I had a chance to fire the new SIG M18 9mm handgun, which was recently added to the California Department of Justice roster of approved handguns here in the People’s Republik. I was impressed with the M18’s accuracy, grouping, comfort level, feel, and sights. I love the desert tan colors. I was not impressed with the trigger (more on that in a bit).
It was a good day on my local indoor pistol range, and as I was leaving, my good buddy Shannon asked where I’ve been (I hadn’t been there in a few weeks). “Overseas,” I told her. She then pointed to the new M18 SIGs they had in the display case and asked if I’d like to try one. That reminded me of the old joke about the guy with the wooden eye. I responded with an affirmative and rhetorical, “Would I?”
The venerable 1911. It’s chambered in .45 ACP. All steel and with a Parkerized finish, as God intended. In my opinion, you can’t improve on perfection, but the Army had other ideas.
A bit of background: The US Army and I have something in common: We change handguns on a regular basis. The Army had been using the venerable .45 ACP 1911 since about, well, 1911. It served the Army well (and still serves well in certain special ops units), but the Army decided it wanted something better. That led to adoption of the 9mm Beretta 92 (designated as the M9 for the military) in 1985. I never cared for the Beretta, so I’ve never owned one and I can’t tell you anything about how it shoots or feels. The M9 had pushed out my beloved 1911, so I didn’t like it. Period. No handling or testing required.
The Army wanted a smaller pistol cartridge, and it settled on the Beretta M9. The M9 has an aluminum frame. Bob likes it.
The Army quickly decided it didn’t much like the Beretta, either. But the Army is big and it moves slowly when it’s not lobbying for more funding from Congress, and it wasn’t until 2017 that they decided to go with a militarized version of the 9mm SIG P320. There are two versions of the new military handgun: The M17, which has a 4.7-inch barrel, and the M18, with a 3.9-inch barrel. Both are full sized handguns with magazines carrying a gazillion rounds, and until recently, neither was available to lowly and untrustworthy civilians here in the People’s Republik of Kalifornia. Nah, scratch that. Lowly or not, trustworthy or not, no California civilians could purchase either of the new SIGS, although weirdly, we could purchase the civilian gun from which it was derived, the SIG P320. Go figure.
The SIG P320, the gun the M17 and M18 handguns are based on. All three guns (the P320, the M17, and the M18) have a polymer gripframe. You can tell they’re swell (I’m not going to explain that comment; you have to be old enough to get it).The 9mm SIG M17. Note the longer barrel length.The gun I fired: The SIG M18.
The SIG M18 recently appeared on the California Department of Justice approved handguns roster. That’s just a bit on the weird side, too, because the M18 is the version with the shorter (i.e., slightly more concealable) barrel. You’d think in their wholesome attempts to keep us pure our legislators would have approved the longer-barreled M17. Maybe they will in the future.
The Rock Island Compact 1911. This is a short barreled, shorter grip frame 1911 chambered in .45 ACP.My Smith and Wesson Shield. It has a very short barrel compared to either the SIG M17 or M18, which makes my shooting with it a bit less accurate.
I had fun on the range. I shot a box of .45 ammo in my Compact 1911, and then two boxes of ammo in my Smith and Wesson Shield. I was doing pretty good with both, too. It’s a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. As I was leaving the range, Shannon told me about the new M18s they had in stock and offered a trial run, so I put a box of 50 rounds through one of them.
I used a 6:00 hold on the orange bullseye on both targets, and I fired 50 rounds at each. The Shield target is on the left; the SIG target is on the right. Both guns are good enough; the M18 is surprisingly accurate.
As I said above, I didn’t care for the M18 trigger (the M18 is a striker-fired handgun; give me a hammer-fired gun any day). But the thing was accurate, even with the Joe Biden trigger (it was clumsy and creepy). I put nearly all 50 rounds through a single jagged hole at my point of aim 10 yards downrange, and then I started hitting low with the last few rounds. The few that dropped a bit below the orange bullseye were entirely due to me being tired and shaky (it wasn’t the gun; I was coming up on 200 rounds in that range session and I’m an old man). The bottom line: I like the new M18. A lot. I may buy one somewhere down the road, unless the M17 gets approved in California first.
Command Sergeant Major Emory L. Hickman died way too young. He was 48 when he passed, and that was just a few years after I knew him. He was a tall, lean man with a salt and pepper crew cut, and like most of the noncommissioned officers I knew, he had a southern accent. I only knew him for a year and that was more than a half century ago, but during that year he taught me something I value to this day. Sergeant Major Hickman taught me how to shoot a handgun.
I first met Sergeant Major Hickman shortly after he was assigned to the Rutgers University Reserve Officers Training Corps detachment. The Army held these kinds of cush assignments out to very senior NCOs as they finished distinguished 30-year careers. Sergeant Major Hickman earned it: He served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars and he had the rows of ribbons showing that and much more. As with all Sergeants Major in the US Army, it was always “Sergeant Major,” never “Sergeant” or “Sarge.” Only a very tiny percentage of NCOs make E-9; addressing such men as “Sergeant Major” conveyed the respect they deserved. After I knew him, he was promoted to Command Sergeant Major, and just in case you ever encounter someone with that exalted rank, all three words should be used, as I did at the beginning of this blog.
The last half century has been a contest between my marksmanship skills going north and my vision going south, but thanks to the good Sergeant Major and what he taught me, I’m holding my own. I still sometimes dazzle folks at the range. What I’d like to do in this blog is talk about the fundamentals, tips, and techniques Sergeant Major Hickman taught me. I don’t shoot competitively these days, but I can still keep my shots in the black. If you use the tricks and techniques Sergeant Major Hickman taught me and if you practice a lot, maybe you will be able to do the same.
In 1973 when I picked up my MacManus 1911, my father and I both thought of ourselves as above-average shooters (Dad was a world-class trapshooter, and I did okay with a rifle). We assumed we could do well with a handgun, too. That is, until I came home with my 1911. We tossed a soda can about 20 feet out in our backyard and shot at it (in those days we could do that). I went first and emptied an entire magazine without hitting the can once. Dad had a laugh and then he tried. He didn’t do any better. We concluded that pistols were just not accurate.
I felt that way until I met Sergeant Major Hickman. He had heard about my MacManus award and he asked if I’d like to learn how to shoot the 1911. You know what my answer was. The Sergeant Major and I spent a lot of time on the Rutgers Campus Police pistol range over the next year. What follows is what he taught me.
1. Get A Grip
Forget all the Hollywood silliness. We don’t hold guns sideways like gangbangers, we don’t shoot from the hip, we’re not interested in how fast we can empty a magazine (the video above notwithstanding), and we don’t fire more rounds than the gun holds.
A handgun should nestle in the web of your hand, and it should form a straight line with your forearm. In this photo, the camera focused on the rear sight, which is not the way to do it. Focus instead on the front sight.
Back in the day, it was all about bullseye competition, and that involved shooting with iron sights and one hand only. Sergeant Major Hickman showed me how to stand at about a 30-degree angle to the target, place the pistol firmly in the web of my hand, close my eyes, and bring my arm up to point the pistol at the target. “When you open your eyes,” he said, “the sights should be on the bullseye.” He continued by telling me that if I had to twist my body or move my arm to bring the gun to the bullseye, my stance was wrong. When I could close my eyes, bring the gun up, open my eyes (both eyes), and the sights fell naturally on target, my grip and stance were correct. The grip should be tight, but not so tight that my hand trembled.
Pachmayr grips are my favorite for a 1911. They fit my hand perfectly.
