How many rounds does it take? it's had 7-800 rounds through it.

It jam before the last outing?

Of late, I have seen a lot of jamming caused by magazines, new OEM magazines. Bunches of them.

A little magazine background. First was the relative straight (front to back) lipped GI magazine designed to feed 230gr ball, where round stripped from magazine almost level until nose angled up feed ramp, nose angled into roof of chamber and leveled out as rim slid under extractor in a Mauseresque controlled feed manner.

Then came service pistol competitors switching from revolver to accurized 1911s, them shooting wadcutters/SWCs for better scoring potential of cleaner holes making a difference as to edge of ring cut or not. The magazine needed serious mods to function, much earlier release of round as it slid forward so that it free to feed into chamber without rear held down by camming under extractor, feed lips flared open for less than half of length, extractor often snapping over rim, and leading also to many more extractor failures.

Then came hollowpoint popularity, and the hybrid magazine feed lips, dealing still with essentially same problem was SWCs, only not quite as bad, but still, shorter noses piling vertically into chamber top if rim under control of extractor in back, and so front half of feed lips flared open for earlier release, and like as not, extractor snapping over rim, leading to lively market in extractors, problem made worse by many makers using cast or MIM extractors.

Chances are, if your 1911 is jamming, it is because of bad match of ammo to magazine lip design, and much of newer ammo is jamming with standard hybrid feed lips. If you are shooting some premium ammo with a filler in the HP, lengthening nose, you may have sterling luck by retrograding to high quality GI feed lip mags, such as Checkmate makes, and likewise those are indicated for ball, and especially if gun is double feeding, as heavier round is popping free out of a hybrid under recoil inertia and slide is picking up a second round on return stroke.

Otherwise, swap brand of magazines, including many "name" designs where reliability is comprised of the top round basically floating uncontrolled into chamber for most of return to battery, in order to allow them to float into chamber however they wish.

Again, majority of problem likely a bad match of ammo to magazine, not extractor tension or shape, or slight machining marks which have always been on reliable GI guns, and etc. Look to the magazines. Including former well behaved mags whose flared lips may have flared more.

Lofty,
As you basically said,most,if not all problems can be traced back to magazine issues.

I think that when they started to go away from the 7 round mags and started to increase the round count to 8+,things kind of went down hill from there.

I think I have about 8,seven round magazine that have shown no problems. Two magazines from a highly toted manufacturer,are 8 rounders and have given me nothing but trouble.

Just my experience.

Wayne

I found that unless there is no choice but to use a after market Mag I do better going to the manufacturer of the gun.
Guns, fishing equipment, Knives......are a some of the things that if I can't afford it I save till I can.
I also read the reviews a product got. I try to make sure I'm not reading a 5-10 year old review, but one that is within the last year.
I used to only buy the German made sig, but the guns that they have put out the last 3-4 years have been very dependable.
I have little interest or faith in a weapon that requires me to fix it so that I can use it.

Chief--

Your comment about having to fix it in order to use it reminds me of an S&W Shield I bought.

First, I saw them for $299 today, which is much less than I paid back when. So, what I thought was a bargain then could have cost less if I had been patient.

Second, to make it into a serviceable gun, I chose to install better sights, and also to install a parts kit to actually smooth up the trigger action and get consistent let-off with it (yes, the factory should put out the best to begin with).

Here are the costs for "stuff" up to that point:

Gun: $483.19
Sights: TRUGLO TFO Sight Set: $118.00
Sights installation: $25.00
Apex Tactical Duty Carry Kit: $92.95
S&W 7-round magazines: $31.99 x 2 = $63.98


Then, of course, we "could" add in the costs of a couple or three holsters, a really "pretty" one that turned out to not be practical but high price (no, holster makers do not accept even new condition items back in trade), and another one that cost less than 20% of the first that is more useful.

Looking at my records, including the holsters, I have over $1200 in the outfit--largely due to my own choice of a gun and accessories--Partly because of having to "fix it" to get it sort of right.

Yes, I can hear the Glock guys saying "You should had done so-and-so," but I won't have a gun that does not give me a mechanical safety.

Larry

Most gun manufacturers use aftermarket. They do not make magazines at all. Suchlike Checkmate makes most OEM 1911 mags and marked so after brand name. And they use hybrid design as does most everybody today, a one size fits all that does not work.

And yes, Wayne, the 8rd mags have been a disaster, nothing feeds better than a milspec follower (and milspec feed lips and milspec ball), and runs like a sewing machine quite foreign to most shooters today, if supersmart maker did not "improve" original specs much. Tailor mag design to preferred ammo. See what works, use it, and not some name stamped on bottom, save the "OEM" mags for collectible set if you wish. Even wadcutter magazines may be just the ticket for YOUR ammo choice.

My newer Colt is a jam-o-matic with hybrid OEM Checkmate mags and ball. A switch simply to Checkmate GI mags has it running just as my WWI and WWII 1911s. No double feeds, nose up or down into ramp jams etc...the type jam almost always points directly to problem, and mostly they will point to magazines.

Lot of threads on the subject, but this one hits on many of the cylinders, including later "name" mag designs and problems...even though I muchly disagree with idea a hybrid does EVERYthing well.
https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=513924

Not sure if mentioned in that above thread, but the teat on the hybrid mags is often insufficient to stop the top round from shifting forward as slide hits stop under recoil, the rim squirts past the teat, not just on last round in magazine, and especially when shooting heavier bullets OR higher velocity lighter rounds, hence the problems with many OEM hybrid mags.

The end game is that many folk spend all manner of time and money chasing paper tigers, messing with mysterious extractor tension problems which may or may not exist, polishing breach faces, ramps, even chambers, none of which was done to dead nuts reliable GI guns, when all they need do is experiment a bit as to magazines and ammo selected for those magazines.

My suggestion would be to order a couple of wadcutter, GI, and even hybrid (in unlikely event supplied hybrid not by Checkmate), and play with them and several favorite ammos. You might be suprised.

LOL OK since we are splitting hairs I find that using the mag that is delivered to & tested at the factory, is better than the others that say works well with & or made to work with whichever gun you may have.

No hair splitting, and you probably are liking your Checkmate hybrid magazines (currently, as suppliers change) with what you shoot in what.

And was not picking on you, but only making an informational point, as many folk do not know the magazines with ANY gun likely outsourced. And that there may be better choices for that gun and ammo combination, and just as high a quality, and even same maker (such as Checkmate currently makes all three types).

People often treat symptoms rather than disease in the 1911, what they do seems to cure a problem, sometimes for good, and they think they found the cure to the disease, and proudly post of same. An example would be my 1911 choking with hybrid magazines and ball. I COULD have swapped to a heavier recoil spring and "solved" the problem of round squirting too far forward by lessening rearward slide velocity and impact. But also would have taken the gun out of perfectly good spec, increased forward slide velocity, and may have introduced other problems such as now needing a stronger magazine spring to get round up fast enough to be caught by faster returning slide, which then may have caused etc etc etc.

When all along, all it would take is the proper magazine for ammo.

I have an older Mini 14 and it WILL NOT run on anything but factory Ruger mags. I've tried several different aftermarket mags and they all cause jams.