Our shop stopped carrying the Kimber line when we had problems with the products and then had problems getting the company to resolve the problems.
Brand new Kimbers are expensive, there should be no quality problems to begin with.
Quality control issues have plagued this company even going back to the time that they were strickly a rifle producer.
I ain't making that up, that's just the way it is.
A young man brought his brand new Kimber II Tactical problem into our shop last week because he attempted to diassemble it and the firing pin safety let go and jammed the slide onto the frame in a semi-diassembled state.
He had not fired the pistol and had done nothing wrong in his diassembly attempt, the firing pin safety was incorrectly installed at the factory.
$1400.00 pistol and he was upset, justifiably so in my opinion.
Really became flustered when I suggested he take the gun back to the dealer he purchased it from and have them send it back to Kimber under warranty.
I explained that even if we ahead and diassembled the gun for him, the firing pin safety would still need to be repaired before the pistol would be safe and able to fire.
If an outsource gunsmith does this work it voids all Kimber warranty and responsibility thereafter.
He brought the pistol to our shop because he didn't want to drive the 20 miles back to the original point of sale, but in the end that is what he had to do.
I feel for him and any customer who buys a new gun that causes problems right off the bat.
I accept and expect problems from $200.00 guns.
$800.00-$1600.00 guns should not have problems right from the box, period.
For those that will tell us that the US Marine Corps is buying the Kimbers as is the FBI blah, blah , blah let me point out that the MEUSOC guns have no firing pin safety, neither do the FBI pistols and both parties have trained gunsmiths who tear the weapons down and replace some factory parts with outsource parts before they ever see issue.
The pistols aren't just yanked from the box and stuffed into the holsters of these professionals.
Please don't think I am slamming Kimber just to slam Kimber.
I like their ideas and still feel they brought the 1911 to the state of perfection that we see today.
Older non-firing pin safety Kimbers are wonderful platforms for gunsmiths to perform their magic on.
But the fact is Kimber in house QC could be a whole lot better and their service should be willing to back the product up and to do so in a timely manner and without cost to the customer and without the need to send a product back more than once.