I like fancy grips, but fancy doesn’t put shots in the black. Over the years I’ve found the best grips for a 1911 are Pachmayrs. I have others that are prettier, but the Pachmayrs offer the best control and consistency. You can still get Pachmayr grips on Amazon.
2. Front Sight Focus
When I fire a round at a target, I don’t see the target. It’s a Jedi (read: Sergeant Major Emory L. Hickman) mind trick. When my gun fires, all I see is the front sight and the bright orange propellant flash. When I see the front sight outlined by the muzzle flash, I don’t need to see the target. I know the bullet is in the black.
Focus should be on the front sight. The target and the rear sight should be blurred. The sights you see here are Millet sights installed by good buddy TJ.
I start by putting the top of the front sight at 6:00 on the target’s black bullseye, but my focus quickly shifts to the front sight and it stays there until the firearm discharges. The target and the rear sight will be a blur, but the front sight will be sharp as a tack. It’s where all my concentration is, it’s the only thing I’m interested in, and per Sergeant Major Hickman’s instruction, I will have both eyes open. I’m not worried about what my other eye sees. My total focus, my total being, is on that front sight. That’s the biggest secret in handgun shooting. Other things are important, too, but not as important as front sight focus. Front sight only. It’s hard to do, but when you do it, this single thing will improve your shooting more than anything else.
3. Breath Control
When I’m ready to shoot, I take a deep breath, I let it partly out to what feels like a natural pause point, and then I start squeezing the trigger while continuing to focus on the front sight. Sergeant Major Hickman told me that’s what it takes. He went on to tell me that the Soviet marksmanship training unit (the Soviet Army’s pistol team) had researched what made the difference between simply hitting in the 10-ring versus hitting in the x-ring (the x-ring is a smaller circle within the 10-ring used for breaking ties). The Soviets found that their top target shooters, without realizing it, were actually firing between heartbeats. They didn’t realize they were doing this, but they were. That’s info only; we’re interested in holding our breath at a natural exhalation point for the second or two it takes to focus on the front sight and squeeze the trigger. Speaking of which…
4. Trigger Control
Point one on the topic of trigger squeeze: Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
The trigger finger pad should engage the trigger, not the first joint of the trigger finger.
Sergeant Major Hickman taught me that when shooting a single action semi-automatic or a revolver in the single action mode, I should put the pad of my trigger finger (the part of my finger midway between the tip and the first joint) on the trigger. He explained that while I was focused on the front sight, I should start squeezing the trigger, but not think about it. The front sight will be aligned in the blurry rear sight, but it won’t be possible to make everything freeze on the target. The front sight will always have some motion on the target. The Sergeant Major told me not to worry about that. “The only way to make everything motionless is to be dead,” he said, “and you’re not dead.” Sergeant Major Hickman told me to simply hang on to the front sight and steadily increase trigger pressure. Just focus on the fundamentals, he said, and the groups will get smaller. Let the target swim around. Maintain a good grip. Hold the right stance. Focus on the front sight. Breath control. Trigger squeeze.
5. Be Surprised
What you want, the Sergeant Major said, is for the gun to surprise you. What you don’t want to do is anticipate the shot and then jerk the trigger. That will cause you to flinch (to jerk the gun in anticipation of the shot), and the gun will be pointed somewhere other than the target when it discharges. When I did it right, I was (and I still am) surprised when the gun fires. In fact, when I’m really doing it right and concentrating on the front sight, I do not even hear the gun fire. When that happens, you know you are on your way. Sergeant Major Hickman was right: Seeing the orange flash and not hearing your shots means the bullets are in the black, and that is a good feeling.
6. Dry Firing
You can’t do this with most guns chambered for the .22 Long Rifle cartridge, but you can dry fire until the cows come home with any centerfire handgun, and I do. A lot. I have a small black dot hanging in my office that I use for a target, and I spend a bit of time nearly every night dry firing a handgun at it. It is one of several tricks Sergeant Major Hickman taught me. I’m focused on the front sight when I do this, and I’m looking for it to not move when the hammer falls. I want the front sight to remain motionlessly centered in the rear sight groove (and the top of the front sight to remain even with the top of the rear sight) when the hammer falls. Doing this on a daily basis improved my shooting significantly some 50 years ago; doing it today on a regular basis keeps me sharp.
7. A Penny (or more) For My Thoughts
If you can balance a penny on the front sight and it remains in place when the hammer falls, you are making progress.
Here’s another trick the Sergeant Major taught me: Balance a penny on top of the 1911. Or a nickel. Or an empty case. You want it to stay put when the hammer falls. When that happens, it indicates that I didn’t jerk the trigger. When I can do that consistently, I know I’m doing well.
8. The Bic Trick
A Bic wrapped in masking tape. Read on…this gets interesting.
Here’s yet another cool trick Sergeant Major Hickman taught me: Take a Bic pen and wrap tape around it in two places so that the pen fits snugly but with no resistance inside the barrel. Put the rear end of the pen all the way into the barrel. When dry firing, the firing pin smacks the back of the pen and the pen will jump forward.
The tape should be wrapped to a diameter that fits snugly without drag in the barrel.Loaded and ready to shoot.My indoor target. The pen will shoot out with surprising velocity. Don’t point it at anyone and use a pad so the pen doesn’t shoot through the paper target.Look at that…a Bic group!
If you stand like you would when live firing, but with the pen’s tip a couple of inches from a target taped to a wall, the pen’s point will imprint on the target. Do that a few times and you’ll get a group, just like you would if you were firing live ammo. Do it a lot. It will help you to master the fundamentals described above, and your live fire groups will shrink. Trust me on this: They will shrink a lot.
9. Live Firing
I have never been able to shoot a handgun well without substantial time on the range. Let me say that again: I did not get better without substantial live fire practice. I spend a lot of time on the range, and it helps to keep my skills sharp. I fire two to three hundred rounds through a handgun every week. If you don’t have a sponsor or you don’t reload, you better be rich because factory ammo costs are going to roll up pretty quickly. I don’t have a shooting sponsor, so for me, reloading is the way to go. Here’s a good place to get information on how to get into reloading.
10. The Surprise Empty Chamber
Here’s another great training approach Sergeant Major Hickman shared with me: Have a buddy “load” your gun, but without you seeing what he (or she) is doing. What you want your buddy to do is sometimes load a live round, and at other times, to load no round (or an empty case if the gun has a loaded chamber indicator). You want to not know if you are dropping the hammer on a live round or an empty chamber. That’s going to tell you immediately if you are jerking the trigger (or flinching). If it’s not a live round and the gun twitches when I drop the trigger, I know I still have work to do. When I can drop the hammer and the gun remains motionless, I know I’m making progress.
11. Empty Cases at an Empty Head
Empty cases? Yep. They are surprisingly useful training aids for improving concentration, especially when bounced off your noggin.
Sergeant Major Hickman used to stand behind me when I was shooting and throw empty .45 cases at my head. At first I felt the cases hitting my head and I reacted (the Sergeant Major wasn’t being gentle). But after I became one with the front sight (I can’t emphasize the front sight enough), I stopped feeling those .45 ACP empties hitting my head. I’d have little welts afterwards, but I stopped feeling the cases when they whacked me. I realize this is a trick that’s kind of out there, but it sure helped me hone my concentration.
12. The Right Load
The last thing I’ll mention is that having a load optimized for your handgun really does make a difference. If you don’t reload, your options are limited to buying a bunch of different factory offerings and seeing what works. If you reload, though, you can develop a load tuned to your handgun. We’ve done a number of blogs on the optimal loads for different guns, and I’d invite you to peruse our Tales of the Gun page to read what we’ve found works best in our guns. I’ve found that a 230-grain cast roundnose bullet over 5.6 grains of Unique with an overall cartridge length of 1.250 inches is a very accurate load. Another favorite is a 185-grain cast semiwadcutter bullet over 5.0 grains of Bullseye with that same overall cartridge length of 1.250 inches. So does 4.2 grains of Bullseye and a 200-grain cast semiwadcutter bullet (and again, the same overall cartridge length). Be advised, though, that most 1911 handguns won’t feed these last two loads if the gun has not been ramped and polished. If you need your 1911 ramped and polished, look no further than TJ’s Custom Gunworks (he’s the best there is).
