A friend has a Colt that will not do ANYTHING; he bought it, and is having it sent to a custom gunsmith just to make it function at all. Another coworker has bought and sold more Colts than he cared to recall, because "none of them would shoot"--except for his Clark Custom bullseye gun.
A coworker has a 4" Kimber that will shoot something between a quarter and dime-sized ragged holes at 25" all day long, that he got brand-new from Kimber's custom shop for less than any halfway decent Colt offering either of us have ever come across.
My "standard production" Kimber has had three different existences....I bought it used, so there was a previous owner; it had lots of holster wear, so the guy obviously trusted it with his life. It'll shoot groups between the size of a quarter and a half-dollar piece at 15 yards (I don't test it too far beyond that for accuracy)--good enough for me! I bought it, even though it was a "dreaded External Extractor" model, and it never gave me any problems save for a mag-related feeding hiccup when I was testing out a certain type of JHP.
Pics of it "then":
With my other CCW piece:
Showing the holster wear:
And, just because:
This last summer, I sent it off to Kimber, telling them about the JHP incident. They took it, made a new Internal Extrator slide w/new night sights, and hand-fitted my previous barrel to that slide, hand fit that slide to the frame, and reamed/polished the feed ramp--all for free. After that, the top was brand new and the bottom looked ratty, so I sent it to Robar to get NP3d and Roguarded, and had 'em do a trigger job "just because," and now it's even more accurate, worlds easier to clean, and looks pretty dapper.
Pics of the "Now":
So, it's had 1 hiccup that was mag-related, has run quite flawlessly for me, and consistently shoots better than I can--all from a "production" gun that costs less than any Colts worth owning.
So, you tell me which one's better. Sure, there's Colt purists.....but from the examples I've seen, you're paying for the name, not the performance.
