Kimber quality ?

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diggler1833

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I had a Custom II Stainless in .40 S&W at one point in my life. Back then I was really into precision rifles, and I treated my Kimber the same way.

I developed a load for it that would cut single, oblong holes at 10 yards off a rest...basically a group the size if my thumbnail. It was an extremely accurate pistol, and I used to shoot at clay targets on the 50yd and 100yd line berms when I worked part time as a RSO at a gun range.

Mine came with two magazines, and I bought a third...all Kimber magazines. One magazine ran fine in the pistol initially, one would stovepipe the last round about every other time, and the gun was a jam-o-matic with the third magazine. I bought another aftermarket magazine for the gun, and it ran very well with it. By about 500 rounds, I was down to just the one aftermarket magazine when I took it to the range. I will stand by my opinion that friends don't let friends buy Kimber magazines.

Then there was the issue with stuff like the plastic mainspring housing that I couldn't get over. I'm sure that the look on my face when I discovered that little jewel was pretty priceless. I think even Colt does this on some of their producion guns now...but you won't see me buying a production Colt either.

I've got a good buddy with a two tone Kimber that brought it up when he came to visit. He was boasting about his pistol until I showed him the plastic MSH, and the fit difference on the Dan Wesson of mine that I was shooting. He made some funny faces too when he started looking hard at his gun. For what it is worth, his shot and functioned just fine while he was here.

I am not saying that Kimbers are junk, and some of them are very good shooters. I am saying though that if you judge a pistol by the sum of its parts...you will see why they cost significantly less than a good semi-custom.

I have no experience with Kimber Custom Shop pistols, so I want to make that clear.
 

retrieverman

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I had a Custom II Stainless in .40 S&W at one point in my life. Back then I was really into precision rifles, and I treated my Kimber the same way.

I developed a load for it that would cut single, oblong holes at 10 yards off a rest...basically a group the size if my thumbnail. It was an extremely accurate pistol, and I used to shoot at clay targets on the 50yd and 100yd line berms when I worked part time as a RSO at a gun range.

Mine came with two magazines, and I bought a third...all Kimber magazines. One magazine ran fine in the pistol initially, one would stovepipe the last round about every other time, and the gun was a jam-o-matic with the third magazine. I bought another aftermarket magazine for the gun, and it ran very well with it. By about 500 rounds, I was down to just the one aftermarket magazine when I took it to the range. I will stand by my opinion that friends don't let friends buy Kimber magazines.

Then there was the issue with stuff like the plastic mainspring housing that I couldn't get over. I'm sure that the look on my face when I discovered that little jewel was pretty priceless. I think even Colt does this on some of their producion guns now...but you won't see me buying a production Colt either.

I've got a good buddy with a two tone Kimber that brought it up when he came to visit. He was boasting about his pistol until I showed him the plastic MSH, and the fit difference on the Dan Wesson of mine that I was shooting. He made some funny faces too when he started looking hard at his gun. For what it is worth, his shot and functioned just fine while he was here.

I am not saying that Kimbers are junk, and some of them are very good shooters. I am saying though that if you judge a pistol by the sum of its parts...you will see why they cost significantly less than a good semi-custom.

I have no experience with Kimber Custom Shop pistols, so I want to make that clear.
“Jam-o-matic“ is a term that gets thrown around a lot on internet forums in relation to Kimbers, but from what I’m hearing in your post, it wasn’t a gun problem at all but a magazine problem. I’m wondering how many Kimbers have got unfairly labeled “jam-o-matics”, because their magazines are junk?!?

I also have a huge problem with plastic mainspring housings and have changed them out on every gun I’ve had that came with one. For the record, STI used to use them on at least some of their 1911’s too.

I do feel a bit hypocritical criticizing plastic mainspring housings on 1911’s when I also own and shoot Glocks on occasion.
 

diggler1833

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“Jam-o-matic“ is a term that gets thrown around a lot on internet forums in relation to Kimbers, but from what I’m hearing in your post, it wasn’t a gun problem at all but a magazine problem. I’m wondering how many Kimbers have got unfairly labeled “jam-o-matics”, because their magazines are junk?!?

I also have a huge problem with plastic mainspring housings and have changed them out on every gun I’ve had that came with one. For the record, STI used to use them on at least some of their 1911’s too.

I do feel a bit hypocritical criticizing plastic mainspring housings on 1911’s when I also own and shoot Glocks on occasion.

Oh yeah, my experience with failures was completely magazine related. I'd be willing to wager a beer or two that ~ 15 percent or more of the 1911s that 'don't work right' actually just have bad magazines being fed into them. The problem is that guys are quick to go from their first range session to the keyboard to trash something before its been resolved.

I hate expensive guns with plastic parts though (ARs exempt).

I spent what a semi-decent 1911 is worth on a CZ TS2 at the beginning of the year because I wanted a target 9mm that had 20 round magazines before they eventually are banned...The stupid pistol has a plastic trigger. I was back to making ugly faces when I figured that out the first time. I've put maybe 50 rounds through it...every time I pull it out if the safe, it irks me (and the mag release), and I end up stuffing it back in. When someone makes a metal replacement I'll be one of the first to try it out.

Just a general rant of mine: Any pistol near or over $1K shouldn't have a single piece of plastic (in my opinion...YMMV). For what its worth; I'm fine with a striker fired gun that I spent $450 on having plastic everywhere. I buy those specifically so I don't beat up a $1,500+ pistol.

I'm hijacking this thread...sorry.

For overall quality of a 1911 manufacturer, I'll sometimes jump over to a forum like 1911forum.com and just scroll through a manufacturer-specific page or two to see how many trouble posts I'm seeing. Then I'll read a bit further into opinions on how the CS is in solving that problem. Everyone can make a lemon from time to time, how they handle it makes the difference.
 

forindooruseonly

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I've had a couple of vanilla 1911's that worked fine, no issues. I had one of their hi-cap versions way back in the early 2000s which was fine but I hated the plastic frame. I had a .22 1911 which worked fine but was significantly lighter than a normal .45, which I didn't care for. I wanted it to be identical to a .45 for practice reasons and having a 1911 that was half the weight didn't seem particularly useful.

All of the 4 that I owned all worked great, but I eventually got rid of them all. I've always defended Kimbers as I felt they caught a bad rap online, largely by people who either didn't own one or had never been around 1911s before. It just became a popular thing to bash.
 

AKguy1985

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I had a kimber custom LW blackout that I never had the chance to fire before I had to sell it when I lost my job. An OSA member bought it off armslist. Thankfully it went to a good home.
 

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