A Half Century (and a ton of lead) Later
So here I am, 50 years later, writing about my 1911 mentor, Sergeant Major Emory Hickman. I remember that first range session with him like it was yesterday. After listening to him and practicing what he taught me, my skills improved to the point where I could easily keep all of my shots on paper, with 80 percent of them hitting the black bullseye. When I got to that point, I asked the Sergeant Major if I should have my 1911 accurized. In those days, I wasn’t even sure what “accurizing” entailed, but it sounded like the right question to ask. Sergeant Major Hickman smiled. “Sir,” he said (I was, after all, a Second Lieutenant), “may I put a few shots downrange?”
I handed the 1911 to Sergeant Major Hickman. He loaded a magazine, inserted it in the 1911, released the slide to chamber the first round, and became the visual definition of intense and perfect concentration. Five shots later, there was one ragged hole centered in the bullseye. That one ragged hole wasn’t much larger than the hole a single .45 bullet would have made. “Maybe you could get it accurized somewhere down the road, Sir,” he said. “but for now, I think it’s good enough.”
The 1911 featured in this story is a Rock Island Armory Compact 1911. My Rock Compact 1911 has been extensively upgraded by TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks). This handgun is 100% reliable with any of the loads listed above (and factory hardball ammo).
This is an update on my 9mm 1911 sudden unintended disassembly saga. I will address four topics:
Zeroing in on the cause.
Rework of the ammo I had loaded on my Lee turret press.
My reconstituted 9mm 1911.
Preventing a recurrence.
Let’s get into it.
Zeroing In On The Cause
I’m down to thinking the 1911 event was due to either of two causes: A double propellant charge, or bullet setback (i.e., the bullet slid deeply into the case as the round was being chambered, thereby raising the chamber pressure).
My burst 9mm cartridge case. It was a Remington case, not that it makes any difference. Any case would likely have burst. Photo by TJ of TJ’s Custom Gunworks. Compare this to the photo of the double-charged case at the end of the video below.
A Double Charge
I did a Google search on double-charged cartridges, and what do you know, there’s actually someone out there who did the same thing I did. He caught it on video and posted it with a photo of the case. His burst cartridge case sure looks a lot like mine.
If you compare the photo at the end of the above video to the case stuck in my chamber, they are identical. I’ve convinced myself that this is the most likely of the two scenarios, but I’ll describe the other scenario (bullet setback) as well.
Bullet Setback
What has me thinking deep thoughts about the second failure mode (pushing the bullet deeper into the case during chambering) is that I think it is relatively easy to screw up while reloading and induce this failure, and from what I’ve read, 1911s are more prone to do this than are other semi-autos.
This is what bullet setback would look like. The bullet is seated much deeper in the case than it is supposed to be, which would raise chamber pressure. This example did not occur in the gun; I loaded dummy case and pushed the bullet in much deeper using my reloading press. Theoretically, it can be induced by the gun if the bullet is not crimped sufficiently.
Let’s discuss screwing up the reloading process in a manner that could induce bullet setback. On my Lee Classic turret press, bullet seating and crimping occur in two separate operations (seating refers to pushing the bullet into the case; crimping refers to locking the bullet in place by crimping the cartridge case mouth). The third (of the four) dies seats (but does not crimp) the bullet; the fourth die applies a taper crimp to the bullet. Here’s the screwup: I’ve had at least a couple of instances where I took the cartridge out of the press after seating the bullet (but before crimping it). I know; you’re thinking that’s stupid, and I can’t argue with that conclusion. I don’t know why I did it (too eager to see the completed round, maybe?). I caught myself, returned the cartridge the press, and crimped it. But it’s possible I missed the crimping step on a cartridge.
I think setback is the less likely of the two failure modes discussed here. I tested the crimp by tapping on the bullet with a rubber mallet and it didn’t move. Failure to crimp or a weak crimp may have caused setback, but on properly crimped bullet, I don’t think setback will occur. Also, when I made the cartridge shown in the photo above on my RCBS Rockchucker press, it took more effort than I thought it would to seat the bullet as deeply as you see in the photo (and the case had not been crimped). I doubt that simply chambering the round would drive the bullet in that deeply (even without a crimp). If you think otherwise, please leave a comment below.
Gun Design and Bullet Setback
As mentioned above, bullet setback is more likely to occur on a 1911 than it is on other semi-auto handguns. It has to do with cartridge location in the magazine, and how it feeds into the chamber. On more modern handguns, the top round in the magazine sits higher in the gun than it does on older design guns. When the slide shoves the round forward, cartridges in more modern handguns have a straighter path into the chamber. On a 1911, the top round in the magazine sits lower in the gun. When the slide pushed it forward, the bullet impacts the ramp, it has to stay situated in the cartridge case without experiencing setback, and the cartridge has to rotate up and then into the chamber. Because of this, a 1911 is more likely to experience bullet setback than is, say, a gun like the S&W Shield.
A 9mm cartridge waiting to be chambered in a 1911. It’s a little hard to see in this photo (I did the best I could), but the bullet nose will hit the ramp head on and then slide up the ramp and into the chamber. The potential for bullet setback is a little higher here than on most other modern 9mm semi-auto handguns.A 9mm cartridge waiting to be chambered in the S&W Shield. Notice how the round is nearly aligned with the chamber as it sits in the magazine.
That’s not to say the Smith and Wesson Shield is a better design or that it’s all sunshine and rainbows. There’s a tradeoff the engineers made on the Shield. Yep, the Shield’s higher cartridge position makes for a straighter path into the chamber. It also allows for higher capacity in a smaller gun (my little Shield holds 8 in the magazine and one in the chamber). But the higher cartridge position can induce another issue: Failure to extract and eject.
A cartridge case in the S&W Shield caught during extraction on the mouth of the case immediately below it.
During extraction, the round being extracted has to drive the magazine’s top cartridge down into the magazine as it is being extracted. it does so by using the next cartridge’s bullet as a cam surface. The rear edge of the cartridge being extracted bumps into the mag’s top cartridge, and then it has to drive it down so the case can exit the gun after firing. As it uses the bullet of the mag’s top round for that cam surface, the rear of the cartridge case rim encounters the case mouth of the mag’s top cartridge, and that can cause a failure to extract and eject. It’s happened to me. I’ve found the Shield is sensitive to ammo brand, bullet configuration, and crimp. Too much crimp, and the cartridge goes too deep into the Shield’s chamber and the firing pin won’t light the round off. Too little crimp and it jams in the manner described above. Too little crimp and it might experience bullet setback. Like most things in life, the design is a tradeoff.
Again, I don’t think bullet setback is what happened in my 9mm 1911. I’m including it here simply because it is interesting and relevant to this discussion.
Ammo Rework
One of the personally dismaying and embarrassing things about blowing up my 9mm 1911 is that it immediately threw into question the approximately 1500 rounds of 9mm and .45 ACP ammo I had reloaded on the Lee turret press.
