NIB KIMBER Failure in the first 100 rounds!

Status
Not open for further replies.
Stainless

The thing about stainless is that it tends to gall, and different grades
exhibit different properties in that. I always hated working with most
grades of stainless steel because it clogged the flutes of an end mill
so quickly that it made it a tad tricky to hold a close tolerance and a
decent finish. It also dulls tooling much more quickly than carbon steel. This property, along with the "gummy" quality when cutting it leads many to believe that it's softer than it really is. As a general rule of thumb,
stainless autopistols fare better with a lube that is of a little higher
viscosity than one for carbon.

Cheers!

Tuner
 
Wow you guuys are killin me here. I was looking at real nice kimber this weekend since I was considering jumping into something a little different but I don' think it is gonna be a kimber. If I buy a gun I want it to be fairly complete, I don't have the cash to replace all that stuff.
 
There must be something wrong with my Kimber Custom Defender II. It's like the Energizer bunny. It keeps going, and going, and going ...........
 
Ya know, I have often lamented the quality of my Kimber (three times back to smith for a laundry list of problems), but I do have to admit that it has always been an dead-accurate pistol with any ammo load. Never heard other complaints about accuracy, usually quality of assembly or parts.

If I could only get it to not slamfire, reliably work the mag-release, have the thumb-safety stay engaged...
 
Ky Larry,

There must be something wrong with my Kimber Custom Defender II. It's like the Energizer bunny. It keeps going, and going, and going ...........
Click to expand...

It's okay, my Clackamas Classic Custom has the same problem. ;)
 
Or I'd simply find an older Colt.
Click to expand...


Geez, that'd never work. Sounds too much like sense. :banghead:
Click to expand...

Now there's something wrong with the new Colts again? Gee, the new Series 70's are ONLY like $900 :rolleyes:

So now the old Colts are better again? I thought they had those problems with the weak barrel locking lugs and hollowpoints....
 
Tamara:

I'll stand by my statements concerning stainless vs. high-carbon steel alloys so far as those alloys used in guns. I was fortunate during the approximately 50 years I was associated with the business to meet a lot of people, one of whom was the late Bill Ruger Sr. We had several discussions about the merits of different steels.

When S&W introduced the first all-stainless handgun (the model 60 in 1965) it had a stainless alloy hammer and trigger. But this was changed to using the regular parts with a flash-chrome plate to match the cosmetics. Reason? Excessive wear. Even so, stainless guns took the market by storm, and like it or not (and many in the industry didn't) everyone had too go along or lose a lot of business. Stainless alloys have a high chrome content, which in some ways is good (corrosion resistance being one example) but not so good in other respects. Stainless is sometimes hard to machine and while “tough†it isn’t necessarily “hard.â€
 
Will, you sure Lombardo didn't "improve" your pistol when you weren't looking? His "work" that he did to mine had it go back to Kit's boy *again* recently....
 
all stainless steels aren't the same

Old Fluff,
I know where you a re coming from regarding '60's and 70's era stainless steel technology. Early stainless S&W revolvers and Colt auto pistols left much to be desired. They were certainly "different" and shooters and 'smiths's didn't like working on them. Yup, there were certainly galling issues. I remember constantly lubing the rails on an early series 80 COLT constantly with lithium based grease to keep it from feeling like it had sand in the slide rails.

But all stainless steels aren't the same...trust me on this.

The stainless steels used by the knife industry in the mid 60's, and the heat treatment of said steel......well it plain sucked. Serieously BAD. Anyone who wanted a knife to perform, wanted carbon steel.

Well...high carbon stainless steels[and the heat treatment of the steel] ahs come along way....now, some of the toughest, hardest steels used int he knife industry is stainless. We[in the knife industry] have stainless steels that regulary temper down to a working hardness of 61-62Rc. Some go even higher. We have learned ALOT about the heat treatment of these steels also.

WILSON and KIMBER both use the same forgings for their slides and frames. I have friends who have MANY THOUSANDS of rounds through stainless WILSONs. I have friends who have stainless KIMBERS, and they aren't seeing any galling issues either.

I'm not worried about the forged, stainless parts in this KIMBER......and its got a GREAT slide to frame fit to boot!

