Some .45 ACP Ammo notes

Since I got my Remington 1911 R-1 last spring, I have put about 4 or 5 different brands of ammo through it. The difficult thing, for this post, will be remembering which brands if I don't have any leftovers of a certain brand. Right now I can only think of four (4) of them. Would have sworn there was another brand in there someplace. oh well...

For the most part the Remington 1911 R-1 gobbles up everything, shoots it, then spits out the empty casings. There has been a problem with what I think is due to either one or both Remington manufactured magazines that I have to check on. The last round does not feed properly sometimes. I think it is only due to one of the two Remington mags that came with the pistol, never happens with my after market mags. I keep forgetting to mark one of the mags to figure out if it is one, the other or both.

As for ammo, so far I have fired the following brands/types of ammo through it:

Blazer Brass 230 grain FMJ  This ammo is said to be brass cased and reloadable. It fed, shot, extracted with only one problem is 250 rounds. That was a failure to feed properly on the last round in one of the Remington manufactured mags that came with my Remington 1911 R1. Since the problem has repeated itself with other brands and type of ammo, always with one of the Remington magazines, I figure it is due to one or both of the mags that came with the pistol and not due to the ammo. It has not happened with several aftermarket magazines I have used in the same pistol. Back to the ammo, it shoots relatively clean which I something I like to see because it means less fouling and thus less effort on my part when cleaning. I think it also means less chance of malfunctions caused by fouling. I did not measure group sizes for accuracy among any of the ammo brands listed here but suffice it to say while shooting this I kept it on target from 3 to 25 yards reasonably well for combat type shooting. When I say reasonably well, I do take into consideration that those groups probably would open up some if I was actually involved in combat shooting. Not bad ammo at all, from what I can tell, and at a very affordable price as far a current pricing goes. Again available at $16.69 per box at Cheaper Than Dirt dot com.

Federal Classic Hi-Shok 185 grain JHP This ammo has been a bit of a disappointment. As seen above, for the Blazer Brass ammo, the Blazer Brass failed to feed once out of about 250 rounds and I am attributing the likely cause to be one of the two magazines that came with my Remington 1911 R1 pistol. Well, when firing the Federal Classic Hi-Shok it was a case of multiple failures to feed. I am pretty sure it also only happened when using one or both of the Remington manufactured mags (I will have to remember to mark one of the magazines, then see if it continuously happens with only that one or the other or with both). It did not restrict itself to the last round in the mag though, but with the Federal happened randomly with the 2nd through last round in the mag. My guesstimate is that the failure to feed, with this particular Federal ammo, happened about 10 to 15 times out of 100 rounds or so. A ten to fifteen percent failure to feed percentage is terrible but it again could be due to the mags or maybe the feed ramp. Some additional testing will tell. I do not think it happened when using this ammo with the after market magazines. It shot well, fired every time that it chambered. The accuracy was a good as to be expected and it was suitable for combat situations. This ammo also shot fairly clean.

Prvi Partisan 230 grain FMJ - This ammo was inexpensive, target style round ball. It fired fairly clean, maybe a little dirtier than the Blazer brass but did not cause a lot of fouling. It is supposedly brass cased, reloadable and non-corrosive. It is manufactured in Serbia. Not bad accuracy wise. My son shout about 150 rounds of it at the NE Bloggershoot and had a blast. He never fired a .45 before and has rarely fired a pistol due to restrictive laws in NY State; yet, he did pretty good with it. He shot better than some folks I know who have been shooting pistols for over 20 years. I fired maybe 25 to 50 rounds of it. I thought it was accurate but only fired out to about 10 yards with it so far. I will order more and give a better report on it. There was also a single failure to chamber a round, last round in the mag, Remington magazine again. Currently selling for about $16.75 per bx at CTD.

Remington 185 grain JHP R45AP2 (now that I have seen the rice this stuff goes for I wish I had never shot any of what I had new in box, old stock). I think this ammo also had a single failure to feed but it was not the same as the others. It was caused by a failure to eject the next to last shell casing properly and causing sort of a double feed, the last round slamming into the rear of the spent casing which had not ejected (it did extract). I am sure this was through one of the Remington magazines. Otherwise it was flawless as far as I could tell. It is the most expensive ammo of the bunch, costing almost triple the price of the Blazer Brass at about $45.00 per box. It shot clean, was as accurate as the others and I think is suitable for combat shooting.

I do not own a chronograph so would have to go along with the manufacturers' specs for each of these. I am just not enough of a gun weenie as to buy a chronograph and check the manufacturers' specs against my own results (or am I, since I have been thinking of getting one).

All the best,
Glenn B