1911-380 Problem! Please help thanks!

Not particularly, but I greatly appreciate the effort. Though I also have a stock 1911-22, what I usually shoot are 22 slide assemblies and 22 slide stops on my two unmodified 380 frames. In other words, I am usually using a 380 ejector with a 22 slide assembly and 22 rounds on a 380 frame. I do not modify my stock 380 frames when using them in 22 conversion mode.

So far, I have not needed to modify the 380 ejector when shooting in 380 mode, but I am quite interested in what you are doing.

I am aware of the differences in 22 & 380 frames and 22 & 380 mags & slide stops and am rather taken with the elegant simplicity of the 380 mags. The 22 mags are not as impressive, and I am working on mods to increase their capacity by a round or two while attempting to make them more dependable.

My dumb question of the day.....

I've seen reports of people modifying the top spring loop in the 380 mags so that they don't protrude as far.

Why do they do that modification?

Alpha1 --- can you please give details on exactly how you "used the needle nose pliers." I have 3 mags with coils that stick out too far and I have needle nose pliers but am at a loss as to what to do next.

I took one magazine apart and wanted to try to adjust that loop/coil, but husband took it away from me and would not let me tell him anything at all about what the problem was or anything about how you fixed it, he started to "fix it." He is 91 and at the point where he is ruining things that he used to be able to fix. It was not a nice scene.

I can do it with detailed instructions, when he is on the golf course or wherever.

ShooterG, are you sure your spring loops are sticking out too far?
My six 1911-380 mags do NOT need the loop modified. That protrusion is what locks the slide back on the last round. The more you reduce that protrusion, the more often your slide will fail to lock back.

YES. Those 3 mags will NOT let you load the first round unless you push the loop in with your finger as you press down on the follower to load the first round. This would be easy if I had 3 hands, but it is a real challenge. The other 3 magazines resist the first round but the loop slides in like it is supposed to do.

I know it is a very minor adjustment that would make those 3 loops stick out just the right distance and I'm almost hesitant to do anything for fear of scrunching them a bit too much and then having the slide not lock back. But it's a major challenge for someone like me with such weak hands.

I'm probably not understanding something in your description.
I just tried 4 magazines and all accepted the first round without difficulty, both left and right handed (I'm ambidextrous). However, I push down on the first round, not the follower itself.

I then disassembled one mag and bent the spring loop inboard to decrease the protrusion. I did it by hand rather than using pliers, but pliers would have worked too. If you take it too far, the slide will quit locking back and then you will have to bend the the top loop of the spring outboard again.

I took photos of the disassembled follower and spring, but the forum software tells me I don't have permission to upload them.

Edit - I just posted the photos over on the Defensive Carry Forum

Yeah, its a bummer. You have to put pictures on one of those picture web sites and put a link to them. NO uploading here. Note that I was successful in getting that one magazine apart, following your directions. Fortunately hubby has one punch that is tiny enough to go in that hole on the bottom plate of the magazine, and this time when I did it, the base plate slide off easily. I quit after one, though. I need to be by myself next time and I'll try gently squeezing the loop with the needle nose pliers. I'm going to try one - only - to see if I get the proper results.

It takes all of my strength to insert that first round in the magazine by hand. I really am that weak. But while pushing down on the follower with the 1st round, I have to hold the magazine with my other hand, and that doesn't leave a third hand to push in the protruding loop. : -( Once I get the first round in, my baby Lula does the work and I full the rest of the magazine quickly and easily.

You can place a round onto the top of the follower, place the round against something solid (I used the steering wheel of my car) and then shove the whole mag toward the steering wheel (or whatever), sliding the mag forward as you go. This can be done with one or both arms powering the movement.
Photo on other site.

Thanks, Ranger6 - I'll do that next time.

This morning my honorable husband was on the golf course so I took my six 1911-380 magazines out and tested them to see which ones had the coil that stuck out so far that the first round would not load unless you push in on the coil. Three of them were "just right" and three were "too fat," so up to the work bench I went with 3 magazines, my little UpLula and one live round.

If you envision the final coil with its hooked end, think of a shepherd's crook. It is definitely trial and error to adjust that coil, and changing the angle of the bottom of the crook seemed to help but didn't do the job completely. Then I VERY CAREFULLY used pliers to try to squeeze the hook itself to make it less circular. That was pretty much a no go for me. Stronger hands or a better method might have done it. So, it was back to changing the angle of the stem of the shepherd's hook.

