venomballistics
Member
Range Report
Springfield Armory 1911A1 GI
(triple header evolution)
Some time ago someone had posted a report of the Range Officer grade of this pistol, which highlighted some faults shared by the GI model.
Rather than repeat, entirely, his experiences with the RO, I will only touch upon these seemingly common faults while highlighting the strengths of this weapon.
This full report is a long time coming in that I had to conduct later phases of testing in an environment with some unorthodox methods that may have gotten me banned from anything but a proper back yard range. So, off to Wisconsin to my former back yard range under the guise of visiting with family.
Out of the box, this is a lovely piece with its polished sides and bead blasted accents where it needs them for glare reduction and grip. Their approach simply yields a lovely balance of aesthetic form and utilitarian function. At no time was glare any sort of issue at the range. Springfield did a wonderful job of taming the glare inherent to stainless steel, yet managed to look great doing it.
Its function is divine. It never suffered a failure to feed, nor a failure to eject in the +2000 round history of this specimen. Thus far it upholds the USPS flat rate principal. If it fits, it ships. I was tempted to load a mag full of gumi bears or tootsie rolls to see if it would fire them too. It is just that reliable.
I expect an auto to glitch out of the box while breaking in with the usual stove pipes and feed failures until all the parts lap in. This one refused to take advantage of this grace period and functioned flawlessly from round number one. A very worthy trait indeed.
Its not until we get to the accuracy part of the equation that we find our first fly in the ointment.
I suppose its out of the box performance would be fine for close quarters combat to about 30 feet, your really spitting into the wind past this range.
After 400 rounds it improved some to display adequate combat accuracy to about 50 feet.
This might be good enough for a CCW piece where ranges typically well within this range as long as your not responding to a drive by .. (it could happen)
We'd like to see a good bit more from a sidearm than this since the well understood text book typical situation does not hold water in a world full of exceptions.
There are some sins in need of absolution here, but where to find them.
The first one seems to be barrel fit. With the action in lock up one can press on the barrel through the ejection port and move the barrel both vertically and horizontally. If you can do this, I cannot see how the barrel can find a uniform reference point which is obviously required for accuracy.
The barrel is “over fit” for the sake of mass production.
This leaves me with a beautiful pistol with world class reliability that just can't put them home.
We do have over half the equation of a proper sidearm however. You just cannot overlook the reliability. It's at an uncommon level.
This leaves us at a cross roads. Do we offload the piece or do we pop the hood and get busy.
There is absolutely nothing in a 1911 to be afraid of .. in theory. A little research will get you enough knowledge to go full race gun entirely by your own hands, provided of course, your answer to the following question is the right one.
“If you have a set of needle files and a Dremel tool with every imaginable bit sitting in front of you, can you opt for the files for this job?”
If the answer is no, you can sell the gun to put the proceeds towards a higher end custom or have the work done by a pro whichever costs less.
If your answer is yes, allow me to extend a warm welcome to eleven land.
Evolution one
Fitting of the “Semi drop in” barrel.
This honestly is not that hard to do, though it is a little time consuming.
Fit the barrel hood, lower lug then upper locking lugs in that order.
Most of the fitting work is in the tuning of the lower lug since this controls clearance from the feed ramp, slide position and recoil system timing. This will take a few hours even though its “semi drop in”. I went this route to avoid having to drop another $150 on a chamber reamer to fit a full fit barrel.
While I was buying parts I also opted to try out a cute caliber called the 400 corbon. Which is a 45 ACP necked down to 40 cal / 10MM. A stiffer spring and a 400 corbon barrel is all that is required to convert a 45 to 400CB. It even uses stock 45 magazines… we only live once, make it hurt, so I opted to fit two barrels to the Springfield. The prospect of 400 corbon was far too tempting to do otherwise. More on this later, we are only in evolution one yet, which is correcting its sinful ways.
With the new barrel at the 30 foot mark, the first shot hit 2 inches left, and 6 inches low, reminiscent of the stock SA barrels tenancies. I thought for a moment Id be in for some disappointment.
Subsequent shots laid a vertical track one inch wide and six inches tall. Each shot higher than the previous. The second magazine picked up where the first left off and the point of impact walked right and stopped at point of aim. Give or take some fliers through the next 3 magazines, its core grouping at this range sat around the 2” mark.
Distance was then adjusted to 60 feet where it maintained 2.5 – 3” groups while I crammed a bucking #ucket of 915 FPS 230 grain cast TC flat points down its throat to see if I could make it choke.
It wouldnt … it ate everything stuffed into bottom of the frame and asked for more.
Somewhere around the 850 round mark, a problem became apparent. The rear of the SA frame could use its edges dressed a little more. My hand was starting to get a little raw and the grips started to feel a bit like cheese graters. At the 1100 round mark, game over folks, I was bleeding a little and I had a blister in the shape of the frames beaver tail radius in my hand.
But then, I dont think there are many practical situations where one would have to fire that many rounds before they have fought their way to a long arm to finish a fight. I cannot imagine a handgun hitting the 800 round mark in a week of heavy combat let alone a day. Its probably an unusual issue that need not really be addressed unless we were talking about a sub gun which may need be called to a heavy suppression fire role.