I thought I could use weighing the rounds as a way to screen for double loads, but on both the 9mm and the .45 cartridges, the weight variation exceeds the weight of the powder charge. That means I could have a double charge and if it was in a lighter round, it would be within the variability for the loaded cartridge. So weight was not a way to screen. I know there will be keyboard commandos with advice to stick to one case manufacturer (or to segregate cases by brand), but the same variability problem exists even when cases are segregated (I’ve checked). I wish the self-styled “experts” on Facebook would slither back under their rocks (or at least refrain from commenting when they just don’t know what they are talking about, which is most of the time).
The RCBS collet bullet puller. You put your cartridge into the press shell holder, raise it into the collet (the gizmo on the right, which fits inside the gizmo on the left), tighten the crank, and lower the press ram. Voila, the bullet is pulled. Most of the time. Sometimes it doesn’t work.An impact bullet pullerr. You put a loaded cartridge into the cap on the hammer head, whack the opposite end against a hard surface a few times, and inertia drives the bullet out of the case. It is a lot of work.The Grip-N-Pull. It works occasionally. I tried a few cartridges and gave up on it.
I’ve disassembled and reassembled the 800 9mm rounds I loaded on the Lee turret press. I did not find a single one with a double charge. I used my buddy Greg’s RCBS collet bullet puller for this on my 9mm ammo and it worked like a champ with minimal or no bullet damage. Surprisingly, with all brands of brass, after pulling the 9mm bullets from crimped cartridges I did not have to expand the case mouths again to reseat the bullets. They slid right in. I just seated them to the right depth and crimped them again. Reusing the bullets didn’t seem to affect accuracy, either.
The RCBS collet bullet puller did not work on my .45 ACP ammo. The .45 collet couldn’t get a good enough grip on powder coated 230-grain roundnose bullets or on my 185-grain cast semi wadcutters. I tried one of those Grip-N-Pull devices and that didn’t work, either. The bullets slid right out of it. To disassemble the .45 cartridges, I had to use an impact bullet puller, and that was tough sledding. It takes forever. I don’t like impact bullet pullers, but hey, it is what it is. And what it is, well, is a lot of labor. I’m working it a little at time, at a rate of about a box per week. Three or four months and the rework will be in the rearview mirror.
That double charge sure turned out be one expensive mistake, both in terms of damage to the 1911 and the need to rework a lot of ammo. Live and learn, I guess.
The Reconstituted 1911
TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks) worked his magic on my 9mm 1911. As mentioned in a previous blog, in addition to addressing the damage from the burst cartridge, he polished the barrel and ramp, refit an extractor that actually works (shame on you, Springfield Armory, for letting this one get out of the factory with an extractor that didn’t even contact the cartridge case), he recontoured the slide release and the slide release pin (shame on you again, Springfield Armory, for a slide release that was extremely difficult to install), he fit a one-piece guide rod (which is what I asked him to do), and he did one of his magnificent trigger jobs (this 1911 has a “breaking glass” 2 1/2 pound trigger now, with zero creep and no discernible takeup). This 1911 is a pure joy to shoot. I loved it before and I love it even more now. That target at the top of this blog? It’s a full box of my reloaded 9mm ammo (50 rounds) fired without resting the gun on anything. No failures to feed, no failures to eject, no misfires, and every bullet hit in the 10 ring.
50 rounds shooting offhand with the 9mm Springfield Armory 1911. Custom work by TJ’s Custom Gunworks.
Preventing a Recurrence
Wow. Where to begin.
I am implementing a number of changes in my reloading to prevent this from occurring again:
I’m slowing down and paying more attention. Duh. I’m no longer complacent. Duh again.
I’m installing better lighting on my press.
I’m standing up so I can see into the cartridge case.
I’m switching to a bulkier powder so that a double charge, if it ever occurs again, will spill over the case mouth and make a big, impossible-to-ignore mess.
I don’t mind sharing with you that when this first occurred, my thought was to abandon the Lee Classic turret press and return to loading on my single stage RCBS Rockchucker press. Double charging a case using a single stage press is (in my opinion) a much less likely thing to happen, and in 50 years of reloading on the Rockchucker, I’ve never had it happen.
When you load on a single stage press, it’s easier to view all of the charged cartridge cases. If any have been double charged, they will stand out.
I have a friend who works for Colt in their customer service department, and he tells me that when he sees a blown up gun sent in, there’s usually a progressive or a turret press somewhere in the story. But good buddy Paul told me to think about it a while longer and I did. I’m back to using the Lee turret press, but I’m a little older and a lot wiser now. The older part wasn’t really necessary, but the wiser part is and hopefully, readers can benefit from my screwup.
Slowing Down and Paying Attention
You know, when I worked in the munitions industry I participated in two fatality investigations where inadvertent detonations were involved. Multiple human errors caused those inadvertent detonations, and one of the key human errors was complacency. That’s what I had become using the Lee Classic turret press: Complacent. I’d been reloading for so long I became entranced with the turret press’s speed, and I started reveling in the thousands of rounds I was cranking out (and it was, literally, thousands of rounds). I always knew that double charges or skipped steps (like crimping) were really, really bad, but I just never thought I’d be the guy making either mistake. I wasn’t taking the time I needed to and I became complacent. That’s changed. I’ve slowed the pace, and you can bet I’m looking into every case immediately before I place a bullet on top to make sure I haven’t double charged it. You can also bet that I’m making sure I hit the crimping step on every round. I’ve actually posted a sign on my reloading bench with the best advice I’ve ever given myself: Slow down.
Better Lighting
Good buddy Duane (who is both smarter and better looking than me) also reloads with the Lee Classic turret press. Duane mounted a light above his press to allow better visibility into the charged case. I’m going to do the same.
Standing Up
I used to sit at the reloading station. My bench, though, is higher than a standard work table (it’s how I had it built 50+ years ago). When I’m seated, it’s not as easy to see into the case. I reload standing up now, and that allows seeing directy into the case.
Bulkier Propellant
My last change concerns the propellant. One of the things I investigated shortly after my 9mm hand grenade episode was if it was possible to get a double charge into a 9mm case. With the load I was using (5.4 grains of Accurate No. 5), the answer was yeah, you could. It even had a little room left over. My thinking at the time was that I needed to go to a propellant that would overflow the case if I double charged it. In the past, I’ve found 4.8 to 5.0 grains of Unique with the 125 grain bullet is a marvelous 9mm load. Doubling that (i.e., 9.6 grains of Unique will overflow a 9mm case) and if that happens when loading, that’s a good visual indicator that something’s wrong. So, from here on out when using the Lee turret press, my load will be 4.8 grains of Unique. That only works for 9mm, though. Other cartridges (the .45 ACP, for example) will handily swallow a double charge. There, it’s back to paying serious attention (which we need to do on everything when we reload; it’s just using a propellant that will spill over with a double charge adds an additional indicator if things aren’t done correctly).
A double charge in the case on the left. My load was 5.4 grains of Accurate No. 5. I loaded both cases with this charge, and then took the propellant from the case on the right and poured it into the case on the left. A 9mm can easily swallow a double charge of Accurate No. 5.A single (correct) charge: 5.0 grains of Unique in a 9mm case.The most Unique I could load into a 9mm case was 7.9 grains. A double charge would spill over the top of the case and be immediately noticeable (at least in 9mm; the .45 ACP case will take a double charge of Unique without a spillover).
Incidentally, when this happened, I wrote to Lee and asked them if they offered any accessories to prevent a double charge (my Star reloader has a mechanical feature that prevents this from occurring). The answer was no, but Lee advised using a propellant that, well, read the above again and you’ll know. I checked the literature that came with the Lee Classic turret press kit, and sure enough, Lee has a recommendation in there to do exactly what I describe here.
