You know I have watched you appear on every Kimber discussion for the last 9 years with the same talking points. Maybe when time permits this summer We can get together at your local range and I will let you fire one of my Kimbers. At the very least you owe it to yourself to actually hold one in your hands for the first time since you are so passionate on the subject.

Hey, the OP asked for opinions and I gave mine. Not my fault if the fan boys feel slighted.

And yes, I have held, examined and shot Kimber 1911s. That's why I have the opinion I do.

I started buying Kimber's in 1998 a year after they came out. A gun designed by Chip McCormick that was comparable to a base level Wilson upgrade according to the experts of the era. Series II Along with the Swartz FPS were a little less tight but still better than everyone else’s except Dan Wesson. From the beginning the barrels were left in the raw to condition owners to lube the pistol regularly since it needed to run wet to function being a semi custom featured 1911.I remember Kimber's head gun smith from another forum back in 2001 stating that 9 out of 10 guns that had been sent in for malfunction issue only needed a few hundred more rounds put through to be fine then returned in working order. Les Baer will also tell you not to bother them until you put 500 rounds through it. This is something the Glock guys can’t wrap their head around.They believe no guns should require a break-in period.I noticed this more on the originals than the series two guns.There were two young guys at my range having issues with an Eclipse that they just bought an hr ago. They were upset that their new gun was having issues . I pointed out what was needed. About a yr later I saw one of them at my LGS buying another Kimber. The Eclipse was running like a champ and they were upgrading to a Gold Match.

Your .38 Super with stag grips looks awesome! Bob

As a proud Les Baer “fan boy” I bought a TLE when it first came out. It was a fantastic pistol in terms of function. I shot it as well as any of my Baers plus it cost half as much. A friend of mine, local cop, lusted after it and I finally relented and sold it to him.

He carried on duty for years, shot the heck out of it and now in his retirement it’s his cold weather carry. The only changes he’s made are putting on wood grips, changing the recoil spring every couple of years and getting the sights relamped.

It’s a great pistol and I still get to shoot it lol. Can’t say anything bad about the only I ever owned.

If memory serves, and sometimes it doesn't, the split lip mag followers were from gotten from McCormick. Never found them to function that well. IMO Kimber started, or helped to start, the production of affordable 1911's with basic improvements that used to have to be farmed out to custom gunsmiths. To compete, more manufacturers had to follow suit. This benefited the entire industry.

I personally had no issue with Chip's magazine but I know Wilson will always be better. I wasn't impressed with the mag Ed Brown supplied on my Cobra carry. Kimber did shake up the 1911 world undeniably and even forced Colt to upgrade their line as well .love them or hate them every 1911 fan owes thanks to Kimber for opening up the now competitive 1911 world.

So let’s be sure to qualify your opinion properly.

You have “held, examined and shot (an unspecified number of rounds through an unspecified number of) Kimber 1911s.”

I own 7 Kimbers chambered for four different cartridges, owning most for at least a decade and one going back to the late 1990s.

I have shot them in practical pistol matches, Bullseye completions, pin shoots, plate shoots as well as qualification shoots, regular self defense practice, and casual range practice, firing well over 100,000 rounds.

I also own 1911s made by Colt, Randall, Springfield Armory, Ruger, RIA, and Citadel as well as a few clones made by Star.

You do realize that my opinion is based on a lot more experience with Kimber 1911s, with a lot more depth and over a much wider range of conditions than yours, right?

If so, you also realize that from my perspective, your opinion isn’t worth very much.

One of the common complaints I read on Internet forums about Kimber customer service is the author calling Kimber with a complaint about unreliability and having the customer service person ask “how many rounds have you fired through it” - and then being told to “break it in with 500 rounds before you decide it has a problem”.

I called Kimber after I purchased my most recent Kimber 1911. I purchased it in part because I wanted it as it hasn’t been a cataloged model for several years, and in part to help the cash flow for a local gun shop struggling through the pandemic and supply chain issues.

I suspected it had been sitting in the box in the back room for a long time given the less than bright tritium sights, and called Kimber to confirm the date of manufacture. They confirmed it was a 10 year old pistol, but since I had purchased it new from a dealer they sent me a new set of tritium sights. I thought that was decent customer service.