In this endurance and break in run, the SA1911A1 was along side a HK USP in 45. The HK lent itself well to being a benchmark in this run. At the beginning of the string, the USP clearly had the advantage. Reliability could be called equal while the HK held advantages in capacity and accuracy.
As the re-barreled SA continued to settle in, its accuracy overtook the HK by a noticeable margin ultimately printing routine 2.25” groups at 30 yards. Not too surprising … when its America versus Germany, we know how that ends from history.
Suffice to say, with the new barrel, the SA's sins had been forgiven.
Evolution two
400 corbon
I always wanted a delta elite … something in the 10MM autos number spoke to me early on. I never found one. Or at least found one at the same time funds existed to own one.
Enter 400 corbon. This wild cat is brilliant in concept, affording 10MM ballistics out of most 45 autos without any undue hassles since 400 uses your stock 45 magazines
Barrel fit as was the replacement 45 and the recoil spring swapped out for a 20 pound Wilson combat, and we were off to the races... give or take a few minor details.
This caliber seems to get a little finicky about the magazine. Two out of my six mags had occasional issues, and in both cases that issue was always second to the last round in the mag would flip vertically and jam. With these two mags set aside the rest of the 300 round string worked perfectly. Its other minor issue is that the POI is rather high. I found that holding the base of the front post to the top of the rear was necessary to properly aim with this caliber, but at least I had a means to do so.
Ejection with this caliber was quite gentle, yet positive. Recoil is more manageable although a bit sharper than 45. It also seems to have a little less muzzle flip making it easy to master double tapping.
In my case ejection was interesting, It should be a jam fest with how gently the cases are extracted and nearly float to the ground at my feet … a recipe for chronic stove pipes. Yet it never did so, and any function issue traced back to one of the two non 400 friendly magazines.
In actual testing it can push a 155 grain cast HP to 1300 FPS average, measured with a chrono. Its pleasant to shoot and quite nasty down range. If you opt to go the re-barrel route .. give this worthy caliber a try. Ive heard some horror stories about function issues with 400 conversions, which may be the case with some. Mine sang a perfect tune give or take the odd but operable POI.
Yet, unlike 10MM auto, whose ammo nearly went into extinction, the corbon needs only reformed 45ACP's to stay in the game for years to come. Furthermore the nature of the conversion is such that its not one or the other caliber, think like a TC Contender .. its continually switchable between 45 and 400 you cant lose.
In closing, the current production SA's seem to have a barrel fit issue which is easily corrected, provided of course, you have the patience to do so
Springfield Armory 1911A1 GI
(triple header evolution)
Some time ago someone had posted a report of the Range Officer grade of this pistol, which highlighted some faults shared by the GI model.
Rather than repeat, entirely, his experiences with the RO, I will only touch upon these seemingly common faults while highlighting the strengths of this weapon.
This full report is a long time coming in that I had to conduct later phases of testing in an environment with some unorthodox methods that may have gotten me banned from anything but a proper back yard range. So, off to Wisconsin to my former back yard range under the guise of visiting with family.
Out of the box, this is a lovely piece with its polished sides and bead blasted accents where it needs them for glare reduction and grip. Their approach simply yields a lovely balance of aesthetic form and utilitarian function. At no time was glare any sort of issue at the range. Springfield did a wonderful job of taming the glare inherent to stainless steel, yet managed to look great doing it.
Its function is divine. It never suffered a failure to feed, nor a failure to eject in the +2000 round history of this specimen. Thus far it upholds the USPS flat rate principal. If it fits, it ships. I was tempted to load a mag full of gumi bears or tootsie rolls to see if it would fire them too. It is just that reliable.
I expect an auto to glitch out of the box while breaking in with the usual stove pipes and feed failures until all the parts lap in. This one refused to take advantage of this grace period and functioned flawlessly from round number one. A very worthy trait indeed.
Its not until we get to the accuracy part of the equation that we find our first fly in the ointment.
I suppose its out of the box performance would be fine for close quarters combat to about 30 feet, your really spitting into the wind past this range.
After 400 rounds it improved some to display adequate combat accuracy to about 50 feet.
This might be good enough for a CCW piece where ranges typically well within this range as long as your not responding to a drive by .. (it could happen)
We'd like to see a good bit more from a sidearm than this since the well understood text book typical situation does not hold water in a world full of exceptions.
There are some sins in need of absolution here, but where to find them.
The first one seems to be barrel fit. With the action in lock up one can press on the barrel through the ejection port and move the barrel both vertically and horizontally. If you can do this, I cannot see how the barrel can find a uniform reference point which is obviously required for accuracy.
The barrel is “over fit” for the sake of mass production.
This leaves me with a beautiful pistol with world class reliability that just can't put them home.
We do have over half the equation of a proper sidearm however. You just cannot overlook the reliability. It's at an uncommon level.
This leaves us at a cross roads. Do we offload the piece or do we pop the hood and get busy.
There is absolutely nothing in a 1911 to be afraid of .. in theory. A little research will get you enough knowledge to go full race gun entirely by your own hands, provided of course, your answer to the following question is the right one.
