Remember, these pistols and their original magazines were designed for Full Metal Jacket (FMJ) rounds, and may hiccup on hollow points and similar.

All of the CMP pistols are test fired, and I haven't heard of any having bad recoil springs straight from CMP. I'm not saying it can't happen, but IMHO it's unlikely

Magazines made by Mecgar, Checkmate, Metalform, and Wilson are usually GTG. BTW, REAL Colt mags are usually made by Checkmate and Metalform, but there a LOT of fake Colt-marked mags out there.

Both of the 1911s I got from CMP came with Checkmate "contract" mags, marked "1M291" on the bottom. Avoid mags marked "30645" on the bottom; they are fake "contract" mags.

Good luck.

When I got my round 1 gun, I didn’t expect it to run any of my cast lead stuff except maybe round nose. Much to my surprise it functioned with semi wad cutters, including the real pointy 160 grain ones. Also every HP I tried. Wouldn’t complain if it choked on any of that stuff, but a pleasant surprise.

I was surprised when my CMP 1911A1 arrived with a fake Colt mag. You may have had the same experience.

This is the bottom of the magazine it came with.
Attached File


I picked up a new 16# recoil spring as well as a Wilson Combat 47D and a chip McCormick 7rd magazine.  Went to the range finally today.  Still had some fail to feeds with the CMP magazine, but it was better.  The other two ran 100%.  Only had time for ~100 rounds, mixture of WWB, Speer lawman and PPU.

That's a Checkmate "USGI contract" magazine. 1M291 is the CAGE code. Totally legit. I got those same magazines with both of my CMP 1911s.

Would like to see pics of the "fake" magazine.

Legit Colt on the left, fake from the CMP is on the right. Only way it could be more obvious would be to stamp the base "FAKE COLT".

Attached File


Attached File

Thanks for the pictures. What Round was your 1911?

I'm not saying that the mag came that way from CMP, it's entirely possible, but here's a conspiracy theory for you: Did you see the pistol come via Fedex yourself, or did you pick it up from the FFL after they received it and checked it in? Any chance the magazine could have been swapped out at the FFL? A few years back a shop was swapping out authentic Glock mags for aftermarket mags, and another shop was keeping a mag when the pistol was supposed to be supplied with three. No offense or accusations intended by this, but stranger things have happened.

Anyway, hopefully CMP will be done with their audit soon and ship some more 1911s out.

Well, seems like the Army FOIA's are mostly automated now, I got mine back today in less than 2 hrs of submission. Helps I used the right e-mail address this time!

As records go back only to '75, it was with the California Army National Guard then.

In 1983, it was transferred to the 2nd BN, 185th Armor Regiment (California Army National Guard) ‐ San Diego, where it stayed till 1999. Looks like the only action it saw during that time was the when the Regiment was '92 LA riots?

Round 2 delivered October, 2021. It is certainly possible that the FFL swapped the magazine, although that seems like an odd thing to do for someone who does not stock 1911s.

I wonder if a Joe bought a magazine or two or an armorer needing to make inventory?

@jasoncar40

Was your SN in the 1914xxx range?  My RR/RR FOIA came back with the same exact results.

@dwb1987

My SN is in the 2,176,xxx range. They may have had a different start in life, but the same journey since the 70's.

Going a.l the way back to WWI 1911’s we’re not shipped from the factory, nor through the military supply system in sequential serial number order, so there is very little likelihood guns in close proximity serial number wise would end up in the same unit except by simple coincidence.

There were exceptions, like blocks of Singers that were predominantly shipped to the USAAF and some blocks to the navy. But with pistols scattered in small numbers all over the globe serials are going to very widely in a single unit inventory. With the exception of military police, aviation and armor/ cavalry units, the numbers of pistols a unit would have would be very small. For instance when I was an enlisted guy in a medical company, our mote only had about 12 pistols, compared to over 200 rifles. Most military units would have typically only a handful of pistols. A typical infantry company for example, usually had pistols assigned to a commander, executive officer possibly the 1st sergeant and then the medics. So a 100 many company might have 6 pistols.