Hornady’s Powder Cop
When I posted earlier blogs on Facebook, a few people mentioned a reloading cop. In 50 years of reloading, I’d never heard of such a thing, but I found it on Amazon. Hornady’s Powder Cop die is a die with a pushrod indicator. You add it to a vacant station on the reloading turret after the propellant charging station and when the charged round goes into it, if the case is double charged the rod will go higher than it normally does.
Hornady’s Powder Cop. The idea is that a double-charged case will lift the rod another 3/16 of an inch or so.
I don’t think the Powder Cop is the answer for several reasons. The Lee Classic turret press doesn’t have an empty station in its turret (all four stations are taken by the Lee 4-die set), you would have to notice that the pushrod indicator rose marginally higher than it was supposed to, and I believe that if a double charge was present, the pushrod might just push into the powder and not rise enough to indicate the double-charge condition. The Powder Cop might be right for some people, but my equipment can’t use it and I don’t think it’s an effective check. If you missed the double charge, you would probably miss the rod extending upward a bit further, too.
The RCBS Lockout Die
RCBS offers their lockout die which is, in my opinion, the best option for preventing a double charge on a reloading press, if the press that has an open station. If the case has an overcharge or an undercharge (or no charge), the lockout die locks the press, which positively lets you know that something isn’t right. It’s a clever mechanical device that detects either and overcharge or an undercharge and then stops the process.
The RCBS lockout die. If the case has an undercharge or an overcharge, this device stops the reloading process.
Unlike Hornady’s powder cop die, the RCBS lockout die isn’t just a rod moving up and down. The lockout die stops the show and forces you to check the cartridge that has locked up press movement. I think it’s a much better approach. The problem, though, is that you need that extra station on either a turret or a progressive press, and I don’t have that on the Lee Classic turret press (so for me it’s a nonstarter). What it says to me is that if I were to buy a new press, I would want one that has an extra station. I think the lockout die is a stellar idea; I just don’t have the real estate for it on my press.
The Bottom Line
I’m convinced that I had a double charge in the round that burst in my 1911. I’m also convinced that it’s on my to prevent it from happening again. As explained above, here’s what I’m doing:
I’m slowing down and paying attention to what I do. There is no place for complacency in the reloading world.
I will continue to use my Lee Classic turret press, but I’m installing better lighting and standing up so I can see into the cartridge case.
I’m switching to a bulkier powder so that a double charge, if it ever occurs again, will spill over the case mouth and make a big, impossible-to-ignore mess.
So there you have it. If you have any thoughts on any of the above, I’d sure like to hear them.
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As mentioned in recent blogs on my 9mm Springfield Armory 1911, I took the gun to TJ’s Custom Gunworks to have it repaired and customized. I have the gun back now and I am very satisfied with the work.
When I took the 1911 to TJ, I asked him to repair the damage I did to my 1911 and to add several custom touches. That’s what he did, and I’ll describe them below. Most of the photos in this blog are from TJ. I took a few, too.
Fortunately, the 1911’s barrel was not damaged (the cartridge blew apart; the barrel and chamber survived). TJ polished the barrel, the chamber, and the ramp. The reinvigorated barrel looks great and it adds to the 1911’s appearance.
The polished 1911 barrel.It looks great, doesn’t it?
TJ polished the 1911’s ramp and chamber. This helps to prevent feed failures and assists in extraction. The polished ramp also helps to prevent bullet pushback into the case as the ramp is pushed from the magazine into the chamber.
The feed ramp before polishing.The feed ramp after polishing.
The trigger was in bad shape after the 9mm cartridge went into its sudden unintended disassembly mode. TJ cleaned it up, but I’m going to have him fit a new target trigger at some point in the future.
The rigger before TJ cleaned and finished it.The trigger and its bracket after brushing and polishing.
While TJ was in the gun, he removed and replaced the Springfield Armory firing pin and firing pin spring (which he does on all the Springfield Armory 1911s that come into his shop). Springfield uses a titanium firing pin and a heavier firing pin spring, which is a bad combination. I’ve had occasional misfires with my Springfield, and the primers have previously always shown light firing pin strikes. With the new Wilson firing pin and firing pin spring TJ installed, that problem is in the rear-view mirror (where it belongs).
TJ found that the extractor on my Springfield Armory 1911 was terrible. I thought that might be due the base of the cartridge bursting, but it was not. It was just a factory goof up. The photo TJ included shows the extractor about as I remembered it before the event that set all this in motion. The extractor had been extremely difficult to remove from the slide when I disassembled it for cleaning, but I never thought to check if it was engaging the cartridge (the gun had been ejecting). You would think an outfit like Springfield would know what they are doing in this area, but apparently they did not. TJ fit a new extractor to fix that problem.
This photo shows the original extractor not touching the cartridge case at all. It appears that the claw is just too short.The new extractor TJ installed; note that it now has a firm grip on the case rim.Another shot of the extractor on the case rim. It’s amazing the cartridges were extracting and ejecting before this fix. They were flying everywhere.The old extractor is on top; the new one is on the bottom. Note that the old extractor was not reaching in to engage the case.
Ejection is way better now. The gun drops all the cases in the same spot just to my right (they don’t go flying all over creation like they used to). It makes scooping up my brass a lot easier.
Reinstalling the slide release on my Springfield was difficult. The slide release plunger was too long and the camming surfaces on the underside of the slide release were not cut at the correct angles. TJ reconfigured both. The slide release snaps into place in a very slick manner now. There’s no more worry about scratching the receiver (the so-called idiot scratch) when the gun is reassembled.
The slide release plunger, as delivered by Springfield Armory, was originally too long. It made installing the slide release problematic. TJ shortened and recontoured it.The slide release has a contoured bevel to push the slide release plunger in when the slide release is installed. As delivered by Springfield Armory, the angles were incorrect. TJ recontoured this area to make installing the slide release much easier.
TJ polished and fit a new hammer, which looks better than the original. He also lightened the trigger pull. The new trigger is light and I like it.
A polished hammer and sear.The new hammer. It looks good.
The Springfield Armory 9mm 1911 came from the factory with a two-piece guide rod, which I hated. It would constantly unscrew, even after applying blue Loctite after each cleaning. The stock Springfield guide rod needed an Allen wrench to unscrew and remove it (Springfield provided one with the gun). The gun required doing this to be able to rotate the barrel bushing after depressing the guide rod plug. In my opinion, two-piece guide rods are a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. I don’t know why manufacturers fit them to new guns and I don’t why anybody would want one. I asked TJ to fit a polished one-piece guide rod to my 1911, and to make it short enough so that I could rotate the barrel bushing for disassembly without having to unscrew the guide rod. I like the new set up a lot better.
TJ installed a one-piece guide rod. I like it. The original two-piece guide rod was always unscrewing.The new guide rod in its bushing. TJ modified it so I could disassemble the 1911 without having to unscrew the guide rod. Not the polished end of the new guide rod, and the polished barrel end.
Finally, TJ polished the slide-to-receiver interface points. You can see this work in the photos below.
The 1911 slide underside.The 9mm 1911 receiver.
While TJ had the gun, I ordered new grips and a replacement magazine from the Springfield Armory website. The original crossed-cannon cocobolo Springfield grips were damaged when the cartridge burst, so I bought another set (they were reasonably priced at $32.95). The Springfield site also advertised a set of double-diamond checkered cocobolo grips (without the Springfield logo) for $15, so I checked that box, too (I like having an extra set of 1911 grips on hand). The grips and the new magazine arrived a few days after I ordered them.
I picked up the repaired and reinvigorated 1911 from TJ this week. I’ve already been to the range with it and it works well. Watch the blog; I’ll post a range report in the near term. I’ve also had a few more thoughts on what might have caused the burst round that started this adventure, and we’ll have another blog on that as well. Here are links to our prior blogs on this topic:
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Seeing double? Nope. I liked my 9mm 1911 so much that when I saw the same gun in .45 ACP, I bought it, too. Watch for a report on it in an upcoming ExNotes blog.