“If you have a set of needle files and a Dremel tool with every imaginable bit sitting in front of you, can you opt for the files for this job?”
If the answer is no, you can sell the gun to put the proceeds towards a higher end custom or have the work done by a pro whichever costs less.
If your answer is yes, allow me to extend a warm welcome to eleven land.
Evolution one
Fitting of the “Semi drop in” barrel.
This honestly is not that hard to do, though it is a little time consuming.
Fit the barrel hood, lower lug then upper locking lugs in that order.
Most of the fitting work is in the tuning of the lower lug since this controls clearance from the feed ramp, slide position and recoil system timing. This will take a few hours even though its “semi drop in”. I went this route to avoid having to drop another $150 on a chamber reamer to fit a full fit barrel.
While I was buying parts I also opted to try out a cute caliber called the 400 corbon. Which is a 45 ACP necked down to 40 cal / 10MM. A stiffer spring and a 400 corbon barrel is all that is required to convert a 45 to 400CB. It even uses stock 45 magazines… we only live once, make it hurt, so I opted to fit two barrels to the Springfield. The prospect of 400 corbon was far too tempting to do otherwise. More on this later, we are only in evolution one yet, which is correcting its sinful ways.
With the new barrel at the 30 foot mark, the first shot hit 2 inches left, and 6 inches low, reminiscent of the stock SA barrels tenancies. I thought for a moment Id be in for some disappointment.
Subsequent shots laid a vertical track one inch wide and six inches tall. Each shot higher than the previous. The second magazine picked up where the first left off and the point of impact walked right and stopped at point of aim. Give or take some fliers through the next 3 magazines, its core grouping at this range sat around the 2” mark.
Distance was then adjusted to 60 feet where it maintained 2.5 – 3” groups while I crammed a bucking #ucket of 915 FPS 230 grain cast TC flat points down its throat to see if I could make it choke.
It wouldnt … it ate everything stuffed into bottom of the frame and asked for more.
Somewhere around the 850 round mark, a problem became apparent. The rear of the SA frame could use its edges dressed a little more. My hand was starting to get a little raw and the grips started to feel a bit like cheese graters. At the 1100 round mark, game over folks, I was bleeding a little and I had a blister in the shape of the frames beaver tail radius in my hand.
But then, I dont think there are many practical situations where one would have to fire that many rounds before they have fought their way to a long arm to finish a fight. I cannot imagine a handgun hitting the 800 round mark in a week of heavy combat let alone a day. Its probably an unusual issue that need not really be addressed unless we were talking about a sub gun which may need be called to a heavy suppression fire role.
In this endurance and break in run, the SA1911A1 was along side a HK USP in 45. The HK lent itself well to being a benchmark in this run. At the beginning of the string, the USP clearly had the advantage. Reliability could be called equal while the HK held advantages in capacity and accuracy.
As the re-barreled SA continued to settle in, its accuracy overtook the HK by a noticeable margin ultimately printing routine 2.25” groups at 30 yards. Not too surprising … when its America versus Germany, we know how that ends from history.
Suffice to say, with the new barrel, the SA's sins had been forgiven.
Evolution two
400 corbon
I always wanted a delta elite … something in the 10MM autos number spoke to me early on. I never found one. Or at least found one at the same time funds existed to own one.
Enter 400 corbon. This wild cat is brilliant in concept, affording 10MM ballistics out of most 45 autos without any undue hassles since 400 uses your stock 45 magazines
Barrel fit as was the replacement 45 and the recoil spring swapped out for a 20 pound Wilson combat, and we were off to the races... give or take a few minor details.
This caliber seems to get a little finicky about the magazine. Two out of my six mags had occasional issues, and in both cases that issue was always second to the last round in the mag would flip vertically and jam. With these two mags set aside the rest of the 300 round string worked perfectly. Its other minor issue is that the POI is rather high. I found that holding the base of the front post to the top of the rear was necessary to properly aim with this caliber, but at least I had a means to do so.
Ejection with this caliber was quite gentle, yet positive. Recoil is more manageable although a bit sharper than 45. It also seems to have a little less muzzle flip making it easy to master double tapping.
In my case ejection was interesting, It should be a jam fest with how gently the cases are extracted and nearly float to the ground at my feet … a recipe for chronic stove pipes. Yet it never did so, and any function issue traced back to one of the two non 400 friendly magazines.
In actual testing it can push a 155 grain cast HP to 1300 FPS average, measured with a chrono. Its pleasant to shoot and quite nasty down range. If you opt to go the re-barrel route .. give this worthy caliber a try. Ive heard some horror stories about function issues with 400 conversions, which may be the case with some. Mine sang a perfect tune give or take the odd but operable POI.
Yet, unlike 10MM auto, whose ammo nearly went into extinction, the corbon needs only reformed 45ACP's to stay in the game for years to come. Furthermore the nature of the conversion is such that its not one or the other caliber, think like a TC Contender .. its continually switchable between 45 and 400 you cant lose.
In closing, the current production SA's seem to have a barrel fit issue which is easily corrected, provided of course, you have the patience to do so