During the call I raised the issue of Kimber haters and Kimber customer service bashing on the internet and the guy said the vast majority of it comes from shooters who don’t break the gun in and or don’t properly lubricate it, thinking it should run dry like a Glock, and then just not liking the answer they get.

BB57: You seem to be the kind of fan boy of which I speak. Think what you will Dude. Its the internet. let's just agree to disagree and let it go at that.

I bought an RIA Baby Rock not long after they were introduced mostly because it was sale priced at $245 and for $245 I was willing to see what it could do.

It shot every bit as reliably and accurately as my Kimber Micro, for half the cost and with the advantage of a longer barrel than helped .380 ACP velocities, albeit with more weight due to the steel frame.

It was in short a superb pistol.

A couple years later I bought an almost new in the box RIA full size 1911 and a half dozen extra magazines from the shop that had sold it to the original owner. It seems he didn’t like shooting .45 ACP and traded it in on a 9mm. The price was very attractive and I took it home. It has been relentlessly reliable and as accurate as any other non target 1911 I have owned.

I got a similar good deal a few years ago on a Citadel officer frame sized 1911 and also found it to be extremely reliable and acceptably accurate.

The use of CNC machining and much better tolerances on parts now means that it doesn’t take a factory full of expert gunsmiths hand fitting parts to produce a reliable 1911. That makes lower tier 1911s a much more viable choice than 20-30 years ago.

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Does that make Kimber 1911s over priced? Not really. Their base models all have a nice set of features comparable to Ruger and Springfield armory’s base model 1911s and the prices are comparable.


Pul up the academy website and you’ll find the Kimber Custom LW Shadow Ghost for $749, along with the Thomson 1911 for the same price, the Springfield Armory Defender for $679, the Taurus 1911 for $569 and the RIA 1911 for $479.

The base model Ruger SR1911 is $845 pretty much everywhere it’s in stock, almost $100 more than a Kimber.

You *can* still spend a lot on a Kimber 1911, but you don’t have to,

So I’m a Kimber fan boy who owns an at least equal number of non Kimber 1911s.

I’m not seeing your logic there.

The point you need to take is that I am not a Glock fan at all. Yet I don’t wander into Glock threads and start trashing them. It’s out of my lane and I fully recognize that my dislike for them and resulting limited experience with them, doesn’t qualify me to render an informed opinion on them.

The same applies to you and Kimber 1911s.

I also have a bunch of Chip McCormick magazines and use them in my steel frame 1911s.

I do not use them in my aluminum frame 1911s (unless the barrel has a steel feed ramp extending down into the frame). The compressible split follower used in their 8 round magazines rides forward with the last round and pecks at the aluminum feed ramp.

This is a well used and long carried Ultra Carry. In addition to the general chatter marks, you can see a divot starting to form from the tip of the follower fairly early in its life. If I’d have kept using Chip McCormick magazines for the rest of the 20,000 or so rounds it has fired, it would have probably created a problem.

I shot custom 1911’s for many years in USPSA matches and won my class in several state championships. I hesitate to guess how many thousands or rounds I’ve run through them, both 38 super and 45. I feel I have a pretty fair knowledge of 1911’s and a good knowledge of problems associated with them.

As I mentioned above, I had one Kimber 38s mag that would stovepipe the last round. It was the mag not the gun and it was replaced promptly. From personal experience shooting my custom 45 that was built on a Springfield frame and slide, they can malfunction but!!! The cause is generally poor quality reloads, worn out recoil springs or wrong weight spring, limp twisting, running the gun without lube and bad magazines. This isn’t to say defective guns don’t get out of the factory because every manufacture turns out an occasional lemon.

I own quite a few Kimber’s and had a couple more I traded and never had an issue. I always make a practice of taking any new 1911 apart and thoroughly inspecting and cleaning it then do a generous lube. I run my 1911’s wet and never have done a formal break in and they’ve never choked. Never! I don’t try to see how much abuse they’ll take before they fail. I clean my guns thoroughly after every range trip and replace springs regularly. I run shock buffers in some guns and have never had a problem with one exception with a custom 38 super (Caspian) race gun where I cracked a frame after probably 40,000-50,000 major rounds. But my Kimbers, Colts and Springfields have never failed.