This is all so much trial and error that I can't remember what each step was that I did, but I kept making very tiny changes as I could. The first couple of changes made that coil stick out even farther. OOPS. Then I got one that seemed right. OK! Then I did the next one and with the same trial and error but a little faster, got that one right. Hooray! Then, thinking I knew what I was doing, I did the third one. OH DEAR. I bent it too far and although the coil did show it was definitely not sticking out far enough to function as a empty mag slide lock back loop. So, apart it came once again. I changed it to bring the coil out farther and now it is just a wee bit too far.

I stopped right there.

Next thing is to go to the range and see if/how they all work. I forgot to put a bit of tape on the bottom of each of the ones I adjusted so it would be easier to keep track. Shame on me.

Next time I take any of the 6 magazines apart to clean the inside of the metal I will not remove the top coil from the inside of the follower! I am pretty sure that when I removed that coil it messed up everything and made the coil stick out way too far. Before all of this I only had one magazine that had the problem. Then I had three. Now I hope that they will all work, even though I still have to manually push in the coil to load the first round in that one magazine...........which brings me back to before I started this "fix it" project. LOL

" I am pretty sure that when I removed that coil it messed up everything and made the coil stick out way too far.".

No way to mess that up. It will shake itself into place.

It did not - not in my magazines. IN fact, the ones that didn't stick out too far, were the ones that did stick out too far after I put the magazines back together. That's why I worked on three instead of just one today.

I really like this gun but I am not a bit fond of that feature of the magazines. Ingenious it might be, but it's also a bit of a pain in the toosh.

How much work I will do depends on how much I like the gun. If it is not worth it, the gun gets gone. I really like those Browning 1911's. My 19110-22 did have to go back to the factory because it was shooting way, way high, but they corrected that.

I may have mentioned that I put two layers of plastic report binder under each grip panel to make the grips fit my hands better. I have to wear shooting gloves and that is the reason I need that slightly fatter grip.

For what you pay for those guns my feeling is that the quality control should be better than it is - but it seems that all companies' quality control has gone way down in the last few years.

"my feeling is that the quality control should be better than it is"

I would agree with that. I have three frames and five slide assemblies.
Doing my own smithing, I have been able to make all of them feed OK (though there is one I don't trust quite enough to carry yet). That one is also the one that shoots 18 inches low at 100 feet. Haven't gotten around to fixing that yet.

My main gripe is the poor quality of the finish - the frames and trigger scale off.

Most interesting! My experience has been that the finish is excellent, although these are not my most used guns. However, comparing the Browning finish to the finish on my SIG P238's - that stuff is awful! If wear off if you look at it hard. Seriously, the only things that has touched the most worn parts of my factory FDE finished P238 is soft tee shirts and parts are worn to the metal.

The 1911-380 was flat, flat, flat and the parts seemed to stick together when brand new but a coupe good goings over with my SLIP 2000 CLP brought a nice sheen back and loosened the parts to where they should have been in the first place.

I smooth my internal parts up with Jeweller's Rouge similar to what I use to polish glass telescope mirrors. Then rub them with half nanometer Boron Nitride dry lube.

That depends entirely on who does the cerakote. The SIG original cerakote finish is that FDE that I mentioned which rubs off so easily. There are some true professionals doing cerakote that is extremely durable, but unfortunately too many who don't take the time to do it properly, so it is not very durable.

My 1911-22 has the Browning grey factory cerakoted slide and it is seriously durable! Done right. I prefer real metal finishes but that is the model "the guys" at the gun shop talked me into ordering because of the fiber optic sights. I have since used Glow-On paint to cover those fiber optic dots because they are so tiny that they are useless indoors and only really good in bright sunlight. The Keltec P17's have those tiny fiber optic tube front sights also and they also got painted over with Glow-On sight paint. A few minutes exposed to a bright flashlight and you have serious glow for quite a while. Big time serious.

The 22s have an aluminum frame, so will take cerakote quite well.

I don't know enough to have an opinion about cerakote on the polymer frame of the 380.

I'm also leery of disassembling and reassembling the ambidextrous safety because of the tiny roll pin on the right side.