I do have a problem withthe cast and MIM stainless or carbon parts inthis KIMBER, .....but as I said, I planed to replace them anyway.

Old Fluff, I live in South Carolina.....and I spend alot of time outdoors...some of which is around salt water @ the coast. I carry everyday, almost always a 1911. Average temp for where I live in the month of August is 94 degrees, and I believe the average humidity is in the mid 80% range[it was 93% a couple of days ago]. Its really hot and humid, and I sweat like a pig while I'm outdoors. I've rusted through hardchrome, electroless nickel, and teflon-nickel combo. When you rust through a coating, you have a mess.....you really need to strip the coating, refinish, and start over. Its costly and time consuming.

Yup, I've rusted stainless handguns too:uhoh: , but they are much less trouble to deal with when that happens. If you are in a hurry....a pot scrubber will take care of it.....if you have time, have your smith bead blast your blaster. No big deal.

I've got plenty of "good ol' carbon steel 1911's"........this isn't my first, second, or 22nd 1911 rodeo.......I want a stainless compact graced by the talent and experince of Jim Garthwaite, OK?
 
Sure. To each his own. If you are satisfied with stainless (and obviously you are) that's what you should get. You are correct in saying that improvements have been made in stainless alloys and heat treating - the trick is to be sure that's what you get in the parts you buy. Be that as it may, your choice of a pistolsmith is excellent. I hope in the end you're gun works out.

Seems like an awful expensive way to get a frame and slide though ......
 
Seems like an awful expensive way to get a frame and slide though ......
Click to expand...

Agreed :scrutiny:

But I don't think he was expecting his gun to fall apart in 100 rounds either. I think he probably wanted to shoot it for awhile, let it break in and then sick the mastergunsmith on it.

And there's always buyer's lust. You gotta have that new shiny gun at the low price....
 
Old Colt/New Colt

Please do, because I still don't fully understand this war between old Colt's vs. 1991A1 Colts vs. new Colts.

Howdy Wondernine,

That debate will go on and on, and the point about the Old Colts
is a valid one. Mostly, it has to do with the people who are on the
assembly line...and that line has changed over the years.

In the beginning, each worker was trained in the assembly, fitting,
function checking, and fine-tuning of his or her particular part or
group of parts, and was responsible for the outcome...or the gun would be returned to that station for correction.

Along came WW2, and the need for production in large numbers.
The engineers redesigned some of the tolerances within the pistol
so that each stage of assembly was accomplished with a select-fit,
drop-in part or group of parts. If a part(s) didn't fall into spec, the
assembler simply tried another one until one was found that would work.
Then, for that oddball, there was the bin of oversized/undersized production parts...and the subassembly was sent on to the next station.

The pistols arrived at their destinations, and any malfunction issues were
turned over to the unit armorer for final correction. This process was great
for mass-production, but it encouraged sloppiness because it relieved
each assembler of much of the personal responsibility involved. At that
point in the history of Colt, it wasn't as much of an issue as it is today, because many of the "old school" assemblers were still doing their thing,
and pride in workmanship was still evident.

Along comes the "Age of the Common man", and it seemed that personal
responsibility was no longer in vogue. Inflation, profit margins, and
financial problems drove Colt to cut costs as much as possible. The
unskilled worker was hired, received cursory training, and put on the
line at little more than minimum wage. Quality of fit and function
depended largely on the determination of each assembler to do the
job well, and the weak link was the Monday morning hangover or the
Friday afternoon burnout/I wanna go home syndrome.

Finally, here comes Colt's Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and they were fighting to
stay solvent. Enter another need for higher profit margins and we
saw the first castings...later to become investment castings, and finally
MIM for many parts that weren't made by Colt any more, but rather
contracted out to vendors whose only association with Colt was that
they made parts for them, along with clone manufacturers. Again,
the vendor's quality control entered the picture, with the same two
weak links that Colt had.

If a Colt, or any other company's 1911 pistol was built today with the
same care, skill, and materials as the early pistols...and even the WW2
GI pistols...the cost would be in the 1800-2,000 dollar range...or
very close to the cost of a custom pistol. Not many Joe Average
shooters could afford one, or justify the price even if he could.