I got out of competitive shooting several years ago and sold my race gun. I wound up with 1000 rounds that I’d loaded to major and bought the Eclipse Target I still own so I could safely shoot them. The loads are hot and for safety needed to be shot in a gun with a supported chamber. Kimber had what I thought would work so I called Kimber and asked tech support if they would take the punishment. Kimber, without hesitation, said yes it would. They said they had quite a few customers shooting major with them with no issue. So I bought one and put a heavier recoil spring in it and a shock buffer. Over the course of a couple of weeks I shot 1000 rounds of 38 super loads using a jacketed 125 grain bullet pushed to 1450 FPS with no issues at all. I wouldn’t have done this without Kimbers blessing and would not have done this in a non supported chamber barrel or alloy frame.

I believe a Kimbers are very tough and well made guns and wouldn’t hesitate to buy another.

Kimber haters are nothing new. I used to get on the Kimber forum and there are several that take great sport in trolling. I love both Smith and Wesson and Colt revolvers and occasionally get on the Colt forum. There are a couple of trolls there that take great delight in bashing the new model Pythons especially. I don’t know what’s in their minds and is probably different for each person but I guess they’re trying to save us from ourselves, hate the manufacture over some past issue or are jealousy. Who knows and who cares. I’ve kinda decided to ignore them and let them get it out of their system. They’re not going to change my opinion.

That's exactly what Dennis had told me when I spoke to him on the phone. I had an email from him that showed a returned Kimber being shot by a Kimber tech to break it in for a customer who was experiencing some minor annoying malfunctions

He has never missed a Kimber thread yet LOL. And you can expect to see him on the next one with the same no information bash rant .But I do like him he is a good long time member here at the forum.

If that’s the same Dennis I knew, Dennis Madonia, , he was a very good friend of mine. He lived in Yonkers and worked for Kimber for years. We were range buddies.
The stories he would tell about the complaints

Sadly he passed about 10 years ago.

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Sure you did

Yes he was the head of customer service among other duties there. I remember he ran in to a little bit of trouble as well.

I think he may have went NYer on some customers, if that’s what you said. He was never one to hold back.
But on the other hand, he would do anything for you.

Dennis used to shoot thousands of rounds every month. He did a lot of traveling to matches, many indoors with poor ventilation.

A couple years before he died the docs told him he had high levels of lead in his blood, so he stopped shooting and reloading. He was a prolific reloader.

I guess it wasn’t enough, as he was diagnosed with a blood born disease two weeks before he passed.

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Sure you did

Exactly what I mean about going off NY style.One time when I called to pick his brain about options on a Super match I was getting ready to buy. He told the last caller before me he didn't care if the customer gripped the gun in his azz he still has to depress the grip safety or it will not fire. LOL


That is a shame he was only in his mid 40's right.

Purchased an SIS Pro new. I am fairly good at the basic 1911 tuning methods and that with a few Ed Brown hard core fire control parts fitted and the gun has been flawless. For the 4" guns use the recoil spring pack recommended by Wolf gun Springs...it really works...
The 4" guns carry very well.

Yeah, he had lots of stories like that.

Actually 59, still too young.

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Sure you did

I have had interest and enjoy the 1911 platform. Relative tobrand versus brand, not my interest. I bought a new GMC Sierra truck with all the goodies that was a lemon; it happens. Just feedback and facts please, no interest in the brand equity.

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Rather be outdoors

Hey, I dislike Glocks more than Kimbers.
Let it go Dude.

That there is the problem. We are entitled to our opinion. It’s funny that people think that just because you have an opinion that it means you know nothing about the subject being discussed.

And since when are gun owners so thin skinned that they lose their minds when their favorite gun is bashed?

Free speech is being suppressed everywhere. We don’t need it here.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

Good Lord wake up. After all these years of you being on forums and yes I have seen you around other places ...if you can’t spot a bash post with a set up exit . then I am stunned.

And I’ll be equally ready to call him on his unqualified opinion and misinformation.

Someone above mentioned free speech. I fully support the first amendment as well as the second. However those rights are not God given. Each right we have comes with a commensurate degree of responsibility to wield our rights in a manner that ensures we do not infringe on the rights of others. When we don’t we risk losing those rights.

