Why I’m going to sell my Kimber 1911 (LONG)

[mainmech48]

With the exception of the FTExtract, I'd agree with the mag problem hypothesis. When a 1911 slide locks before the mag's empty, it's usually mag-related. Sometimes a specific ammo type plays a role, but usually a marginal spring or follower is allowing the remaining rounds to move around enough to "kiss" the slide stop just enough to kick it in.

I agree that Wilson mags are viewed as being the "gold standard" in the 1911. Their track record in competition is hard to fault, and many serious folks will have nothing else.

Personally, I've had equally stellar service from my Chip McCormick 8-rd "Power Mags". My first pair was purchased during a lean spell to spare my Wilsons for "serious" duty, mostly because they had much the same configuration and cost 2/3 as much. After more than 1K rds with no malfs in three different 1911s, I bought eight more and now use them for carry with no qualms whatever. FWIW, I used them exclusively in a DP-I class at Chapman Academy a few years ago where I put more than 2300 rds through my Springfield Champion in five days. They worked perfectly.

Around here the show dealers sell them for about $18.00/ea with the short "carry" base pad.

 

[rellascout]

Hmmmmmm, so all those problems occured in the last 50 rounds. Here you stated that the Kimber was fantastic after 800 rounds with 1 jam (which was with WOLF steel ammo - not brass as you described above) .

"In January I sold off my Ruger P345 because of its poor accuracy (in my hands at least). I took the money, and a bit extra, and picked up a brand new Kimber Custom II for right around $650.

Well, four months and 800 rounds later, I find that I made the right choice.

These are the bypes of Ammo I've shot:

FMJ
----
Remmington FMJ 230 grain
Winchester White Box FMJ 230 grain
Mag Tech FMJ 230 grain
Wolf 230 grain (Steel Case)

JHP
---
Speer Gold Dot JHP

People have said that 1911s have poor reliability, but that hasn't been my experience at ALL. ONE malfunction in 800 rounds, and that was a Wolf round with the steel casing that failed to eject and caused a jam. As for 1911s not being able to feed Hollow Points, I put 50 rounds of Speer JHP through with NO problems.

I could barely put all my shots on a target at 7 yards with the Ruger, but this is what I'm doing now with my Kimber."

Why did you have to go and call him out like that?

A lot can change in 3 months. At that time he was trying to trade this "reliable" 1911 for a Glock 17. Sounds like this one been sitting in the safe recently. 50 rounds in 3 months????

My guess it is is the mags or maybe even just the mag springs. Really hard to tell you how to fix the malfunctions without knowing which account of the Kimber is true.

 

[iShootStraight]

get rid of the kimber and get a nice springfield loaded

Right on.
That's the way to go.

 

[StrikeFire83]

Hmmmmmm, so all those problems occured in the last 50 rounds. Here you stated that the Kimber was fantastic after 800 rounds with 1 jam (which was with WOLF steel ammo - not brass as you described above)

You're right, I have fired a (as in ONE) box of Wolf through the gun, and that is where the first failure happened.

Since then I have shot Winchester and the Remmington that comes in a yellow box and says "UMC" on the front. Yesterday at the range I two things happened:

1) The slide locked open halfway through a mag, and I pulled the slide stop, not exactly a FAILURE, per se

2) I had a situation where when a new round got stuck (jammed) as it was being fed into the chamber. I don't recall WHICH mag i was using when that happened.

So here's the situation, and you can fault my logic if you want, but the realities exist. I have three guns which have NEVER failed me, and one gun that has. Within the next month I am going to loose my job through no fault of my own, and I may HAVE to sell a gun, either to EAT or MAKE RENT.

Granted, the Ruger revolver is very new, but revolvers DON'T jam like autos, so I don't have to worry about that. I don't have the $$ or time to go to a gun smith, or drop a bunch of money in mags. Add to that the fact that .45 is probably going to get too expensive for me to shoot.

Maybe I'll just use the McCormick mag that I have, keep her really clean, and hope the problems sort themselves out. I know it is human nature to be snide to people when they're experiencing problems that you may chock up to stupidity, but I’m facing TERMINATION in my job and a serious lack of money. Maybe instead of criticizing you could give me some advice, like others have. So what would YOU do?

 

[45auto]

Tough choices given the future circumstances you may have.

Not knowing the primary "purpose" of the gun, if it were me, I'd try to decide which one I like to shoot best since you have 3 different "styles" of handguns.

It doesn't sound like a "major" problem, that can't be fixed, with the Kimber, but how well do you like to shoot it and will you pay more for 45 ammo? IMHO, if you don't "love" shooting the Kimber better than the others, I'd dump it!

 

[rellascout]

I don't think he was being snide. I think he found it odd that just 3 months ago you praised this weapon as an example of 1911 reliability and now you are going to sell it becuase it is not reliable.

You had some failures the last time out. I can understand your concern but lets look at this rationally. You have 850 rounds through the gun. You have had 2 failures. So that is a failure rate of .001 % up to that point. Now you are getting one every 50 rounds. Is that too much for a defense weapon, maybe only you can deciede that. If it is range weapon then I would say it is acceptable.

As I said it sounds like a mag issue. I would swap out the spring in the factory mag and see if it changes things. I would also mark the mags and keep track of the malfunctions. If you are not getting failures with the McCormick mag then you have the answer to your problem. If it fails with the Mccormick mag then move down the locgical chain.