So, it's largely a crapshoot, with some manufacturers having a greater
number of functionally reliable pistols coming off the final assembly stage,
and the main issues these days seem to be in the area of small parts
failure. Extractor, thumb safety, slide stop...and to a little lesser degree,
hammer/sear/disconnector. The latter category comes under tighter
quality control because it must. A failure in the trigger group could
result in a tragedy and a ruinous lawsuit.

Bottom line is that the makers of 1911 pistols know that they're essentially
building a toy. There have been no military contracts since the mid-40's,
and no law enforcement agency issues them in large numbers. The ones
that do issue the pistol are small enough for the guns to be individually
tended to by armorers. In short, since there are no lives depending on
the pistols except in isolated instances, there's no real need for a
pistol of the quality of the old ones. They simply aren't going to war.
If one breaks, the most it will cost someone is a stage in a match.

Hope I was able to clear it up and keep it interesting..albeit a bit
long.

Tuner
 
MIM Problems?

Hope I'm not straying off topic with this, but until recently, I've been away from the gunboards for several years. I remember posters lamenting the rate of MIM part breakage, but never thought much about it. I bought an early Kimber (Oregon) Custom Classic (ser# 33xx), along with 4 other friends in a group purchase back in '96. All of the guns ran fine for many thousand rounds, including many "Extended lunch" range shooting sessions (Had a RL550 clamped to a table in our office, got to love it!). To date, my pistol has over 14K rounds through it with the only replacement parts being springs. Of the 4 other pistols and owners, I keep in contact with 3, and they've had similar success, though 1 had his rebuilt into a race gun in '99. I pulled mine apart last year and closely inspected the internals, and found no visible damage. The sear looked nicer than I expected (Way better than the old, issue guns I shot on a regular basis). So, are MIM parts really that bad? I realize that the report of a few guns' successes or failures are anecdotal at best, but I wonder if MIM (As executed/ contracted by Kimber) is really any worse than other forms of internal part machining. Does Kimber still use MIM?
 
MIM (Metal Injected Molded) parts are not necessarily bad, but like in investment castings the quality of the finished part depends on the material used, how the part is made, and in some cases, how it is heat-treated.

MIM is coming into the firearms industry for one reason. It is a less expensive way to make some parts, and to the manufacturer cost is (usually) everything. Gun companies tend to be run by number-crunchers, not "gun people." Is this bad? Well it depends on the real quality of the parts in question. Right now we really don't know because MIM parts haven't been around long enough to say.

That said, I don't know a lot of people who want to stake their necks on stuff that doesn't have a track record. We know what to expect from parts machined from forgings or bar-stock. MIM is up in the air. But then again, machined parts are only as good as the maker who made them.

The bottom line is that buyers want "old-time/hand-fitted/forged steel/quality" but not have to pay for it. If the manufacturer is going to stay in business that won't happen. Something has to give. Over time MIM technology will evolve and improve. But from my perspective, I'll let someone else find out first.
 
I'm no metallurgist, but I've had a least a good handful of Colt Governments and Goldcups and Deltas in stainless steel. All Series 80 to my recollection. Absolutely no probs with galling etc and no evidence of sand on the slide rails etc. Many gobs of ammo have gone down range from these weapons and they still look like new. I have gotten many favorable comments on them so I think the problem with stainless steel, at least vis a vis Colts is overstated. JMHO
 
old Colt
Click to expand...

I will go on record that the Series 80 Colts for the most part are a tremendous value in the 1911A1 type marketplace. The Colts have had their troubles at different times, but I've owned a few dozen I personally picked out and have had no issues, other than hammer bite, due to the nature of the design etc. with them. They are a solid pistol for the money and the new production Colts appear to be finished even better, so I recommend them.

Now, if you get an old Colt (pre WWII) you will get a very nice piece of machinery but you will still have the ergonomic issues like hammer bite. If you modify the pistol, you will have a lesser valued piece because the collector's item is the real McCoy, as manufactured. JMHO
 
Kimber and MIM

Howdy Unsafe,

MIM and investment castings can be very good, as Ruger proved
over 20 years ago with the castings. The problem is to be able to
control the process closely enough to insure that there are no
voids in the metal. A void equals a weak spot, and without an
X-ray or magnaflux, there's no way to tell if there;s an internal
void. External flaws are culled out during the inspection process.

