I bought a Smith  & Wesson Pro Tactical 1911 in 9mm two weeks ago and I haven’t shot it yet. I bought the 1911 because the instructor of one of the classes I took recently insisted that I needed a gun that could be adapted to small hands. With a single stack and modular grips, the 1911 is the best candidate. I’m still waiting on the slim grips I ordered to come in. Until they do, the gun will remain a virgin.

I ordered all the accessories I’ll need to compete in IPDA with the new gun: A Kydex holster dropped and offset, two Kydex mag holsters also dropped and offset, and 3 extra Wilson Combat magazines. Two came with the gun, so this gives me a total of five magazines: 3 for competition, 1 for a Barney mag, and one extra because, well, I was told it’s always good to have a spare.

The new news today: you need to break in the magazines. I ordered them from the instructor that advised the 1911 purchase. When I picked them up today, I found out that the new Wilson Combat mags are too tight initially and may cause the gun to malfunction. The way to address that issue is to load them to full capacity and let them sit like that for at least 3 weeks. As of tonight they are loaded and “breaking in”.

Another tip I got was to number the magazines. If the gun starts to malfunction this will allow you to check to see if it’s always the same mag. If so, it might be the mag, not the gun with issues. One of my instructors uses marker pens, another uses fingernail polish. I have had a bad experience with fingernail polish and guns, and I didn’t own a marker pen, so I opted to use my label maker. I labeled the back spine as I don’t touch that surface when I load. I’ll report back if that turns out to be a bad decision.