Sorry to hear about your job situtation. That makes the senerio very different. Sell the gun if you need the money. You have others so that makes it a no brainer.

 

[steelhead]

"I don't think he was being snide. I think he found it odd that just 3 months ago you praised this weapon as an example of 1911 reliability and now you are going to sell it becuase it is not reliable. "

Yeah that. I was confused by your statements. If you had 1 jam per 50, then you had 17 jams from day one. But, from your prior post, you said you fired 800 with only 1 jam. If so, then you had 1 jam in the next 50..... for a total of 2. Either way, I wouldn't be concerned since you haven't sent it in under warranty, tried different mag's, or had a smith check it out. I agree it is most likely a mag problem.

Advice:

0. Revolvers don't jam like semi-auto's but they can still jam or fail in a number of ways.

1. All firearms will fail regardless of brand, design, etc..

2. All ammo brands can/will fail

3. Decent magazines are extremely important in a 1911.

4. Kimber, along with Springfield, etc., supply so-so mags with the gun.

5. I rely on 7 round Wilson Combat magazines (get some)

6. Sell the Glock and/or Ruger (both are great guns but they are also a dime a dozen). You will still have the Khar for a "reliable" handgun.

7. You have a warranty with Kimber - use it. The Kimber can/will be just as reliable as any other firearm.

8. Don't be so quick to give up a particular firearm (Ruger P345, Kimber, etc).

9. Take to heart the parable about the old bull and the young bull sitting on the hill.

10. Laid off? Sorry to hear that. BTDT and it sucks.

 

[wally]

While probably 90%+ of all 1911 problems are really magazine problems, a good 1911 is not all that finicky about mags. I've a motly assortment of 1911 mags (enough to pre-load 500 rounds before I hit the range) -- McCormick "shooting star" 8-rounders, genuine Colt 7-rounders, various Mec-Gar/ACT/Novak 8-rounders, genuine GI 7-rounders, 7-round GI forgeries, but I've no Wilson or other "premium" brands as I see no need to pay more -- can't do better than works. None of my 1911s seem to care which mag I use. OTOH, all these mags have been "selected" as known good by functioning in multiple 1911s -- Kimbers, Colts, Norincos, Armscor/CD/RIAs.

What I'm saying is good mags are good because they have been proven to work, not because of price paid or who made them. I've had very good luck recenty with the $5 GI forgeries from www.sportsmansguide.com -- 7-round curved followers and the Mason-Rust forgeries from www.aimsurlplus.com -- 7-round flat followers, that I bought relatively recently to "fill out" so I could load 500 rounds for a single outing. The bottom welds look a little sub standard, but so far they've not let me down, I make a point of using these first to see how well they'll hold up.

I think buying a variety of mags and discarding the ones that don't work is better than buying a single expensive mag and blaming the gun if something is wrong. A stonger mag spring from Wolff will fix a lot of magazines, I keep a few spares in my range bag and try it before I discard a mag that fails, I've discarded surprisingly few magazines over the years.

If a feed problem really is the gun, unless its stem bind (which basically says it was made wrong and needs to be sent back for replacement) its usually someting simple like too weak a recoil spring, too tight an extractor, or a rough spot on the breach face that interferes with the round slipping under the exractor -- my Kimber BP had this about the time I was ready to send it back I noticed "brass colored waves" on the breech face, polishing these out cured the issue. Be careful with "polishing the feed ramp" as too much polish will make more friction not less! -- ever notice how/why your brake drums or disks are smooth and mirror bright if the brakes are good?

--wally.

 

[wQuay]

0. Revolvers don't jam like semi-auto's but they can still jam or fail in a number of ways.

1. All firearms will fail regardless of brand, design, etc..

2. All ammo brands can/will fail

3. Decent magazines are extremely important in a 1911.

4. Kimber, along with Springfield, etc., supply so-so mags with the gun.

5. I rely on 7 round Wilson Combat magazines (get some)

6. Sell the Glock and/or Ruger (both are great guns but they are also a dime a dozen). You will still have the Khar for a "reliable" handgun.

7. You have a warranty with Kimber - use it. The Kimber can/will be just as reliable as any other firearm.

8. Don't be so quick to give up a particular firearm (Ruger P345, Kimber, etc).

9. Take to heart the parable about the old bull and the young bull sitting on the hill.

10. Laid off? Sorry to hear that. BTDT and it sucks.

programmer?

 

[Longbow]

I used to own a Kimber non-II that I regretted selling. I fired close to 2K+ of ammo through it with no malfunction.
I also have an RIA 1911. ' paid $320 OTD for it and it works all the time too. Even with most hollow point ammo.
Note: both are straight series 70 design.
Sometimes, I think over engineering is a bad thing.

 

[Old Fuff]

StrikeFire83:

To return to the core issue - which of your 4 handguns should you sell.

I understand the economic realities you are facing, and wish you the best of luck. However this in itself isn’t very helpful. I would suggest that of the 4 handguns you own, 3 perform to your satisfaction. The 4th, the Kimber is a problem child.

You might be able to straighten it out, but doing so would cost you money for new magazines, hundreds of rounds of test ammunition, etc. that you can’t afford to spend at the moment, and there is no guarantee that it would work when you were done. This is not the time to throw more time and money at it. It is also the one in your collection that’s most likely to return the most money that you now need for other purposes.

Given the circumstances I would sell the Kimber and address the matter of another 1911 style gun at a better time.