There is probably a target weight for MIM small parts to aid in
identifying a flawed part, but as with anything else, there is a
tolerance that can let a gfew bad ones slip through the cracks.
Those are the ones that break early on. When you're dealing
with an extractor's weight, a tiny hole isn't likely to make enough
difference to trigger the QC alarm for an out-of spec part. It
will make a difference when it comes under stress, however.

Yes, Kimber uses MIM extensively...probably moreso than any other
1911 clone. As far as I know, the hammer, sear, disconnector,
slide stop, thumb and grip safety, and the firing pin stop, and barrel
bushing are all MIM in a Kimber. Also, possibly the plunger tube and
hammer strut, though I'm not sure about the strut, as I haven't had
a Kimber Series 2 mainspring housing apart yet.

The good news is that an upgrade to steel small parts isn't all
that expensive, even if you pay to have it done, and the basic
Kimber is still there.

Cheers all!
Tuner
 
re: Hammer Bite

Howdy Wondernine,

I don't get hammer bite. Most of us don't...not since the longer
grip safety tang came along in the 1911-A1. What happens is that
the grip safety tang blisters the skin on the web of my hand, and
when the slin comes off, it can get a mite sore and bloody. The
fix is to spread it out over a wider area with a beavertail. The
ultimate cure is an upswept grip safety, but some don't care for the
look, feel, and handling charactistics of the gun with one of those,
me included. For the record, I can't see anything about the upswept
safeties that even remotely resembles a beaver. It looks more like a
duck's tail to me, but your impression may differ.:D

Don't worry, be happy...
Tuner
 
I don't shoot 1911's, I shoot Hi-Powers. All the Hi-Powers I've had, had spur hammers. I've just never run into the hammer bite problem ever. I can see the grip safety causing blisters, that's part of the reason why I don't like them. I wish SOMEBODY would come out with a 1911 without a grip safety.

I have run into the problem of blisters. I used to ride the safety with my thumb on my MKIII Hi-Power, but I don't do that anymore because of the blisters I would get and I've found it's just a bad shooting technique from an accuracy standpoint. It happened after about 100 rounds of riding the safety where I would get a blister that would last a week.
 
Good point about cost, Tuner. I read somewhere that they don't build 'em like they used to because ,if they did, we coulndn't afford them. This is true in most things, such as cars,houses, appliances, etc.
 
1911 No Grip Safety

Somebody did many years ago. Llama...but we don't want to go there.
The solution to the grip safety issue is to disable it with a short length
of guitar string...the high "E" string will work nicely. Slip the MSH
down a bit...slide the string across the tabs on the safety, and push the
MSH back in place. Ba-da-BING ! Pinned grip safety that doesn't
require drilling the frame. The tang will still blister your hand though...
 
Old Fuff,

MIM is coming into the firearms industry for one reason. It is a less expensive way to make some parts, and to the manufacturer cost is (usually) everything.
Click to expand...

From the other side of the counter, I can tell you that cost is durn near everything to the average customer, too. ;)

If 1911 A is cheaper than 1911 B, and looks the same, Joe Customer will go for 1911 A 99.9% of the time, even if it's made out of cast dirt instead of milled steel.

"I don't get it, you're just trying to rip me off by getting me to buy the more expensive gun! They both have Novak-looking sights and ambi safeties, so what's the difference?"

I had a customer tell me not too long back that only a sucker would buy a Springfield Pro instead of a TRP, since they were the same gun, plus the TRP had front cocking serrations, too!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

1
  • Locked
Sear Failure
Replies
17
Views
2K
Wildalaska
W
J
  • Locked
Odd 1911 failure...Tuner?
Replies
3
Views
454
1911Tuner
1
Master Blaster
  • Locked
My E-mail to Kimber and their reply Regarding the MIM parts in my TLE II
2 3
Replies
52
Views
3K
Master Blaster
Master Blaster
Joshua M. Smith
  • Locked
So How's It Look? (1911 thread)
Replies
6
Views
510
M203Sniper
M
T
  • Locked
Kimber SIS Ultra gets a makeover
Replies
4
Views
689
The Wiry Irishman
T
Back
Top