[Steve in Allentown PA]

A year or two ago I fit a 9mm barrel to my 9x23 5" 1911. I needed a magazine to test my fitting job and wasn't interested in spending the big bucks to get a Wilson, Tripp, or McCormick so I picked up a Mec-Gar from Greg Cote. The pistol ran fine and accuracy was spot on even with the el cheapo bulk 115gr ammo I used.

The magazine presented no issues at all. Feeding was velvety smooth. I tried to buy a couple more of those as the months went by but Cote was out of stock. I left a request on his site to notify me when they were back in stock. Finally, last week I was notified and immediately bought two more.

If anyone is interested, here is some information for you. First of all, each mag costs $22.

Below is my switch barrel 9x23 / 9mm with one Mec-Gar mag seated and the two new ones on display.

I don't have much experience with 9mm magazines but these are unlike others I've worked with. As you can see below the sheet metal of these mags has been bent to form a groove that runs up the length of the body. The groove serves two purposes. One, it acts as a spacer so 9mm rounds won't rattle fore and aft. Two, the top of the groove is formed into a feed ramp to help the rounds stay nose up as they exit the mag.

Here's a pic looking down through the disassembled mag showing the feed ramp. It is well formed and while it's not mirror finished, it is smooth enough to fulfill its mission. I see no need to waste my time smoothing it any more than it already is. It's a better mouse trap than bending the forward edge of the tube forward into a lip.

Another pic of the integral feed ramp.

Here's a pic of the fully assembled mag. You can see the groove at the front of the body and the follower. The follower is also unusual in my experience. It's similar to Tripp's in that the body is some flavor of plastic and it has a chunk of steel fit to it that is what actually makes contact with the steel slide stop to prevent the plastic from being damaged. I don't know if the very latest Wilson's have the same feature. You would think with how expensive those mags are Wilson would have done something similar.

Another pic of the follower showing where the chunk of steel is located. From a manufacturing standpoint, it's pretty clever. It's a flat piece of steel that passes through the follower body and is secured on the other side.

The magazine tube is extended and there is no spring stacking with all 10 rounds loaded into it. The feed lips are subtle hybrids. It's easy to identify .45 hybrid feed lips but 9mm is so much smaller that I had to take measurements to verify what my lying eyes were telling me.

 

[Inspcalahan]

Great review! I'm shocked Mecgar has something that fancy. I always thought they were more "stock" in what they offered.

 

[MemphisMachinists]

Sorry, but I just have to ask. Why a 9x23 1911?

 

[Steve in Allentown PA]

Sorry, but I just have to ask. Why a 9x23 1911?

'Cause I'm a ballistics freak

What's not to like about toting 11 rounds of .357 Magnum hollow points in a 1911?

I became a fan boy in the mid to late 1990's when I had a face-to-face conversation with John Ricco and listened to his description of what it did to a police shield. He gave the whole history of its development and how he sued Winchester when they stole his design. The settlement was significant.

I just had to have one. Unfortunately, it fell out of favor so Winchester factory ammo is rare and expensive. There are other companies that sell it (e.g. Buffalo Bore, Corbon). It's a very versatile cartridge to reload. I can go from mild to wild with it.

Having said all that, my true love is the good old .45 that Uncle Sugar introduced me to in the early 1970s and that I carried professionally into the late 1980s. I still carry a .45 these days whenever I leave the house. I carry the 9x23 for special occasions. 9mm is my shoot-for-fun poodle shooter.

 

[MemphisMachinists]

My first thought was. I wonder if that ammo is cheap and abundant? So from your reply I would say probably not. You just like it. I have a Browning 1903 that I was able to get cheap because the owner didn't know how to find ammo. It's a 9x20 and probably harder to find than the 9x23. I found some nice ammo for it and bought a couple hundred rounds. I have not tried, but think I should be able to reload it. Is the 9x23 also called the 9mmLargo? I am going to look it up. On a side note I am a big Caspian fan and have several. I have a two tone one like yours, but it needs wood grips!

