The performance of your VP9, Coach, was not surprising to me. The reviews I've read on that pistol have been mostly very good.
But your results on the SA EMP was a surprise, mainly because of my experience with my XD9 4" Service Model.
http://www.springfield-armory.com/wp-co ... 01HC_1.pdf
I had it about a year, but at that time I was careful with how much I shot due to 9MM ammo scarcity that was happening. But I can't recall a single glitch with the XD operation, either with FTFs or FTEs. That year I shot probably +700 rounds of varying ammo brands, plus reloads my son-in-law used in his police duty gun, also a smaller-sized XD9. His XD runs extremely well, and of course, he relies on that performance every time he goes to work.
But PMC might be onto a possibility when he questioned your magazines. I see you had three mags with the EMP. Did you use all of them? I had six with my XD, carefully rotated them, and evenly shot them, without any FTFs. So there could be a mag issue....
I also think the LGS is out-of-line because 500 rounds is a lot of ammo to shoot through a problem. What I would do is this. I'd give the EMP a thorough cleaning and finish it off with very light oiling. Have you checked with other fellows (maybe on a SA Forum) as to what ammo works best in their SA 1911s? That might be worth a little research time. I don't know if I'd repeat with the ammo you've already used. Anyway, after the deep clean, I'd then head out with the three magazines full and try the pistol one more range time. If continued to fail, I'd be on the horn for sure with SA.
Bummer that your new gun didn't smoothly spin, but spun out. Best to you on resolving your problem.
