Wilson Combat has been innovating the 1911 world for decades, and hasn’t stopped yet. They continue to make some of the best high end 1911 pistols on the market, and they’ve been making 1911 magazines since before many of our readers were born. Recently, they’ve been changing the 1911 market by introducing flat wire spring technology in their 1911 recoil springs, which reportedly increase the maintenance cycle by up to 10 times. So if they work so well in recoil springs, why not put them in a magazine?
A common complaint regarding many 8-round magazines is the limited spring life. Use them heavily or leave them loaded for a long time and they quickly lose lift, resulting in malfunctions. The new ETM HD magazine addresses this with a longer tube to fit a longer spring, and a flat wire spring that is advertised to provide 25% more lift than standard springs. Like all their products, the magazine is guaranteed for life by Wilson Combat.
The stainless steel tube itself is designed to resist deformation and swelling. I’ve used the regular ETM magazines in the past and definitely found the feed lips to be robust and resistant to spreading.
I took the magazine to the range to get a feel for the new spring, which definitely felt a bit more stout. This was immediately evident upon loading rounds, and the last round was a bit harder to load than the rest. But a few cycles and everything seemed to wear in. Function was flawless, as expected from a new high quality magazine. Long term testing will bear out whether or not the spring lives up to the advertisement, but it seems promising so far.
Check out the ETM HD Magazine at Wilson’s Web Store.
Any chance 10-8 will be making anymore baseplates for 1911 magazines? I own a few and love them.
Is that the factory front sight on that rail gun?
Iv been using Wilson 1911 magazines for as long as I can remember. And the only bad thing I can say about them is that I DONT HAVE ENOUGH OF THEM.
If you run a 1911, you have to feed it with Wilson mags.
We must remember, JMB’s design called for a 7 rounds in the magazine.
As the years have gone by, some smart guy figured out there was enough space to stick another round in the magazine. Most magazine springs are made from music wire in order to keep pricing under the stratosphere. And man has been looking for wire that doesn’t hold memory, yet able to consistently present and feed that 8th round out of the 7 round magazine ever since…
And I agree…
I have fewer issues with Wilson than any other mag.
And even fewer issues with Wilson mags equipped with Virgil Tripps Super 7 Upgrade Kit. But, then I’m back to 7 rounds and JMB’s original concept.
I was at my local gun shop once when a little old lady brought in her deceased husband’s WWII 1911 to sell. The late Colonel had been dead twenty years and the gun hadn’t been touched since then and who knows when he’d loaded the GI magazines prior to that, but damned if the Colt didn’t eat up and spit out each and every round on the test range that day without a hiccup.