It occurred in an instant, on the fifth and last round in the magazine. It was as if a cherry bomb had gone off in my face. I heard a voice yell “whoa!” and I realized the voice was mine.
I stared at the smoking Springfield Armory 9mm 1911 in my hands, waiting for the pain, the blood, and whatever might follow. My hands, still wrapped around the grips, were stinging. I knew something bad happened, but I didn’t know how bad it was and I wasn’t especially looking forward to finding out. My gun had blown up. The entire gun was smoking and smoke continued to waft from places it wasn’t supposed to: The grips, the line between the frame and the slide, the trigger, around the hammer, and the ejection port (which was closed; at this point, I didn’t know if there was a live round in the chamber). Gray smoke curled out everywhere.
I slowly relaxed my grip and looked at my hands. There was no blood, but my palms stung like they had been slapped with a baseball bat. As I eased my hold, the 1911’s left grip fell away in two pieces (as you can see in the photo at the top of this blog). There were no cuts and there was no bleeding, but I had powder tattoos all over both hands. I returned my focus to the gun. It was still smoking. It smelled funny, too. Was that burnt flesh or just the powder and residual oil?
The first four shots from that magazine were delightfully tight, and I ordinarily would have felt good about seeing that. On each of the preceding four shots (and the fifth one, for that matter), the front sight had been outlined against the blurred rear sight and the bright orange muzzle flash, the way things are supposed to look when the hammer drops.
The first four rounds were forming a nice group. The fifth was a disaster.
I was still afraid to look at my hands. My face was now tingling and I knew I’d caught something. I had safety glasses on and I could see okay; that was good. I worked up enough courage to put the gun down and look at my hands more closely. They seemed okay. I knew from previous bad things happening that sometimes you don’t feel anything for a few seconds (the golden minute, I think they call it), but I looked again and I was okay.
The 1911’s right grip appeared to be intact (but it wasn’t; more on that in a second). The slide was locked forward. I tried to pull it back but it would only move about an eighth of an inch. I pressed the magazine release and nothing happened. I pulled on the magazine and it came out. It was mangled; the front was bent in and the follower angled upward. I still wasn’t sure if there was a live round in the chamber. I cocked the hammer and dropped it a couple of times…and there was nothing. I concluded it was safe to put the 1911 in its case. I scooped up my marbles and left. I didn’t even pick up my brass, and this was Remington brass that had only been reloaded once…that’s how shook up I was.
When I got home, I looked in the mirror. I had one little spot on my right cheek that bled and had already stopped (I’ve done worse shaving). I washed my hands to get the powder residue off (that took a while). There were no cuts. Dodged a bullet, I did. Figuratively and literally.
Once home, I examined the 1911 more closely. The trigger was too far forward in the frame. The event probably screwed up the trigger mechanism. The right grip, which I thought was okay, had a hairline crack along its length. Not that it matters; you can’t buy just one grip (you buy them in pairs). The slide would not move to the rear more than a little bit; it was not coming off the gun.
The trigger moved far forward. You can see the outline on the trigger denoting where it was normally positioned.The left grip fell off the gun when I released my grip. The right grip had cracked, but it remained in place.
What could have caused this? There are a lot of possibilities. The first (and most likely) is that I double charged a cartridge case when reloading. In other words, I put twice as much propellant in the case as I should have. Of all the reloading equipment I’ve ever used, it’s easiest to do this on the Lee turret press I’ve been raving about. I’m not badmouthing Lee or their turret press; I’m simply making an observation. If that’s what happened, it was entirely my fault.
I could have fired a squib load, had a bullet lodge in the bore, and then fired another bullet on top of it. I’m pretty sure that is not what happened because of the holes on the target. There are four clean holes from the first four rounds, and one lower, oblong hole from the fifth round (when the gun blew up). You can see this on the target above. The bullet didn’t have as much energy behind it and it had started to tumble.
I could have experienced a case failure in which the rear of the case tore off, which would have allowed the hot gases to impinge on the gun internally. There’s some evidence to suggest this. I can look into the bore and see that the cartridge case is still present, but the interior of the case is partly torn away. The lower third of the case’s base is gone (the upper two thirds are present). In the area where the case’s base is gone, I can see the breech face and the firing pin. I later found part of the cartridge case inside the magazine.
This was a tough photo to get (mea culpa on the image quality). You are peering down the barrel from the muzzle end. The upper arrow points to what’s left of the cartridge case; the front of the firing pin is visible. The lower arrow points to the breech face.
The gun could have fired out of battery. That is to say, it may have fired without the slide being fully forward. I can move the slide back about 1/16-inch, cock the hammer, and the trigger will release it. I don’t know if it is doing that because the internals are damaged, or if it could do it before the event. Or, there could have been grit in the chamber that prevented the cartridge from chambering completely. When I look into the bore, I can see residual blue powder coating from the bullet that seems to be lodged between the case mouth and the forward edge of the chamber.
I cast around on the Internet a bit and I found several references to the 9mm 1911 Springfields having tight chambers. I know mine has a very tight chamber. Maybe a cartridge wasn’t resized completely and it failed to completely chamber? If that happens, the slide won’t go all the way forward and the gun shouldn’t fire so I don’t think that’s likely, but who knows.
After I returned home, I examined the magazine again and I could see what I thought was an imprint of the primer on the magazine. I shook the magazine and felt something rattling around inside. It was the primer. It had been flattened, and there was a hole where the firing pin had struck it. I’m guessing the hole was caused by the excess pressure.
A mangled magazine. The left arrow points to the primer imprint. The right arrow points to the distorted follower.The primer and a bit of brass residue. These were inside the magazine.An inside view of the primer. Note the circular cutout where pressure sheared the brass against the firing pin hole.
My Springfield 1911 is toast, at least for a while. I have two ways I can go on this (well, three, if you count scrapping the 1911 altogether, but that’s not a choice I want to consider). One option is to return the gun to Springfield Armory, but I don’t want to do that. If the failure was a problem with the gun, I don’t want to have the same guys who screwed it up attempt to fix it. Every gun I’ve ever bought from Springfield has required at least one warranty repair (including this one, but for a different issue). Two of my friends bought 1911s from Springfield and they’ve had to go back for warranty repairs (one had to be returned twice when they didn’t fix the problem the first time). I don’t know what Springfield’s warranty repair turnaround times are these days, but it’s probably measured in weeks or months. The last thing that ruled out a warranty repair was that this event occurred with my reloaded ammo and that voids the warranty. I’m not in denial here; it is likely my reloaded ammo is the reason this happened.
Nope, I’m going to go with the approach that’s always worked for me. It’s the silver lining in this sad tale (that and the fact that I wasn’t injured). I’m bringing the 1911 to TJ’s Custom Gunworks tomorrow. I’ve already talked to TJ and he tells me my 1911 can be repaired. The repairs will be on my dime, but I know the work will be perfect and I know the gun will literally be better than new. I’ll have TJ do a bit of custom work while he has the gun, too. TJ told me he’ll have to cut slide release off to remove the slide from the frame, and when he disassembles it, we’ll learn more. I’m thinking a double charge is the likely culprit (which would be my mistake), but maybe TJ will find otherwise. I’ll keep you posted.
I had a serious debate with myself about posting this blog. It’s an interesting story; that puts it in the plus column. If I double-charged that case, that’s an admission of carelessness on my part and that puts it in the minus column. In the end, if it helps other people from making the same mistake (assuming the fault lies with me), this blog will have served a purpose and that is why it is here.
