1911hand,
The 357 Sig has a lot of flaws when put in a 1911. I have considerable experience with this an have tried a few approaches, as well as haing spoken to a few gunsmiths who have tried it as well. I am copying this post I made on Pistolsmith.com for your convenience, but you can see the original post and all responses here:
http://www.pistolsmith.com/viewtopic.php?t=22637
Excerpt from my post at pistolsmith.com...
I have tried the 357Sig in a 1911 (a commander sized built Caspian to be exact), and I had a terrible experience with it. My gunsmith, Dave Sams, along with Gary Smith from Caspian, a few semi-custom makers, and a good friend of mine who works for Sig all pushed me away from it. Being young and stupid, I went ahead and asked Dave to try it. We used a ramped Bar-Sto barrel and had a decent supply of Mec-Gar and Metalform .40 mags... the only two on the market who make a .40 1911 mag. Mags are a big issue in making it run right, and truth be told, there simply aren't any really good .40 1911 mags on the market. People have a hard enough time making the straight walled .40 run 100% in a 1911, and the 357 Sig just throws in a few extra obstacles.
Once we got the gun to feed pretty reliably, I noticed my accuracy was not what I had come to expect from the round in either Sigs or Glocks using factory barrels and identical ammo. I figured it'd be even better with the Bar-Sto, and I decided to pull the barrel and shoot it in a test fixture to see what kind of accuracy the barrel itself would give. I got consistent 5 shot 50yd (yes, 50yd) groups that were at or about 1.75" using the 125gr Federal JHP Premium loads. I then put the gun in a ransom rest and it shot horribly. Dave has built a gun or two in his days, and given the fact that he's built guns for numerous national champions and champion teams, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried something different. I proceeded to shoot the gun single shot from the rest by putting a round under the extractor on the breechface and closing the slide by hand. Doing this, the gun shot three straight sub 2.5" 50yd 5-shot groups. I was baffled, but only for a minute.
What happens with the Sig round in a 1911 is simple bullet setback. 1911s, as you well know, are designed to make cartridges ride over the ramp and into the chamber in an almost step like fashion. This is fine for straight-walled cartridges that have good case tension on the bullet, but a VERY bad idea for bottlenecked cartridges with insufficient tension. The Sig has very little neck tension on the bullet... less than 1/8" of bite, IIRC. When the gun cycles and the rounds feed into the chamber, even if "smoothly," the bullets tend to set back into the case, and in some cases where you get even a slight straight feed, they can set back fully. I examined catridges that were fed from a magazine and extracted immediately, and even when they fed fine, they ALL were set back visibly. This gave very erratic velocities, horrible accuracy, and likely very dangerous pressures. Because the barrel was already in the gun, I decided to see what could be done to make it better. Could the ramp be cut deeper to make it more like a standard ramped gun and not so steep a cut as a ramped barrel to make it feed better? The answer is no. Not with any good consistency. Even went as far as to take the barrel out, have Dave recut it on the lathe and mill to standard configuration and fit it to a damaged frame using the same slide... still no dice with lots and lots of time and effort spent. We got it close, but didn't quite get the cigar. If you're interested, I have an almost new Bar-Sto commander ramped 357 sig barrel that I got from a gun show that I planned on using for a twin brother to the original commander that I'll trade you for a wooden nickle and a cup of coffee. You can try it, and if you figure it out and get it to run well (at least 400rds without a malf using fully loaded mags), I'll take one.
I am sure the answer is out there somewhere, but through my personal struggles, those of my very talented gunsmith, and a few innocent bystanders, I have yet to find it. My 357 Sig commander is now a 10mm, and I like it that way. If I ever get the need for a .355 caliber 1911, I'll make it a super. No 9x23 where I have to search the planet for ammo, and not a 9mm Para that is in way too big a gun. The super works, works well, and is fun to shoot. The Sig round is no significant increase over even factory supers, and definitely not over any 9x23.
Now that I have taken this a bit too far, I will sign off. Good luck in your endeavors, and may your results be much better than mine. If you have ANY specific questions about anything we did for this project, feel free to drop me an e-mail and I'll get Dave's input as well as going into better detail. Until then, have a very merry and blessed Christmas, and a safe and happy New Year.
Respectfully,
Jim Keeney
PS - Please disregard any typos, as I am dog tired and not in the mood to check it.
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