Hi all. Have a duty coat DW Valor bobtail 9mm in route in 2 weeks, and have a couple questions.
First, ive heard for decades that "a 1911 for serious use is a government model in .45".
With this pistol, how many rounds, or what would you like to see before you would consider it a trusted enough weapon to carry? Would you buy other brands of mags to use if it has issues, or send it back to DW? I dont expect any issues going off of their reputation. I briefly owned a 10mm dan wesson (my only 1911 ive ever owned) and it wouldnt feed more than 2 rounds without jamming, so that got sold and left a bad taste in my mouth, despite how nice that PM-10 felt. When you are 21 and poor and spend 1100 on something that doesnt function, it doesnt bode well.
But Im older and wiser now,and giving a vbob a chance as the perfect aiwb pistol!
I have a Vbob in 45 ACP and love the gun. Never so much as a glitch. It is accurate, functions flawlessly, even with cheap ammo and light weight bullets. The sights are adequate and it is the only thing I would like to change on the gun. Shouldn't be a problem for most by my aging eyes don't see the factory sights as well as they should.
I don't know about 9mm but finding a load that the gun likes may be a little more of an issue than with a 45. Try a few different bullet weights and velocities till you settle on something that satisfies you.
Those seem like very low numbers....I was thinking 500 to 1000 or so. The failure rate of even high end 1911s at shooting classes makes me think I need more than a couple hundred to see an issue. It will be shot a lot anyways, just curious if there was a standard routine for 1911 reliability.
1911 or any pistol for that matter..for me it "used" to be 500rnd minimum
But after owning literally hundreds of pistols in the last 12 years, I've pretty well determined if a pistol runs the first 200 rnd initial shake-out of mixed bag ammo (including 30-50 rnds of my chosen carry ammo)
it'll run the next 2000 just the same
if any hick-ups in that first 200 shake-out, it depends what kind and when
any feed malfs after the first 50 rnds, I may never trust the pistol
If I get a new pistol I run 200 through it with prejudice; that's 200 straight or as many as it will fire until it gums up and stops, then a spray of lube to get it going again and finish the 200. Then a detail strip, clean, oil, etc. At that time if the gun will fire without failure all the rounds I figure on carrying with it, one or two mags, its good to go. There's no sense in wearing out a gun to see how long it will work. That's like getting on a closed course and putting 25,000 miles on your new car to prove it will be reliable. The longer a gun stays in new condition the longer it will be functional. Two mags once a year proves the point that if I had needed to use it, it would have shot all the ammo I had with me. What else do you need to know?
Run a few hundred through it. Keep it oiled well. It doesn't have to be sloppy wet. Don't run a stainless gun until it dries up and stops,especially a tight one. Nothing good can happen.
Me? I'd go right to Wilson ETM mags out of the gate. Number your mags. Shoot them in in rotation at the range. Take notes of which mags had problems by number, at what round count, how many in the mag, type of failure, bullet type, etc. if you have repeated failures, the notes will get you to a logical decision in a lot less time and likely be the right decision.
When it does this, then I trust it! Dan Wesson Pointman-9; bought used, this is my first range visit with it. Shot from the 3-1/2, 7, and 15 yard lines; ammo was Speer Gold Dot 124 grain JHP.
Any hand gun or revolver of reasonable quality, and with good sights should shoot that well or better to 15 yards. I might give some slack to a pocket 380 or an airweight.
Magazines are the most important thing. I was lucky with one of mine....the 9mm Colt govt. runs fine with the Checkmate mags that came with it, and I have a bunch of Wilson ETM mags that run perfect as well.
I dont think theres a magic number. Its at what point you feel confident in the gun that matters. Whether thats 100, 200, 500, is up to you. If you dont feel confident at 200, keep it to the range until you decide that you can rely on that gun. I do think 250 is minimum. I think this at least gives you enough time to see if the gun has any defects. I think whats also important, and probably more so, is if its functioned flawlessly with X number of rounds, how many rounds of your preferred carry ammo have you fed it? You're confident shooting AE ball ammo, are you confident in the JHP ammo you may choose? And lastly, how does the gun function when you run this ammo through a dirty gun? You can put all the rounds through it you want, but unless you know how it functions when its dirty, you cant be 100% confident in it.
I want 1,000 trouble free rounds including 250 with the carry ammo before I trust a gun for defensive purposes. This is one reason why I don't change my carry guns often once I've put one into service.
Everyone has there own standard. My magic number is 500 rounds. 400 rounds of target ammo and if that all goes well, then 100 rounds of my preferred carry ammo (Federal HST 124g). If that all goes well I feel ok carrying it. But with that said, I feel a lot better when the gun gets to 1000 rounds...just sayin.