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I had lunch with good buddy TJ (of TJ’s Custom Gunworks) recently and he showed me an LAR Grizzly .45 Winchester Magnum handgun he recently completed. It’s wild. It’s the one you see in the photo above and in the additional photos below. Here’s TJ’s description:
The Path of Bushido, a custom L.A.R. Grizzly .45 Winchester Magnum (it’s a supersized 1911). This handgun is Duracoated with Skulls of Death and Kanji characters depicting the seven Samurai virtues of the Bushido. This magnum features the typical 1911 match action, trigger, and reliability work, as well as barrel and bushing clearance reduction. The gun also has melted edges, a speckled Duracoat finish, a Bullet-guide rod, and Millett target sights with orange DayGlo on the front.
The photos can only begin to the do justice to this stunning handgun (trust me, I’ve seen it in person). And that .45 Win Mag cartridge…think of it as the illegitimate offspring of the already-powerful .45 ACP cartridge (my favorite, by the way) and the .44 Magnum. It’s a very impressive hand cannon.
One of the things I like best about TJ’s latest creation is the Millett sights. In my opinion, there are none better. I have these on both my Rock Island Compact 1911 and my bright stainless Colt 1911, and TJ is the pistolsmith who installed them on both guns.
If you were wondering about the Bushido emblems on the Grizzly, here’s an explanation:
I asked TJ what the Grizzly looked like before he worked his magic, and TJ shared this photo with me:
At the end of our visit, I asked TJ what else he’s been up to lately. Take a look. These are magnificent. This first one is a SIG P239 with black camo treatment, a jeweled hammer, a rounded trigger, and lots of internal smoothing and reliability enhancement.
This next one is compact Colt Agent 1911 with Tiger Duracoat and a matching a matching TJ’s knife.
This is another compact 1911 (a Colt Defender) with a camo surface treatment and all the internal reliability action work. It’s not easy to get a compact 1911 to perform, but TJ sure did it on mine. I’ve put thousands of rounds through my TJ-customized Rock Island Compact. TJ took what was a relatively unreliable gun and turned it into a masterpiece.
Here’s a TJ-modded Ruger Match Champion revolver, with jeweled bits, recontoured trigger, and an action job.
One last photo…this is a SIG P220 grip in which TJ custom inlayed the US government insignia. TJ does a lot of work for senior government folks here and abroad. It’s cool stuff.
I’ve had six handguns and a rifle customized by TJ, and every one of them is a stellar example of his craftsmanship. These include my Model 59, a bright stainless Colt 1911, my MacManus Colt 1911, the Rock Island Compact, a Model 60 Smith and Wesson snubbie, a Ruger Mini 14, and my new Colt Python. In addition to my guns, folks who follow the ExNotes blog took my advice and had TJ work on their guns, like Marty with his custom Colt Combat Commander, Bob with his Beretta 92, and others who are not listed here. You might have noticed that TJ advertises here on ExNotes. If you want to reach the folks who follow the blog, you might consider doing so, too. You can contact us at info@ExhaustNotes.us and you can reach TJ by clicking on the link below.
The city of Hartford in Connecticut is Mecca if you are a Colt fan (as in Colt firearms), and I sure am a Colt fan. I grew up seeing Colt .45 sixguns in western movies when I was a kid and I got my first Colt (a .45 ACP 1911 Government Model) when I finished college (and I’ve never not owned at least one Colt since then). I have no tattoos, but if I were going to get one it would be the Colt logo.
My Colt 1911 has been sending lead downrange for 50 years.
I made a friend in the Colt company when reviving the MacManus award. I had to be in Hartford recently for a symposium and I told my Colt buddy I’d buy him a beer. He suggested a tour of the Colt factory. That was an opportunity I could not let pass.
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The original Colt plant (the one built by Sam Colt) is a National Historic Site. Time did not permit visiting it, but I could see the blue dome above the old plant from my hotel window.
The original Colt manufacturing facility on the banks of the Connecticut River. I didn’t get to it, but the next time I’m in Hartford I will.
The modern Colt factory is a few miles from downtown Hartford. It’s what you see in the big photo up top, and it’s where I had the plant tour described in this blog. The bad news is that photography is prohibited inside the plant (as a manufacturer of military rifles for the US and other countries, Colt can’t have photos of their production processes finding their way to the bad guys). The good news is that I entered the inner sanctum. I saw how the M4s, the M16s , the 1911s, the Single Action Armys, the Pythons, and all the other cool stuff are made. As a manufacturing guy and gun guy with a defense industry background, it was one of the best days of my life.
More good news is that I could take pictures inside the famed Colt Custom Shop. The Custom Shop is a small group of world class artists who assemble what are arguably the most desirable guns in the world. Think engraved, gold inlaid, extremely expensive works of the gunmaker’s art. Guns that are delivered to US presidents, wealthy collectors, and…well, you get the idea. There’s a two-year waiting list for a Custom Shop Colt firearm, and when delivered, the ticket can exceed the cost of a new car. On the secondary market, some have been known to exceed the cost of a new home.
Colt Custom Shop handguns, the stuff of dreams.You can still purchase a brand new Colt 1903 through the Custom Shop. This one is exquisite. I owned one in the 1970s I bought it for $75 and sold for $200 a few months later, thinking I had done well. Ah, the mistakes we make.A Custom Shop Anaconda with an inlaid gold bear and extensive engraving.A closeup of the above Anaconda’s engraving and gold inlay. It’s all done by hand with small hammers and tiny chisels.An exquisite Single Action Army. The grips are giraffe bone.A closer look.Colt’s Custom Shop is producing a series of Single Action Army revolvers for the legendary Texas Rangers. The Texas Rangers are the oldest law enforcement organization in America.Colt has a process for making a new gun look aged. It’s been applied to this Custom Shop Single Action Army.
This was my second visit to Hartford. When I wrote The Gatling Gun nearly 30 years ago, I contacted Colt to ask if I could visit their archives (the original Gatling guns were built by Colt). Colt referred me to the Connecticut State Library and Museum. I went there and I was met by a Connecticut State Trooper who asked me a few questions, took my fingerprints, and ran a background check. Satisfied I wasn’t a terrorist or a KGB agent, he issued a laminated permit designating me an official Connecticut state historian. That gave me access to the archives in a secure area of the Museum. Poking around in there made for a fun day, and I used materials from those archives when I wrote The Gatling Gun.
My visit to the Colt archives three decades ago was impressive. I handled hand-written documents signed by Dr. Gatling and Samuel Colt. It was a great day and a lifelong memory. My recent visit to Colt factory and the Custom Shop (as described in this blog) made for an even better day. A Colt tattoo….maybe that’s not a bad idea.
How 124-grain roundnose Boudreau powder-coated bullets performed in the SIG P226 and the Springfield Armory 1911, and
The effect of seating depth on accuracy with 124-grain roundnose Ranier plated bullets in the Springfield Armory 1911.
A friend of mine recommended Boudreau powder-coated bullets. They are reasonably-priced and I liked the look. Ralph, the Boudreau master caster, recommended seating the bullets at 1.055 or thereabouts, which is deeper into the case than I usually go but that’s what I did with these. They look pretty cool. One of my shooting buddies observed that the loaded rounds looked like lipstick. That’s good; that’s the look I was going for.
These are the Ranier plated bullets.
I tried Accurate No. 5 propellant for the first time. My local reloading shop had this propellant in stock so I thought I would try it (these days, you take what you can get). Accurate No. 5 is a flake powder like Unique, but it burns much cleaner. It doesn’t leave the sooty residue Unique leaves, and there’s much less smoke (that’s partly due to the powder-coated bullets, too).
