SR1911 9mm magazine jamming

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bittereinder

Bearcat
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
26
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Ontario, Canada
Hello everyone. It's been a while since I posted here. I have a very specific question about a magazine issue and haven't found any online advice that helps.

First off, my SR1911 lightweight commander in 9 mm has functioned flawlessly for years, at least 2000 rounds, using a variety of bulk ammo and a few different types of magazines (Ruger 9 round stainless, Ruger 10 round stainless, and Wilson Combat 10 round stainless). Zero malfunctions of any kind. Last year I purchased some Ruger black finish 10 rounders. One of them took a bit of breaking in but it works fine now. For the other mag, it's so stiff I usually can't load 10. It's difficult to load 9 rounds and it often jams inside the mag when I fill it with 8 or 9 rounds. I.e., when loaded with 8 or 9 rounds, I often get failure to feed where the rounds are stuck inside the mag on the first few shots. I need to remove the mag, tap a bit to unjam, then re-insert.

Ruger service is excellent as usual, and I will be getting a replacement for free. They did not ask me to send back the defective mag so I'm just trying to see if I can actually get it working properly.

- I have tried changing the internals: swapping the spring, follower, baseplate, everything, with the similar mag that works. That doesn't make a difference. The functioning mag still works fine, and the bad one doesn't. So presumably there's something wrong with the main body of the mag. I haven't been able to see anything unusual and I don't see any difference when I hold it next to the functioning, similar mag.
- I've cleaned it several times and lightly oiled the inside with synthetic oil. Doesn't help.
- I've polished the inside of the feed lips with Flitz and a soft buffing pad for a Dremel. No difference.
- The last thing I tried was polishing the inside with Flitz, on a shotgun patch and a brass brush. Again, no difference.

If anyone has any suggestions for what else I could try, I would appreciate it! Thanks.
 
Last edited:

hittman

Moderator
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Strange …. I've never had a problem with any 1911 mag. But I've not used the Ruger "black" mags. Mine came with 2 shiny stainless mags and I added 2 black MecGar brand.

Good luck to you,
 
Joined
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not worth the effort, junk one just may be that "junk" and tough to see what going on "inside",,,, all these past 77 years we have always said if it doesn;t work, wether it's the ammo or magazines, get and use the ones that do work....heck send it back to Ruger and my bet is they will MOST likely send you another one for the effort...;):rolleyes:

no, I will not tell you it was "union made and built on a Friday.".......:cool::sneaky:
 

rugeraficiando

Single-Sixer
Joined
Feb 9, 2009
Messages
107
Location
oregon
My Ruger light weight 6722 uses 4 of the Ruger 9mm magazines (9RD) in SS (Checkmate i believe). They are only 1.5 months old. Ive had similar issues where the rounds are stuck in the magazine well below the mouth of the magazine. I do use a mag loader because the magazines are tough to load to capacity. I have the magazines marked to see if it is the same mag causing problems next time out.
I originally thought maybe the magazines need a break in period? Ive ran a little over 600 rds through it.
Time will tell.
 

bittereinder

Bearcat
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
26
Location
Ontario, Canada
not worth the effort, junk one just may be that "junk" and tough to see what going on "inside",,,, all these past 77 years we have always said if it doesn;t work, wether it's the ammo or magazines, get and use the ones that do work....heck send it back to Ruger and my bet is they will MOST likely send you another one for the effort...;):rolleyes:

no, I will not tell you it was "union made and built on a Friday.".......:cool::sneaky:
Thanks. Ruger is replacing it for free. I was just trying to see if I could fix it, just for the hell of it. I agree, not worth a lot of time.
 

bittereinder

Bearcat
Joined
Mar 23, 2015
Messages
26
Location
Ontario, Canada
Update in case it helps anyone: I managed to get the magazine working properly by more aggressive sanding inside the front, rounded part of the mag body. Using coarse metal sandpaper in a dowel, I sanded out that portion. The steel is pretty hard and what felt like aggressive sanding didn't seem to remove much material, but I must have removed some.

I reassembled the mag and tried it again at the range. There was a bit of a break in where at first I couldn't load more than 9 just like before, but after shooting a few mags, I was able to load it with 10 like it should be loaded. I haven't had any feeding issues since. I've got my mags numbered so I can keep track and after maybe 150 rounds I haven't had any issues with the previous problem mag.
 

usmc69

Bearcat
Joined
Nov 7, 2008
Messages
19
Location
Florida
I was going to suggest sanding it starting with about 220 grit and then work your way up to 900 grit. Would still polish it with some 900 grit.

40+ years ago I would have said trash it. I bought 100 magazines from a guy that had bought them at a DRMO sale on a base in Calif. I paid him $100 for them (he probably had $0.25 - $0.50 in them). Took them to the range and tried them out. Some worked and some did not. Changed spring and followers out of the ones with damaged bodies and threw those away. Ended up with about 75 good ones. Still have a couple left, gave a lot away to friends.
 
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