Certified “Master Gunsmith”

1911 & Hollow Point Ammo

Note - a bullet is the thing on the end of a round of ammunition, not the round itself.  Rounds or ammo or ammunition is the term used to refer to the assembled piece of ammunition.  “Bullet” only refers to the projectile expelled from the ammo upon firing.

    So you did the wise thing and bought yourself a 1911 - the best pistol ever made!  Congratulations!  And you immediately went out and bought all the expensive hollow point defensive round ammunition you could find, and low and behold, it won’t feed. The rounds stub on the frame instead of sliding into the barrel.What’s the deal??????????

    First, we need to understand the 1911 was accepted as a military firearm in 1911.  There was no such thing as hollow point ammo in those days!  Which is to say, a 1911 is not designed to feed hollow point ammo.  But what is different about hollow point ammo that would cause a problem?

    Unlike round nose ammo which the 1911 was designed to feed, hollow points have two characteristics that make them challenging for a 1911 to feed.  First, there is the fact that the front of the bullet is flat.Look at a round from the side.  You can lay a ruler across the mouth opening of a hollow point and it will happily lay there.  Without that rounded shape the “flat” naturally wants to stub on the frame - and anything else it encounters!  And there’s another problem.

    Many, though not all, hollow point bullets are shaped more “pointy.”  To increase their aerodynamic performance and provide area for the hollow part of the hollow point, the shape of the bullet is fatter over its diameter for a longer distance than an equivalent round nose bullet.  Feeding rounds in a pistol is a violent event.  When you fire the pistol the ammo in the magazine slams forward with recoil, then back when you stop the recoil and slam into the rear of the magazine, then slide forward again as you bring the pistol back down onto target again.  While this is happening the slide is traveling back then forwards, with the bottom of the slide slamming into the top rear of the round case, pushing it forward violently (and rapidly) which causes the nose of the round to tilt DOWN.  The nose hits the frame and by design (of the 1911) bounces up (because of the shape of the nose of the bullet) and hits the top of the barrel mouth, then bounces up and down repeatedly as it is pushed but the slide into the barrel.  When you try to feed hollow points, the “flat” on the front of the bullet coupled with its lack of “roundness” prevent the jump from happening when the slide hits the back of the round and pushes the nose of the bullet down.

    Does that mean you are unable to shoot hollow points in 1911s?  Depends.  Some will feed them right out of the box with nary a problem.  Others will jam every time.  If you are dead set on using hollow points (more on that in a minute), look for hollow points that have short bullet noses (sticking out of the round’s case), and rounds with bullets that are as round as you can find.  Try them and see if they work.  And/or you can bring your 1911 and a couple of boxes of ammo to me and I can make them work together.  Or stick with round nosed non-hollow point ammunition.

Here is a sequence of depictions of the normal feeding of rounds into a 1911: