I've been wanting a 1911-style .45 for a long time now. I have big hands, and really wanted a double-stack grip to hold onto. I was impressed by the feel of the LDA trigger on the Para's that I handled. So one day the right gun came along at the right time, and the wife forced me to buy it. So I ended up with a Para Ordinance Colonel. (I'll see about getting some pictures of it. The OD green finish was a turn-off for me at first, but it's grown on me.)

I brought it home with a box of Aquila range ammo, and a couple of boxes of Hornady TAP hollow points. I've supplemented that with a few boxes of CCI Blazer brass.

The first 20 rounds of Aquila went through with no problems. I've run about 10 of the Hornady through just fine. The CCI, however, seems to have a problem.

I load up a mag, slingshot the slide, and the first round jams up. The point gets shoved into the top of the barrel, with the base angled down, and the slide trying to shove it in but failing.

This has only happened once with the Aquila ammo. It happens quite often with the Blazer - almost every time when slingshotting the slide. Only once in a while does it happen in the middle of a mag.

The obvious solution is to stop shooting the Blazers. Unfortunately, they're really cheap ($11/box) and handy to buy (Gander Mountain). Physically they seem to be about identical to the Aquila, so I'm not sure what's up.
I kind of wish I hadn't bought 5 boxes though...

I know I've read about this problem before, so I'm off to THR to do some searching. But I'll probably get quicker and more accurate help by asking here. So, what do you folks think? I'd *like* my pistol to shoot anything, and I'm willing to tune it to make that happen. Realistically, I guess I'm looking for a new brand of cheap ammo. Once I've got about a thousand or so cases on hand, I will probably start handloading.

see this thread: http://www.twincitiescarry.com/forum/vi ... 1125#21125

I don't know nothing about no Paras, although they're pretty to look at in the case at the gun shop. Nonetheless, whenever I have a fail to feed problem come up, the first thing I look at is the magazine. Ammo could definitely be the culprit, but those blazers aren't that different from every other manufacturers. Are you having this same problem on more than one magazine? If not, I'd bet either the follower, lips (assuming metal mag) or spring of that one mag is causing your problems. I had a Walther mag that both the follower and top lips were messed up on. It would cause the first round out of the mag to jam with the nose of the round pointing downward. A little adjustment of the mag to make sure the rounds only came out of the mag in a nice straight, upward direction and my problem was solved.

Good luck,

If I were you, I'd post your problem in the Gunsmithing forum on THR. 1911Tuner ought to have you fixed up in no time. Also, try searching on "3 point jam" and "extractor".

The Para's use a feedramp that's integrated to the barrel, right? If so, the solutions for standard FTF on a 1911 may not apply to your Para.

Yep, it does.

I've been remiss and haven't done much of anything with this yet. I did some research and found some good possibilities. And some good info on tuning the extractor, which will be handy for me since it throws brass anywhere from 10 feet in front of me to 10 feet behind. And no, I don't think it's my grip causing the variance.

I still suspect that it's the OAL of the offending ammo, but I haven't done any measurements yet to compare; life's been busy. But I will definitely report back to the forum when I find out anything.

From a previous post;



I did clean the gun and took it to Bill's yesterday. I went through 100 rounds without a hiccup.

I'll be running another (few) hundred rounds through it, before I'm satisfied enough to make it a daily carry.

It may seem obvious, but keep it (reasonably) clean and oiled. I've seen more problems from dry guns than you would believe.

I had continual problems with my Para but it was mostly ammo-related. I had regular FTF's with Winchester white box and have only had one or two with Federal, which is what I now use. I replaced the mags during the troubleshooting process but I don't think it mattered. I did end up sending it into para to have the ramp polished as well (no charge beyond shipping).

I honestly wouldn't recommend that anyone use a Para for defensive purposes. I can't really complain about the overall quality or service that I received, but I wouldn't bet my life on one.

I just got back from Bill's a few hours ago.

I ran another 100 rounds through my Warthog. I purposely decided not to clean it since that last visit to the range. I got through 50 rounds before the FTF started showing up again. It happened about five times with the second 50 rounds. Three of which were the first round when pulling back the slide to chamber the first round. They did not hang up so bad that I couldn't force it into battery. So some improvement was accomplished.

All this experimenting was with using range ammo, by the way.

I now will clean the gun and try again. Maybe it just wants to be really, really clean?