Posted: 3/18/2014 8:32:54 PM EDT
| Just wondering, how reliable are STI's double stack mags? Are they 100% all the time like Wilson and CMC? |
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In my experience, they can be, or close enough. I've had good luck with mine, across a half-dozen or more 2011s. People talk about tuning mags, but this really is only necessary if you're trying to eke out the absolute maximum round count for competition. Every once in a while, the feed lips may need some minor adjustment to get them into spec (numbers are posted on STI's site). You'd think for a $60 mag, this would never be a problem, but sometimes shit happens. Good news: easy fix.
The most common issue I've run across is follower / slide stop interaction. Sometimes the slide will lock back with one round left, and sometimes it won't lock back on empty consistently. And sometimes, in calibers like .40 and .45, some bullets can bump the slide stop up while feeding and this can result in seemingly random feeding glitches. Most USPSA competitors sidestep these issues entirely by trimming the slide stop lug down enough to completely miss the follower. No automatic lock back on empty, but they don't want it anyway. For everyone else experiencing that problem, the solution is usually a bit of judicious filing on the slide stop lug to allow bullets to miss it while still engaging the follower. Generally I've only run into this on .45 2011s. |
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You might be able to buy already tuned and drilled for witness holes complete mags from:
Brazos Dawson Precision Shooter's Connection When or if you get into Open division guns you can run into some problems with how your C-More mounts and affects ejection but that is a thread for another time. I screwed up and bought the new-ish SVI (yes, S Vee I) mag tubes for an older STI open gun. Now I am stuck: do I whittle on the frame to get them to work? Sell off the mag tubes? Whittle and squeeze the tubes in a vise? The two big stick mags I haven't fiddled with, so I might just sell them off anyway. My open gun is having disconnector issues anyway. 
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Mine (sti 40) have been near 100%. I start getting problems when the springs get some use on them. Install new magazine springs and they are good to go again. Being that we compress the springs close to soild height it is a no brainer that the springs only last a season or two.
I've had SV mags (9mm) go salt shaker on me, but that was because I was trying to use some dawson para +2 base pads on them with incorrect springs. Put the dawson para pads back in the bin and installed the correct ones no more salt shaker |
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Quoted:
Mine (sti 40) have been near 100%. I start getting problems when the springs get some use on them. Install new magazine springs and they are good to go again. Being that we compress the springs close to soild height it is a no brainer that the springs only last a season or two. I've had SV mags (9mm) go salt shaker on me, but that was because I was trying to use some dawson para +2 base pads on them with incorrect springs. Put the dawson para pads back in the bin and installed the correct ones no more salt shaker I know guys that break down their mags after every match. Then right before the next match while everybody else is still signing up, they go ahead and put the followers and springs together, shove 'em into a mag tube, then slide the Dawson base pad on. That way the mag spring is completely relaxed during the week that it is not in the tube. |
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Continued THREADJACK in progress!
It appears the disconnector doesn't spring back up, so squeezing the trigger won't get the hammer to fall: 
I think I might have run just one mag's worth of 9mm Major through it. I never shot it at a match, and never even put my CR Speed holster on my belt. |
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Quoted:
Continued THREADJACK in progress! It appears the disconnector doesn't spring back up, so squeezing the trigger won't get the hammer to fall: I suspect a couple of possible causes. It might be as simple as insufficient tension on the center finger of the sear spring. Most of the tension tends to get adjusted out of this leaf by shooters looking for ultra-light trigger pulls. Combine this with possibly sticky paint and it could be the root cause. Also, when the polymer grip frames get enough rounds through them, the slot for the sear spring can develop enough slack that the center finger of the sear spring no longer adequately reaches the disconnector because the whole sear spring is sitting lower in relation to the ignition parts. You can test this theory by putting a shim below the sear spring to see if it's now positioned properly. |
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Okay, thanks!
I bought in 2010, IIRC. I got to test drive it at the range after a match. Ran a mag through it. Plunked the money down. Then put it in the safe. The only thing I did was fiddle around with those SVI mag tubes trying to get them to insert correctly and drop free. Back on topic, I had heard that the reason some USPSA guys don't like to have the gun got to slide lock is you can over insert the mag and it can hit the ejector and possibly break it off. That's what I heard anyway. |
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Some of my mags have needed slight adjustment of the feed lips, but I got them working 100% with no more than 5 minutes of work on one mag. I recorded the dimensions that work with calipers for the front, middle and back of the mag to get consistent results. I haven't had to redo anything after that.
The 2011's are awesome, highly recommended! |