Brownells has long been a great (if not the greatest) one stop shopping center for gun stuff. At the bottom of the photo is a replacement recoil-spring guide-rod for a full size 1911 pistol. I needed that item to make a repair. The other items in the photos are "wanna have" items that I decided to order along with the "must have" guide rod.
After a couple of decades of service, the plastic recoil-spring guide-rod of my old(er) Wilson Combat CQB broke during a recent range session. The failure did not lock up the gun or cause any feed problems; I finished the range session and found the failure during the subsequent cleanup.
The idea of the plastic guide-rod (along with a plastic shock buffer) was to attenuate the slide hammering on the frame of the pistol. It wasn't a bad idea from an engineering standpoint but many shooters thought it was cheap to have them on such high end pistols; Wilson Combat dropped the plastic guide-rod from the product line quite a while ago. The one in my CQB lasted around a couple of decades; the steel replacement guide-rod should last the (very substantial) remaining lifetime of this pistol. NOTE: My COLT 1911 10MM (aka "da BIG HAMMER") has a factory plastic guide rod (along with double recoil springs) to protect the frame. I have always kept a spare just in case. Dunno why I never bought a spare plastic guide rod for the CQB when they were available.
The CQB has proven to be the only 1911 pattern .45 ACP pistol in my small world that is 100% reliable with 230-grain Federal Hydra Shok ammunition, even with eight-round and ten-round Wilson magazines (provided that I change the mag springs before they get too squishy; more on that some other time).
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GETTING BACK TO THE REST OF THE BROWNELLS ORDER, in the very first photo above (at the top of the page) are four Ed Brown magazines.
Two of the magazines are nine-round .38 Super. The travel / range kit for my uber-reliable Colt .38 Super 1911 is now complete. It has four of the no-longer made Wilson Combat nine-round .38 Super mags and four Ed Brown nine-round .38 Super mags; I'm leaving the base pads off of the Ed Brown mags so they will fit flush for concealed carry. My defense load for that pistol exclusively is the 125-grain Winchester Silvertip hollow point and the aforementioned mags feed them with aplomb. My routine range loads are any name brand ball that I find on sale.
Next is a single seven-round mag for an Officer Model 1911 pattern pistol. Although I believe the .45 ACP Colt Defender will have the best chance of consistent mechanical function with six-round mags, I decided that I just had to try one of Ed Brown's seven-round mags with it. We shall see what happens. If it proves okay with seven rounds I will probably just use it as a six-round mag anyway. The Colt Defender is my 99% hobby 1911 pistol; there is probably only a non-zero chance of me ever choosing it for concealed carry. Sometimes ya just gotta run a gun for fun.
The fourth and final mag pictured above is a standard size seven-round .45 ACP mag for the 1911. It is earmarked to reside in the travel / range kit of my Colt Combat Commander. This old Commander is a 100% reliable pistol with ball ammunition and has a fairly good record with 230-grain Hydra Shok hollow points, but fairly good is not good enough. I have 200-rounds of 230-grain Winchester Black Talon, a hollow point load that fed in every 1911 that I ever tried them with. I've earmarked my Black Talons to be the concealed carry load of the Colt Commander if a range session (which will be limited due to the relatively few rounds of Black Talon in the cache) proves them as being okay with the flush fitting Ed Brown mag (carry mag) and a pair of the non flush fitting Wilson seven-round mags (as the concealed carry reloads).
There are only two .45 ACP 1911 pattern pistols in my modest collection that I would ever consider for real world concealed carry; the aforementioned Colt Combat Commander and the Wilson Combat CQB. The rest of my .45 ACP 1911s are hardball range babies. IMHO, it would have to some unthinkable open warfare collapse of society to warrant use of hardball for defense.
In all honesty, IMHO it is hard to beat Glock 9mm pistols with +P and +P+ loads for personal defense. The only thing that Glock pistols lack is the cachet of the 1911. When it comes to down and dirty function and reliability, IMHO Glocks rule. They rock and roll like no other. They are so good that they can be boring to shoot. Glocks just don't have the sex appeal of a 1911.
'nuff said.
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"My advice to you is to get yourself a gun and learn how to use it.”
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