This is a serious problem on a lot of mags, Ian. Too thin and too soft is a death knell,
even if shaped correctly in the beginning. The old, dirt cheap "genuine GI surplus" mags
we bought 3 decades back were made of the hardest, strongest and most durable steel
of any I have ever owned. Many went through decades of IPSC competition, two matches
every Friday night, and 3 or 4 matches once a month, plus some out of town matches thrown in
for a LONG time. None ever cracked (MANY mags crack a the rear top corners) and none
ever failed to work properly feeding H&G 68s into several Gold Cups and a Kimber.
Two are on my belt every day, with a nickel pinned floorplate Colt up the spout. The
original military blueprints show the milled and pinned floorplates, and I know they were
changed at some point, but I have no info on when they stopped using the milled and
pinned floorplates and went to stamped and spot welded floorplates. I am guessing
pretty early, but not sure.
That particular Commander really prefers the original lip designs, even though it has never actually
failed to feed with hybrid or parallel lip early release mags.
Buy a couple from Metaform and a couple from Checkmate. I would try the Metalform 45.777
7 rd SS, removable floorplate, rounded follower (ultra reliable lock back), and for Checkmate I'd
either get CM45-7-S-GI, which is 7 rd, SS, GI lips, welded base or the CM45-7-B-GI which is the
same thing in blued steel. Checkmate seems to be the only modern source for quality
GI mags for the .45 1911s.
These are quality mags, have worked for me in many different guns for many years. Cannot
guarantee anything, but good chance of success with these. The Wilson mags are good ones,
but not too thrilled with plastic floorplate and especially plastic follower, not totally reliable in
lock back, IME the plastic ledge wears. I used these for a while in my carry gun with the Wilson
replacement steel floorplates, but they still left that hitch in the feed cycle.
Here is the Checkmate image of feed lips.