With regards to mags, Wilson's Gen 2 ETM's with the new metal followers are my go to's for 9mm. And I would replace the factory mags with the ETM's. Or at least relegate the factory mags to range use and use the ETM's for carry...after I proved them to be reliable in the gun.
I will also add that I have some Tripp mags and they're 100% reliable for ball ammo but 0% reliable for my hollow points. I literally couldn't get them to cycle a single round of the HST's. The round kept nose diving into the ramp and then Jam-o-matic.
Now this could easily be that my pistol (Wilson CQB) just doesn't like Tripp mags or it could be the mags just don't cycle Federal HST's well. I did not try a variety of hollow points to try and sort it out. The ETM's work flawlessly so I wasn't going to spend time trying to figure out the Tripps. They are range mags for ball ammo only now. YMMV
If you do need to find another mag my advice with 1911's is to always buy a single mag...or at least no more than two. Test it with all your ammo first. If all goes well, buy more. 1911's can be finicky when it comes to mags.
The old thought process is that a pistol will have more malfunctions in the first 500 rounds than the rest of its life has been one I found to be generally true. I try to shoot 500 rounds and the a box of whatever will be my carry round before trusting the weapon as a carry/duty gun.
As a cop I have to qualify with the weapon so that means 50 rounds of duty ammo on a qualification course before I can carry/ use it.
Your pistol is a good gun and should give you many years of shooting pleasure.
I use the 9mm factory mags and Wilson ETM in my Valor Commander and ECO. The gun runs or not. Shooting 1,000 rounds just for testing is extreme...as in $400 extreme.
It all depends how rapidly the shots were fired. The faster the shot splits, the greater the chance of shooter error and shooter error is compounded by distance to the targets.
If all of the shots from 3.5, 7, and 15 yards were shot very deliberately and slowly, it is still good shooting, and shows the shooter is using good sight alignment and trigger control.
If a person wants to see how accurate a gun shoots with various brands of ammo, it is best to place the target 20 -25 yards down range, shoot from a solid rest such as sandbags, and shoot slowly/deliberately to eliminate the chance of shooting error.
shooting 1000 for testing isn't extreme....it's not like you are placing it in a robot that wastes all the rounds, you're SHOOTING. Which is fun. That's not an extreme amount of ammo. You basically enjoy the pistol as you would any other pistol, but you don't carry it until you get to a higher round count. Which won't take long. Thanks to hillary's run, I have plenty of ammo. It won't go to waste, it is no more a waste to shoot 1,000 rounds through it than it is any other pistol. Except more pleasant trigger and more accurate hopefully
I plan to follow DW's break-in procedure. But other than that, I will be shooting because I like to shoot!
Maybe even come with me to a pistol class this fall (with plastic pistols as backup, don't shoot me).
I don't get the "burning/wasting ammo" argument. It's just shooting. I have plastic guns I already use for carry, so no harm, no foul. Shooting is shooting!
One thing I do plan to do, is run it dirty for awhile to see how it reacts. I plan to keep it clean and oiled IF I end up carrying it, but I'm just curious. If it goes to the class with me, then I will probably find out my answer.
But in the meantime, I will break it in, and shoot it. Once I'm comfortable (will probably already have hundreds through it), then maybe rotate it into carry weapons.
I don't get the "burning/wasting ammo" argument. It's just shooting. I have plastic guns I already use for carry, so no harm, no foul. Shooting is shooting!
Uh-huh. It is a lot longer and much less fun when the gun jams every three rounds. It is more like "shooting is shooting" when the failure rate is 2-4%. That rate is just frequent enough for most people to consider it unreliable. I have seen some people state they would never trust that gun. This is silly if the problem is an untuned extractor or something that requires some attention from a gunsmith.
So what to do for the low rate of failure gun? I have been fortunate in that only one of my guns was like that after Springfield fixed it. The extractor was marginal and a properly fitted part solved the problem. I didn't give up on it ("I'll never trust it evah!!") and certainly didn't run a huge amount of ammo through it to "test" it. It ran with FMJ and JHP in drills and worked fine until it needed a new recoil spring (then we were back to jams). I took it home, installed the part, went back to the range, had fun with another range session, ran a mag of JHP through it for practice, went home, cleaned it and loaded it for "home guard duty".
Saying the gun needs X rounds through it is either catering to the 1911's mythology, falling for the emotion associated with a machine, and/or it is tolerating incorrectly built guns from the factory. Maybe we need to say that there are some fundamental flaws in the design that require more attention to detail than one otherwise gives to a pistol. Perhaps the better answer is to remove emotion from the equation and just fix the gun.
I like to get about 500 rounds through mine along with at least 50 of my carry ammo. If I get through that trouble free, I'm confident with it. If there are any issues along the way, the amount of ammo will increase before carrying. Most of the time any issues will show themselves fairly early.
Just ordered 1,000 rounds of American Eagle and 100 HST's for a 9mm that is ordered.
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