I also wanted to evaluate bullet seating depth’s effects on accuracy with the Ranier bullets. There’s nothing too scientific or rigorous in this evaluation; I just wanted to get a feel if the 1911 was more accurate or less accurate with the bullets seated deeper in the case or further out (I didn’t do this evaluation with the SIG).
My load manuals don’t make a distinction between powder-coated bullets versus other bullets. I read some comments online that indicate powder coated bullets get the same velocity with lighter propellant charges. I finally found some data on the Hodgdon powder website for 124-grain powder coated bullets, and it showed the charge range running from 4.6 to 5.4 grains of their Accurate No. 5 powder. This was a quick-look test, so I loaded 10 rounds at 4.6 grains, 10 rounds at 4.8 grains, 10 rounds at 5.0 grains, 10 rounds at 5.2 grains, and finally, 10 rounds at 5.4 grains. As mentioned above and per Ralph’s suggestion I seated all bullets to a cartridge overall length (COAL) of 1.055 inches. I fired one 5-shot group at each charge level with the 1911, and one single 5-shot group at each charge level with the SIG P226, all at 50 feet. Like I said above, it was not a rigorous assessment; I just wanted to get a feel for what worked and what didn’t. Here are the results:
These are the targets (the Springfield 1911 target is on the left and the SIG P226 target is on the right). I worked my way from the top down and left to right with each charge weight, so the top bullseye on each target is with 4.6 grains of Accurate No. 5 and the bottom right one on each target is with 5.4 grains of Accurate No. 5).
All of the powder-coated-bullet loads functioned perfectly in both guns and none of the cartridges exhibited any pressure signs. The heaviest charge on the Accurate site (5.4 grains) gave the best accuracy in both guns. That’s the load I’m going to go with on future loads with this bullet. The load had modest recoil and it was pleasant shooting. These are good bullets and they function well with the Hodgdon-recommended charges. I will also mention that I was a little surprised: This was the first time the Springfield Armory 1911 outshot the SIG. In the past, my SIG P226 had been more accurate than any 9mm handgun I ever tested, including my 1911.
The next test was to assess the effects of seating depth on accuracy. My buddy Paul and I had a discussion on this topic and we both realized that after sending 9mm projectiles downrange for 60 years and evaluating powder, bullets, primers, and more, we had never investigated bullet seating depth as a variable in 9mm reloading. The 9mm cartridge is a short one, and most semi-autos have generous chambers to improve reliability. The combination could naturally lead to the cartridges swimming around in the chamber, perhaps more so than a .45 ACP cartridge. It stands to reason that a longer cartridge (i.e., not seating the bullet as deeply in the case) could minimize movement of the cartridge in the chamber and improve accuracy. But there are other requirements at play, like getting the cartridges in the magazine, not seating the bullet so far out that it hits the rifling before the round is fully chambered, and reliable feeding of the bullets from the magazine into the chamber. So I thought I’d run a quick experiment.
For these tests I used Ranier 124-grain plated roundnose bullets and the Springfield Armory 1911. It was unscientific. I made 25 rounds with 6.4 grains of Accurate No. 5 (a max load) and the Ranier bullets seated to a COAL 1.100 inches (which is about what I would normally do), and another 25 rounds with the same powder charge, but with the bullets seated to a COAL of 1.156 inches (which is a little more than a twentieth of an inch further out). Here are the results:
It was an easy load to shoot and there were no flattened primers or other pressure signs. All loads functioned reliably in the 1911. There was little to no leading with the Ranier plated bullets, even though this was a max load.
Here’s what the targets looked like. The top two little guys are with the bullets seated out for a COAL of 1.156 inches; the bottom two little guys are with the bullets seated deeper and a COAL of 1.100 inches.
What this quick look says to me that the Ranier plated bullets are more accurate if they are seated further out. These worked in my 1911 magazine; I didn’t check them in the SIG P226 magazine (nor did I shoot this load in the SIG). If I was to do this test again, I’d check to make sure the longer cartridges would fit in the SIG’s shorter magazine and I’d also test them for accuracy in the SIG.
I haven’t assessed the Boudreau powder-coated bullets at different seating depths. I will get to that later. I’ve got a bunch of the Ranier bullets, and a bunch of the powder-coated bullets. Primers…that’s another story. Everybody needs primers.
The standard warning: The load data included in this blog are for my guns. Yours may be different.
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We’ve featured TJ’s Custom Gunworks a few times here on the ExNotes blog. I’ll take credit for influencing another good buddy who had TJ work his magic on a Colt Combat Commander, and this one is a honey. Colt’s Combat Commander is a 4.25-inch barreled version of the 1911. This TJ custom auto is hard chromed and it is a stunning example of TJ’s workmanship. You can see it in the photos and you can see the results on the range.
The Combat Commander shown here has had the following modifications:
Polished hard chrome finish over stainless steel.
Throated and polished barrel and frame.
Fitted and polished extractor.
New match trigger and action job.
New match hammer.
Smoothed breech face.
Polished full length guide rod.
Satin polish on barrel hood and chamber.
Extended slide catch.
New and rounded steel mainspring housing.
Trigger pull set to 3.0 lbs.
Melted sharp edges.
Reduced strength and smoothed magazine release button.
DayGlo red front sight.
Honduran rosewood burl grips.
I’ve seen this gun in action on the range and it is a thing of beauty. I’ve had a few guns customized by TJ, and I’ve steered a few friends there. I’ve had six handguns and a rifle customized by TJ, and every one of them is a stellar example of his craftsmanship. These include a Model 59, a bright stainless Colt 1911, the MacManus Colt 1911, the Rock Island Compact, a Model 60 Smith and Wesson snubbie, a Ruger Mini 14, and a new Colt Python. TJ’s emphasis is on reliability and perfection and on all of my guns he met those objectives in every case. When it comes to custom firearms, it doesn’t get any better than TJ’s Custom Gunworks.
You can read more firearms features on the Tales of the Gun page.
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“I’ll be Bach,” of course, is the written Austrian-accent impersonation of the Governator (i.e., Arnold) in what has to be one of the best sci-fi movies ever, Terminator. One of the several guns that received top billing in that movie was an AMT Long Slide Hardballer equipped with a laser sight.
There are a lot of cool things to know about the Terminator movie and its armament, not the least of which is that laser target designators were not yet available for handguns when the movie was released in 1985. Ahnold’s (misspelled intentionally) AMT Hardballer had a custom 10,000-volt laser, and the wiring for all that power was hidden in the future governor’s jacket sleeve. I liked the movie, but I especially liked seeing the Long Slide Hardballer 1911 in it. You see, I own one. It cost just $365 back in the day and it was manufactured by Arcadia Machine and Tool (hence the AMT moniker) just up the road from me in Monrovia, California. It is a stainless steel 1911, it has a 7-inch long slide and barrel, and it is accurate. That’s my gun you see in the phot0 at the top of this blog. One of these guns recently sold for close to $2,000 complete with box and papers. I have the box and papers that came with mine. And no, it’s not for sale.
The Hardballer is surprisingly accurate. The 2-inch longer sight radius really works. Mine has not been tightened up, accurized, or modified in any way. The trigger pull is a bit higher than I would like, but it’s crisp (one of these days, I may get around to having TJ of TJ’s Custom Gunworks do a trigger job on it). I found the targets you see below in an old reloading notebook; they were all fired by yours truly, standing, at 50 feet. I guess that old saying is true: The older I get, the better I was.
I’ve owned my Hardballer for close to 40 years now. The AMT company is no more, so there won’t be any more of them. It’s a classic, and I need to get out and shoot it more often. Maybe I’ll do that today.
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