Levan9X19
Member
Let me start by saying that I never ever before have seen a Kimber but I just liked this company and a Kimber semi auto was in my wish list for years. Many years ago I bought a first gunzine, 2006 year issue of Combat Handguns, and believe me seeing something like this in my country was like witnessing an UFO because we lacked at that time almost everything and the gun culture was just starting to develop and we had nothing, no forums, no clubs, no ranges, no literature. For me this journal was a real peace of american gun culture and I read every word in it, literally every word. and reread it many times. Years after I bought everything I liked form that magazine, glocks, sigs, still have SOG Topo Meridian featured in Sig P226 review, a Glock field knife, HKS reloafers and finally a friend of mine, local gun dealer shipped Kimbers and I bought the one I needed a Stainless Micro 9 because I wanted a deep concealment firearm firing 9x19 cartridge, I could also buy a full size .45 like one reviews in said gunzine (exact model was Grand Raptor 2) but no matter how I wanted a Kimber I just could not cheat on my trusty Glock 21 which cost only fraction of price asked for .45 Kimber yet shot accurately like rifle and was 100% reliable. So I ended up with Stainless Macro 9. Well let me put it straight I was dissapointed. Out of first 80 rounds, I got 4 light strikes and one FTF. Besides the obvious reliability issues there was something else. The lack of checkering on front side of the grip was an obvious shortcoming, because it was difficult to control the recoil. The plastic magazine extension mimicked the Bobtail design first introduced by Ed Brown, yes it made the gun more concealable, yes it also extended the capacity of magazine by one round but during reload it would occasionally painfully bite your palm. But there is more. When you chamber a round, and press check to see if gun is loaded, the slide will drag the next round form magazine forward, and when you eject the magazine, the round will strip from magazine and fall out.
while FTF in new 1911 style is not particularly worrying (braking in period bla bla bla) the light strikes are a serious issue which can be caused by some major problems like out of spec details and etc. I also mentioned that with slide closed and round in a chamber you could definitely hear how a round bounced inside the chamber. Something I never remember seeing in dozens of other autoloaders I had. I used a paper tape to stick to the bottom of cartridge to see after how many layers applied the slide will not lock in forward position. Well it required twice the amount what was needed to lock the slide out of battery on Glock 43. Looks like the brand new gun from top manufacturer has headspacing problem....
I will do some more shooting, compare it to other Micros in shop, maybe it all should be this way and this gun really needs some braking in, and I am wrong about headspace but I will post the update. Sending a gun back to Kimber half around the mother earth is obviously not a solution and pretty much is impossible, the gun shop owner is a friend of mine and I dont want to bother him until I am hundred percent sure the gun is faulty from factory, but anyway it is an awkward situation.
Yep, the gun looks cool and nice but at fails to do what it is supposed to do, go bang after each trigger pull......
while FTF in new 1911 style is not particularly worrying (braking in period bla bla bla) the light strikes are a serious issue which can be caused by some major problems like out of spec details and etc. I also mentioned that with slide closed and round in a chamber you could definitely hear how a round bounced inside the chamber. Something I never remember seeing in dozens of other autoloaders I had. I used a paper tape to stick to the bottom of cartridge to see after how many layers applied the slide will not lock in forward position. Well it required twice the amount what was needed to lock the slide out of battery on Glock 43. Looks like the brand new gun from top manufacturer has headspacing problem....
I will do some more shooting, compare it to other Micros in shop, maybe it all should be this way and this gun really needs some braking in, and I am wrong about headspace but I will post the update. Sending a gun back to Kimber half around the mother earth is obviously not a solution and pretty much is impossible, the gun shop owner is a friend of mine and I dont want to bother him until I am hundred percent sure the gun is faulty from factory, but anyway it is an awkward situation.
Yep, the gun looks cool and nice but at fails to do what it is supposed to do, go bang after each trigger pull......
too "snappy"