 

[Steve in Allentown PA]

Is the 9x23 also called the 9mmLargo?

They are different cartridges with similar external dimensions. The 9x23 operates at much higher pressures and is not safe to fire in a pistol chambered for 9mm Largo.

I have a two tone one like yours, but it needs wood grips!

Great minds think alike. My frame is actually stainless that has not been hard chrome plated. The top is blued.

 

[MemphisMachinists]

My twins. The one with the two tone scheme was built by someone I admired greatly and the other one was by me. They are both Caspian.

 

[Steve in Allentown PA]

My twins.

Very nice.

Here are my twins. I don't have the right machines to do all the work myself. I had Jim Milks (Innovative Custom Guns) machine the frames and slides to the point where they would almost but not quite go together. I finished up the the fitting. I then fit the barrels, sights, and all the other parts. Jim also welded the Chen magwells on. The frames were hard chromed and the slides were blued. These were my retirement gifts to myself.

 

[Steve in Allentown PA]

Double post

 

[Random Guy]

Really nice review with great pics. Those mags look high quality too. Thanks for posting.

 

[15636215]

Nice post and a load of great 1911s!!

 

[JD Russell]

Absolutely awesome pair of 1911s. I’d love to have a 9x23. Definitely a real hot rod of a cartridge!

 

[Steve in Allentown PA]

At this point I've put PMC 115gr FMJ, Fiocchi 124gr FMJ, SIG 147gr JHP, and my handloads using Precision Bullet 125gr flat points through the mags and pistol with 100% reliability.

The integral magazine ramp was a stroke of design genius. Attached are a few additional pics I took in an attempt to show more detail. Unfortunately, I lack the lights necessary to illuminate the inside of the tubes sufficiently for really good images.

Below are two pics of the same magazine with different exposures. You can see the front spacer that was formed by the bending of the sheet metal the very top of which is the integral feed ramp.

The two pics below are also of the same magazine but with different exposures. Here you can see the angle of the ramp. I noted the smoothness of the feeding previously. The ramp seems to be playing a big part in this by preventing nose dives and insuring the cartridge hits the frame ramp or barrel ramp higher.

 

[Steve in Allentown PA]

I blackened the feed ramp using soot from a burning candle and took these pics showing the bullet impact on the ramp as they fed from the Mec-Gar mags.

Here's the barrel after being blackened. I blackened the ramp after each of the three sessions. What I should have done was wipe the ramp clean after each session before blackening it again. As you'll see the soot was getting pretty thick in the last two sessions.

Here are the results of feeding 10 rounds of 115gr FMJ. Note how the rounds are striking the ramp off center to the left. I suspect the force of the extractor claw pushing against the case is responsible for this. As you can see, this did not affect feeding. The normal 1911 feeding pattern of the first round out of the mag hitting lowest while the last round hits highest is apparent.

Here are the results of feeding 10 rounds of 147gr JHP. This where things went awry due to my failure to keep up the speed of pushing the the slide forward.

My manual feeding method consists of removing the recoil spring then using two thumbs to push the slide forward just fast enough to strip the next round in the mag and fully chamber it. I was being to gentle with the slide in the beginning which result in a few rounds striking the flat area immediately below the actual ramp. Once I got more aggressive with the slide the rounds hit the mag ramp and bounced up to strike the barrel ramp correctly.

Here are the results of feeding 10 rounds of 125gr flat points. Once again the strike of the rounds off center can be seen. The bottom line for me of this manual feeding test is that these magazines feed without any issues.

The thing that bothers me is the rounds striking the barrel ramp off center. I would rather they had been on center where the ramp is lowest. This argues for me to fit 9mm extractors so that the extractor's tensioning wall makes contact with the case rim. Sounds like I'll be repeating this test with a 9mm extractor fit in the same manner as a .45.