The difference is much less noticeable in the steel-framed Combat Commander…but it’s still there due to the spring. The increased felt recoil in a Commander is the result of lower weight and higher spring rate. Momentum being a function of Mass X Velocity. The lower mass is moving at a higher speed…but the momentums are the same. In fact, with the slightly heavier spring, it hits with less momentum and impact.īecause slide and bullet momentums are assumed to be equal. Many believe that the Commander’s recoil is sharper because the less massive slide hits the impact abutment harder than the 5-inch slide…but it doesn’t.
Although the springs were no different in structure or materials…the slightly wider space between coils allowed enough oomph without the danger going solid…aka “Coil Bind.”īecause of the reduced space with the slide in battery…it also resulted in a heavier preload of the slide than the GM had…which results in increased felt recoil. One of the things that they did was to wind the spring a little differently, which resulted in a slightly higher rate, allowing space in the tunnel with fewer coils. Too many coils, and the spring stacks solid before the slide is stopped by the impact abutment…which transfers the shock to the barrel bushing through the spring plug…which breaks things in short order…sometimes including the slide.Ĭolt had to do some slick engineering to get the Commanders to run. This regains a little of the lost slide travel, runup, and space available in the spring tunnel…which is very important because the available space was also reduced on the other end…when the spring is fully compressed by the slide. Most notably, the rails and impact abutment are machined. It appeared to be no more than a Government Model with a short slide and barrel…but there are other subtle differences that aren’t apparent to the untrained eye. In 1949, Colt introduced the Commander Model. The same can be said of the shock buffer, which dampens rebound. If all there is available to accelerate it forward…it may not provide enough speed and momentum to feed and return to battery if all isn’t just so with the feeding phase. Not only is hitting the impact abutment an important part of the function, it has to hit hard enough to rebound and give the slide a jump start.
#Auto ordnance 1911 a1 full#
Then, along came Bill Wilson’s mandate that we should “tune” the gun to the load by using the strongest spring that would reliably allow the slide to lock…assuming that was an assurance of full travel rearward in recoil….which is wrong, because the slide doesn’t have to reach the impact abutment in order to line up the slidestop with the stop notch. Sometime in the last 30 years, 16 pounds came to be standard, and everybody accepted that figure…because it was close enough for gub’mint work. Back in the day, there was only one spring for the 5-inch 1911 pistol…and it wasn’t identified by “pounds.” Neither was it the now-accepted standard 16 pound spring.