1911’s in general, 9mm versions specifically

[Dobermann]

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Midway USA backorder finally arrived. When I backordered them they were only $17 but looks like the price jumped back up to $21.
Probably going to be wishing I ordered a dozen @$17 if they run as good as everyone says.

Will be interested to hear if all of yours take 10 rounds easily ... some of mine only seem to want to take 9 - and some seem to have a hard time keeping them in line with the follower, with the rounds poking up and against the feed lips. Could be something I'm doing wrong, but it doesn't happen with some other mags ...

 

[sbaker0029]

Will be interested to hear if all of yours take 10 rounds easily ... some of mine only seem to want to take 9 - and some seem to have a hard time keeping them in line with the follower, with the rounds poking up and against the feed lips. Could be something I'm doing wrong, but it doesn't happen with some other mags ...

I'll load them up this evening and report back.

 

[RockAndSage]

So I’ve seen in a number of places (including this thread I think) that commander length 9mm’s are potentially more reliable (or maybe just easier to make reliable) than full length ones. Do you guys think this is the case? If so, is it a significant difference?

I'm not sure I'd agree with this on the whole...there's more going on than just form factor.

At one level, a shorter slide means less weight that needs to be cycled, in reliably ejecting a casing and forcefully stripping a loaded round off a mag and firmly chambering it. That's sometimes why commander-length guns can be a bit snappier - the slide's going faster with there being less weight to move. And to some degree that might make some companies' builds "more reliable", as they're just keeping slide velocity up.

But the flip side of this is simply spring power - if a full-length government slide is going too slow, a slightly lighter recoil spring reduces that resistance, and increases slide velocity enough to eject and chamber reliably. Similar tuning can be done with the hammer spring - hammer leverage and their friction on the cocking-radius at the bottom of the firing pin stop are just about the least commonly appreciated sources of cycling resistance in the 1911 space. But a small change in hammer-spring weight can yield big differences in resistance and cycling reliability.

Separate from all of this, is, IIRC, there were some teething problems early on with 9mm 1911s, but the commanders seemed to have fewer problems than gov't length guns. This is a really faint memory, so I could be off on this, but don't underestimate the power and durability of fudd-lore hanging around. In general, I'm not aware of any differences in reliability between commander and full-size 9mms, on the whole.