Semi Auto Pistols

A semi auto pistol in general are a defensive tool and needs to be as reliable as possible.  You want it to chamber, fire, extract, eject and re chamber every time.  Basic maintenance will help and sometimes that's all a pistol needs, a good cleaning.  Other times it's the from the factory issues that need to be addressed.

When a pistol starts to chamber a round it needs to overcome what's called a 3 point bind in order to get that round into battery.  The 3 point bind takes place on the ramp, breech face, and the chamber.  To get a pistol to reliably chamber every time those 3 surfaces need to be polished and all burrs removed or sharp edges removed.  This includes the firing pin hole itself which needs to be slightly beveled.

Another issue that occurs in defensive pistol shooting is a hollow point stubs on the chamber mouth and doesn't go into battery.  This is because the chamber mouth is square. Below are pictures before and after.

The top picture is from a factory 1911 barrel and below is after the barrel has gone through a reliability upgrade.  The chamber mouth is beveled and everything is polished so now hollow points can chamber with ease.

Getting a stovepipe is not the end of the world.  It's better to find out if a pistol does that at the range than when you need it.  A stovepipe can occur because of a few reasons.  The extractor failed, the ejector failed, the chamber is dirty/needs to be polished, incorrect angle on the ejection port or a combination of the 4.  Another reason is the pistol was to much for the shooter and was limp wrist-ed when it was shot thus not allowing the slide to cycle all the way back.  At that point the shooter needs to either get a different pistol they are comfortable shooting or get a shooting lesson from a qualified instructor.