber, fired one round to make sure it would feed reliably off recoil when fully loaded, and loaded one more into the mag and repeated repeatedly. No failures. I put two rounds in the mag, loaded, fired one shot, and loaded one more into the mag and repeated repeatedly to test feeding the last one. No failures. I depressed the slide release on a full mag, unloaded, topped the mag, and repeated repeatedly. No failures. I filled the mag, and the chamber, and fired 9 rounds to slide lock, and repeated repeatedly.
Not. One. Failure.

It was the magazine, stupid.

...Stupid magazines...

I'll be shooting with this magazine exclusively for a while to be absolutely sure it functions flawlessly, but things look good.

While I was there, I managed to do the best 1911 shooting I've done yet. I fired three shots at 50 feet, and made a (slightly malformed) clover leaf for the first time with my 1911. I was so proud of myself, I snapped a picture!


Then I wanted to keep my luck going, so I took my time with the next shot, which looked just barely like I hit right in the middle of the previous group! I pulled it back to be sure, and saw I was right! Four shots touching at 50'! And to think I was considering buying a new barrel. Not wanting to jinx myself, I didn't take a picture, and decided to fire off the rest. By now, there were a lot of people shooting around me, and I was afraid of flinching a shot when someone else shot. I did. Next shot went off right as the guy two lanes over shot his 357. I pulled it back in and took another picture.


I then finished off the remaining 4 shots, and wound up with an average sized group for me. Not too special, unless you look closely and see the 4 shots touching.

Now I know what I'm capable of! I love my GI .45!