So, I went up to my shooting spot a couple of days ago for my bi-weekly practice. It’s not a range, it’s pretty much just a pull-off in the Arapaho National Forest, and I usually go during the week, as it gets pretty crowded on the weekend. As usual, I was shooting reloads from Denver Bullets. I’ve been getting most of my practice ammunition from them, as I can’t consistently find what I need to practice on the store shelves.

I’ve also been having some problems with reliability in my 1911. Specifically, its not been going fully into battery the last couple of trips. Pretty much all other problems have disappeared as I’ve passed the break-in period.

But then, this last trip, it started happening with my Glock as well.

I’d been chalking the problems up to horror stories about 1911 reliability, but I’ve never had problems with the Glock. So, I began to pay more careful attention to the individual rounds that were getting stuck. I started to notice a pattern. And then I found the following round, which was impossible to miss.

None of the other rounds were quite that extreme, but every one that caused a problem was shorter. Though I’m through with buying reloads, especially from Denver Bullets, it is nice to know that my 1911 is probably pretty reliable. I still want to put at least 500 rounds through it without a failure before I even think about carrying it, and that’ll take awhile on my budget, but I’m a lot more confident now.