1911 / Hollow Points?

[bennybangbang]

I just had an interesting convo with a friend of mine who owns the same Pro Carry CDP ii as I do and has had it much longer. He uses YouTube as one of him primary sources of research. I was talking to him about the +P Federal Tactical 230 grain ammo that I made a previous post about. He looked at me sideways and stated to me that it is recommended that Kimbers use ball ammo due to feeding issues according to his research. Aside from possibly breaking the gun in, can any Kimber long-timers weigh in on this? I want to make sure I am not causing harm or cutting the lifespan of my gun.

Cheers!

[Ken]

My Kimber eats anything I feed it, granted it is well broken in. Your friend needs more time at the range and less time on the computer.

[crbutler]

I probably don't have all that much experience with the 230 grain factory load, but I shoot a lot of 185 JHP in a Kimber for competitive use.

What I would be more concerned about is reliability.

If your gun (specifically) is reliable in feeding a JHP round, then it is good.

The JHP is no harder on the gun than any jacketed bullet, but lots of older factory guns were notoriously finicky about feeding hollow point ammo.

Shoot a couple hundred rounds of the selected load through yours. If you don't have any issues with miss feeds, then your golden for carry with that load.

[Countryfried Frank]

My recommendation is to RTFM before using +P in any firearm and functionally test your intended carry ammo.

[dsm2nr]

I also have used HPs, but in my Kimber Warrior. I've had zero function problems with any HPs I've put through it. I carry Winchester PDX1 230gr in it.

[Snowgun]

POLISH THE FEED RAMP and your 1911 will eat anything.

Heavy power loads may need some stiffer springs to not batter the frame.

[bstrawse]

I own several Kimbers, they all eat hollow points just fine.

Don't polish the feed ramp
b

[Snowgun]

Mirror Polish the ramp or hollows will explode in your gun.

[Seismic Sam]

This whole "polish the feed ramp" controversy is anything but settled. and there are aprocryphal stories of people who did and tottaly screwed the gun up, and others who did and made things better. Slightly off the 1911 subject, polishing and even lengthening feed ramps on my EAA's has always helped.

Back on the 1911 subject, the feed ramp on my 50GI is like a mirror, and feeds those monstrous 300 grain Gold Dots flawlessly, so Alex Zimmerman and Victor Tibbets beleive in feed ramp polishing, which is good enough for me. That's a hand built custom pistol, however, which means everything is working right. I am sure there are cases where a noob got into a 1911 with a Dremel and an aluminum oxide stone instead of a felt wheel and hosed the whole thing up. Based on the number of reports of some guns having to be "broken in", I agree that feed ramp polishing should be a last resort attempt after everything else has been tried.

[selurcspi]

I have been building and repairing 1911s since 86 and I can tell you that even "judicious" polishing of the feed ramp in the frame is unnecessary providing it is already “smooth”. This area only needs to be free from tool marks where a hollow point lip may hang up, but there is a specific clearance required between the frame and barrel and if the geometry of the ramp is modified to the point where the clearance is lost, the only real fix for the problem is to mill out the bridge and use a ramped barrel. Yes there are some “Bubbas” out there who will tell you that you can modify the barrel to recover the clearance, but you end up with an un-supported case web and you “Will” start blowing case walls eventually. If hollow points don’t feed correctly in your shiny new 1911, contact the manufacturer, a “Gunsmith” or an Armourer familiar with the design and have the problem resolved professionally; that way if you begin blowing cases you have recourse for remediation.
On a slightly different tack, in general hollow points require a fairly high velocity to open and mushroom as designed; typically this is around 1100fps (some will argue the actual speed, but it is a lot more than the 800fps of a .45). Recent developments using thinner jackets, which may be scored internally to assist in the tearing of the copper, plus soft lead cores, sometimes pre-fragmented and swaged into the jackets, have reduced the velocity required for expansion. This said, under actual testing in flesh, slow moving bullets do not expand reliably. If you test this yourself, don’t shoot into water jugs, use flesh (Beef or Pork work well) and cover it with clothing for the tests, (expensive, but how much is your life worth).
The upshot is, that with the good old 1911 in .45 caliber, providing the manufacturer followed the original specs, you will find it will function reliably out of the box, with fairly minimal over penetration when used to defend yourself in a life threatening situation, when fed plain “BALL” ammunition.

My $.02
YMMV

[mccandmatt]

If you're wanting the feed ramp polished and have never done it you might want to consider bringing it to a smith and letting them do it and asking him if it will fire hollow points. The smiths at Bill's are always friendly.

[JJ]

45 +p Hp's are greatly over-rated. As selcrupsi said, the problem is even with a +p rating the 45's don't expand well or reliably. I carry 40 for a reason. If I carried a 45 and had to pay retail, I would carry anything other the high priced +p HP's.

[rugersol]

So a FMJ .45 expands more than a JHP?

[steve4102]

Your friend is half right. Kimber recommends ball ammo, but only for the first 500 or so rounds to break it in. After that, shoot whatever you and your Kimber like. Me, I ran 50 rounds of ball then switched over to LSWC AND JHP.

[JJ]

So a FMJ .45 expands more than a JHP?

Wait, who said that FMJ expands more than a HP?

Shoot those +p HP's into ballistic gel, and get back to us.