1911 barrel modification?

[Chicken George]

Hi, I'm just starting in Wild Bunch but my son has shot a few matches. I bought a second 1911, branded by Taylor's. We loaded up a bunch of ammo on a friend's reloader who is pretty serious about WB. None of it will chamber in my new gun. It fits fine in my other gun and all of my friend's 1911s. It hits on the sides of the bullet, just in front of the casing. I bet if we seated the bullet in more, with a shorter OAL, it would fit but I don't want to have my friend change up his setup and I'm not ready to load my own yet. Is it possible that I got a defective barrel and they would warranty it? How hard would it be to modify the barrel? It was a cheap gun and so I don't want to spend a lot on repairing it or buying a new barrel. 

[Garrison Joe]

Barrels on 1911s have a very short throat (transition from chamber to rifling).   Your ammo obviously has some of the shank of the slug sticking out past the case mouth, and that catches on your Taylors gun throat (probably an RIA from Philippines, perhaps labeled for Taylors).   There are some throat reamers available that can lengthen the throat and let your ammo chamber.  A good 1911 smith would know exactly how to do that.  But, your "loader" seems to have made a mistake, by seating the slug so that the part sticking out of the case is not just the rounded nose but also some of the cylindrical shank of the lower part of the bullet.  That fat shank will not fit in most throats, which taper from about 0.473" right in front of chamber down to 0.452" at the barrel bore/grooves fairly quickly.

Defective barrel?  No, just shorter throat than most.   Will they warranty it?  Doubt it.  They will stuff some FMJ factory ammo in it and if that feeds, they probably will say - it feeds factory!   Your ammo is wrong!  Modify barrel - pretty easy.   Fix the loading of ammo - even easier and no cost! 

Sometimes you just have to fix the real problem, not hack a work around.

But if you want to read more about this situation, here's a discussion of semi-auto throat reaming:

https://www.1911forum.com/threads/throat-leade-reaming.983074/

good luck, GJ

Edited February 18, 2023 by Garrison Joe

[Garrison Joe]

If you don't want to change die settings on that feller's machine, buy your own die set, or at least a seater die, and set it to make suitable ammo for your gun(s).   It's your ammo, I suppose you are paying for the cost of components, and you are going to suffer if the ammo continues to jam.   One die is a LOT cheaper fix than buying your own loading setup. Sometimes you have to be assertive about what you have happen.

good luck, GJ

[DUSTY BODDAMS]

GJ’s 100% spot on. CJ you could also point out that your slightly shorter ammo will(should ) function without issue in everything else. 
 

[J. Frank Norfleet]

A new shooter fell in love with his new Tisas 1911. He had me make him some ammo. At a match it wouldn't cycle so I got blamed for faulty reloading. I handed him my Colt, not a hiccup. He pulled out his backup (A nicer pistol), not a hiccup. A local smith took it and it wouldn't run with the smith's ammo. Bottom line is the chamber was a tad short and several 1000s undersize. 

JFN

[Chicken George]

Hi GJ, 

Your info is just what I needed. Thanks! Your vast knowledge in just about everything never ceases to impress. I was actually thinking of sending you a PM to ask about this instead of posting. 

 

DB, 

I was wondering about that. I was worried that even a slight change in the length could influence how well it feeds from the magazine to the chamber. I don't know how sensitive 1911s are but I would think longer would feed better. 

 

JFN, 

Thanks for sharing that. I was wondering how common this problem is. It's nice to know I'm not the only one. 

[Chicken George]

Sounds like I probably need to gear up to load my own sooner than later. I really don't like relying on others anyway.

I did talk to my friend about it today. He ran a few through his reloader and checked them. He liked how they looked and didn't want to adjust anything. But then we compared those ones to the ones we loaded before and ours are a few hundredths longer. He thinks it was loader user error on our part. Apparently, his 650 requires just the right touch. We'll see if the new ones will fit. 

CG

[Garrison Joe]

Loading 1911 ammo too short can leave the mouth floating in air over the nose.  That's essentially a sharp edge waiting to catch on the back end of barrel, or somewhere else.

Loading 1911 ammo too long, as you have seen, can jam the bullet shank into the throat/leade of the barrel.  

There is often about 20-30 thousandths or so of "good enough, up to perfect" tolerance for over all length even with lead bullet loads, but some guns are pickier than that.   As you found out.

good luck, GJ