1911 7 round magazine vs 8 round
It seems to me that given the dimensions of a standard 1911 full size magazine, and the .45 Auto cartridge, John Browning could have made the magazines 8 rounds instead of seven. Is that correct? If that’s so, what would your guess be as to the reason he went with 7?
It would seem to me that it’s unlikely that John Browning somehow missed the fact that his box magazine would physically accommodate 8 rounds. Given that squeezing just one more round into the magazine could well mean the difference between living and dying for a mounted cavalryman, we often wonder why he didn’t make it an 8-rounder.
Well…maybe he did and found that the overall reliability suffered. I strongly suspect that this is the case. In order to stuff an extra round into the box, something else has to be sacrificed. In this case….two somethings. The number of active spring coils and the length of the rear follower leg. With the standard follower…with the magazine empty…there are three coils against the rear leg, about evenly spaced. One in the corner…one about mid-ways…and one near the bottom. This keeps the follower rock-solid stable. Here you see the springs, uncompressed. In the magazine they are somewhat compressed and that is where you get the coils against the follower leg.
We’ve all seen how easily the folded Devel-McCormick follower (bottom) rocks forward and how it damages the feed ramps on pistols with aluminum alloy frames. The standard magazine follower doesn’t do that (top).
More importantly, the standard magazine spring has 13 active coils, and provides enough strength and a high enough rate to get the last round or two into position and keep them there during the violent, slam-bang cycle of the .45 caliber 1911 pistol…with the last round being most critical because it has minimum tension acting on it.
Also important is that tiny little dimple on top of the magazine follower (top) that’s conspicuously missing in nearly all of today’s 8-round flush-fit magazines (bottom). That little speed bump helps to keep that critical last round in the magazine when the slide impacts the frame and literally tries to jerk the pistol out from under the cartridge. Ever had the slide lock open with the last round lying loose in the port? Ever found a live round among your spent brass?
Heeeere’s yer sign! We can increase spring tension to combat these issues, but it becomes an ordeal to load the magazine to capacity. We can put front skirts on the follower to keep it stable, but then we have to reduce the front-to-rear dimensions of the spring so it’ll fit…which affects tension and rate. We can bring the tension up to compensate, and we’re back to having to fight with the spring to get the last couple rounds into the magazine. Another downside of increasing the spring’s tension that much is that the top few rounds place more drag on the slide in recoil…increasing the possibility of short recoil…and in stripping the round as it runs forward…increasing the possibility of failure to go to battery. All for the sake of just one more round. An old engineering dictum states that when you change one thing in a successful design, you have to change three more things in order to compensate for the “improvement” or you deal with the consequences. The most preeminent firearms design genius in recorded history…along with his “Dream Team” of Colt’s top engineers and designers…burned a lot of midnight oil on the 1911 pistol. Nothing was put there on a whim, or just because it “seemed like the thing to do” and you can bet the farm on that. So many people have been working for so long, trying to prove that they’re smarter than John Browning…they really believe they have.
7 round dimpled follower top, 8 round flat follower bottom.
i love the insight. This will make me sound like a genius at the next school circle on the 1911.
Keep up the great articles
hi, guy !!! i am a 1911 colt’s lover … my colt fires fine without problems or feed failure with 8 round magazine …i fire anything of .45 acp…my pstol feed every shape of bullet, flat point swc cast and plated, swc full metal jacket …and it works fine without jam, since i improved my colt with a retrowork on its feed ramp…for few dollar i applied, by italian handcraft, on it a new feed ramp under patent, that name is “high feed ramp for colt 1911″…and it always works fine i am glad at the range and on duty for its reliability… best regard
hi, guy !!! i am a 1911 colt’s lover … my colt fires fine without problems or feed failure with 8 round magazine …i fire anything of .45 acp…my pstol feed every shape of bullet, flat point swc cast and plated, swc full metal jacket …and it works fine without jam, since i improved my colt with a retrowork on its feed ramp…for few dollar i applied, by italian handcraft, on it a new feed ramp under patent, that name is “high feed ramp for colt 1911″…and it always works fine i am glad at the range and on duty for its reliability… contact they for retrowork… best regard
Once again John Travis has explained something about 1911 magazines that I thought I already knew and did not.
Nice work Mr. Travis, very informative on my favorite pistol, the Colt 1911
When were the first 8 round magazines made?
Great article! Thank you. I have always loaded my 8 round mags with 7 just because it seems to beat up mags seating them. Plus I noticed wear on under side of slide after only 50 rounds. I figure 7+1 is good enough plus two mags also loaded with 7. 22 rounds feels good. I think it saves wear on mag springs as well.
ok guys I am fairley new to the 1911 world and bought a Girsan 1911 chambered in 45 ACP it came with a 8 round mag I bought 2 more and then found that the 8 th round will not load on any msg. went out and bought a 7 round mag and it worked fine. and if I understand right it would be a mag quality issue, is that what I am understanding? thanks for your help
When you say it would not load, what sort of malfunction was it? With what you have said, my initial guess would be poor magazine springs. With few rounds left in the magazine they act as a shim, sorta, keeping more tension on the spring. When you get to the last round the spring is at it’s weakest in the magazine. You could try to take the spring out and stretch it a good bit. If it starts working that is a clue but that will not work long.
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Hi folks,
I purchased my first 1911 over a year ago and it came with two 8 round mags.
I now own 10 mags from various company’s, Kimber, Colt, and unbranded, all were stamped as 8 round mags..
When I went to the range to do my first shooting with this gun it would not take any of the mags except for one that was Colt and had a horse stamped in the bottom plate, none of the others would insert all the way into the gun.
I did not fire it that day at all, I took it home thinking something was wrong with the 1911.
When I got home I tried again to load any of the mags other than the one that had the Colt & horse stamped on the bottom. None would load with eight rounds. I removed one round from each mag and then they all worked. So are the sales of 8 round mags a lie or is something else wrong?
I just purchased six Wilson Combat mags with the plastic feeder after reading many fine reviews for these mags only to find that they do not work with 8 rounds either, only mounts with seven loaded!
My 1911 is a frankenstien – Para Ordnance frame with a Colt Match barrel and slide.
I am the only one in my shooting group that tried a 1911 and all my pals told me I would not like the 1911 – I have very big hands and all the later model guns (mostly 9mm) I tried just did not fit my hands, the 1911 feels like part of my body and I want it to work as advertised with 8 rounds in each mag.
Any ideas short of a gun smith?
The eight round magazines can be difficult to insert when topped off. The 1911 magazine was designed for seven rounds and adding that extra round requires a different follower that will collapse when loading the eight round. When you load the magazine you are having to collapse the magazine spring and follower a bit more and that is why they are tough to lock in.