I just bought the Kimber Ultra Carry II. I fired some reloads and cheap Tula through it. I reload almost all my ammo and the Tula was $7.00 a box so I got some. Anyway I have not fired anything else through it but for the times I fired about 10 Tula and 5 reloads I had failures to go into battery...2 with reloads and 3 with Tula. I am not 1911 savvy so I was wondering if there is an easy fix or does this need to be sent to Kimber?? I will buy a box of some other brand of ammo and see what it does. But what a pain....I use a rubber mallet to push the slide into battery. Any help at all would be appreciated!! For what it's worth this thing is darned accurate when it does shoot!! This is a 9mm by the way.
Using a rubber mallet to close the slide sounds like an overly long round issue. If the bullet is jammed up in the throat, because it has been seated out too far, then you will get a failure to go in battery.
I did have failures to go in battery with my Kimber Custom II in 9mm. I thought I was going to have to contact Kimber but I continued shooting my reloads. Around the 200 round mark the problem went away. I believe these Kimbers are so tight that they do need an extensive break in period.
There is a myth about overlubrication, and it is false. Unless you pack the barrel with grease, and the action with grease, oiling the heck out of a firearm does not hurt the firearm. It is however, messy as heck.
What I have heard about Tula is that it is steel cased. I recommend you lube your ammunition before firing. Load a couple of rounds, put a drop on oil on the top cartridge, next two, oil on the top. I have shot about 6000 rounds of 45 ACP in Bullseye competition this way and I have done this for my Kimber. I tend to over oil, adding oil through the ports of the magazine after oiling the cartridges as I put them in the magazine. But, lubing the case is good for function. Oiling does a number of things: it makes feeding easier as the round is slick. It also breaks the friction between case and chamber and provides for a more positive extraction, the case pops out of the chamber like it is supposed to do. I think for steel cases, this is an important consideration, you don't want steel on steel contact in the chamber and you don't want steel cases dragging themselves against the chamber during extraction. And because the case to chamber friction is broken, it is easier on your extractor. I have not had a M1911 extractor break, but in auto rifles, this is a real benefit. Oil also reduces jacket/lead fouling in the barrel. I have looked up the barrel and I see it is shiny, which I think is oil in the pores, and it cleans up quickly after a match. And finally, it actually lubes the gun as you shoot. Oil on the cartridge not only goes up the barrel, which reduces fouling, but it also is squeezed back into the action, lubing the rails. During Bullseye matches I often wipe the slide at the rails as I have oil oozing out from the oiled cartridges. This is all for the good for a new gun as you want oil to flush away metal particles, powder particles, etc, etc, etc.