Unfortunately, way too many Americans have forgotten that, or have been poorly raised and never understood that. It’s led to our current mess where people feel free to express misrepresentation of fact, and/or present only a very narrow view lacking context or balance, and feel it’s their right to do so, with no accountability.

BB57 I feel bad for the OP all he wanted was feedback from actual owners good or bad which he was getting.But as usual when the positive out weighed the negative the trolling starts.Then they pull the victim card and say they are just responding to the OP’s question.No other brand that I know of has to be subjected to this constant type of behavior.I’m not a fan of Smith & Wesson 1911 but I’m sure not going to jump on every thread and knock the gun and parrot things I heard on line.According to a poll taken at the Kimber forum from actual owners only 8% of new guns had to be sent back to get corrected, which is in line with what Kimber states. But other forums which I can’t name here , the same polls with the trolling shows a better than 60% issue .So we are to assume that all of these disattisfied customers did not send their guns back to Kimber to be fixed for free but chose a local smith to work on them.when the two tone custom came out a while back a lot of younger guys bought them because of the affordable price point and soon after confessed to trolling the brand because it was fun.Basic common sense would point out that Kimber who sells more guns then all the others combined for top dollar, wouldn’t happen if what was said about them was true.In 24 yeas I have only seen one used Kimber at any gun shop in over 5 states. I guess so many people just threw out the gun they hated.LOL

I spent a lot of years in program evaluation, as a subject matter expert with extensive field experience.

One of the pitfalls people fall into is believing flawed data and/or not understanding the limitations of the data and/or totally ignoring the big picture and what the data might not be showing you. Data is like a Bikini. What it shows you is interesting but what it doesn’t is often more interesting.

As you’ve pointed out, if Kimber made a low quality product like it is often claimed to do:

- they still wouldn’t be around;
- they would not be selling at the prices they are selling for; and
- used Kimbers would be everywhere at bargain basement prices.

Other pitfalls in evaluation of anything are sampling bias and confirmation bias where you are only sampling or seeing one small segment of the big picture and or where you are only accepting information that confirms your bias or preferred outcome, and are rejecting any and all evidence that suggests your preferred world view or opinion may be wrong. There is *a lot* of that going on in America right now.

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I’m just fine with people who have owned a Kimber having and presenting a complaint - as long as they fully explain it and include the full context. That helps everyone fully understand the issue and subsequently be able to make a fully informed decision, based on actual observation, experience, logic, and how well it fits with their particular use or philosophy.

When someone is willing to do that, they are also willing to learn and often change their point of view. It’s the folks who refuse to give complete information or consider a full range of facts who are most afraid their point of view may be wrong, and who are o most resistant to learning and change.

For example, I’ve encountered new Kimber owners on public ranges who have problems and are unhappy with their new pistol. I’ll start a discussion with them and get them talking about the issues they are having and what transpired before hand. That’s when they say things like:

1. “I upgraded it with an extra power recoil spring”
2. “I installed a shock buffer”
3. “I bought better aftermarket magazines for it”
4. “I’ve only shot 50 rounds through it but I’ve had three mis feeds”
5. “I just bought it and took it straight to the range”.

What I also hear behind those sentences are:

1. “I meant well, but I screwed with the engineering, slide velocity and timing of the pistol’s operating cycle”

2. “I thought I was protecting the pistol, but I reduced the slide over run, and reduced the time available for the next round to feed from the magazine”

3. I might not understand how 1911 magazines work, and I may have hobbled it with a parallel lip magazine designed for short semi wadcutter but I am shooting RN FMJ.”

4. “I don’t understand the tight frame to slide tolerances or that it’s not even close to being broken in”.

5. “I don’t understand it has been sitting in a box for weeks, months or possibly even years, and I don’t understand that 1911s need to be run wet and really need to be properly lubricated before I take it out and shoot it.”

It’s that first list of statements that explain the malfunctions, but unless the new user understands the second list of statements - the “Why” that underlies those malfunctions, they’ll just blame the pistol and Kimber.

My role then becomes one of linking the first list to the second list and imparting the new user with the knowledge and understanding of the bigger picture that they need to have to get optimum results from a Kimber 1911, and most 1911s in general.

The same thing happens on the internet, it’s just too often a one way drive by delivery of a complaint happening days weeks or months after the negative experience and long after the poster has adopted an entrenched point of view that Kimber makes poor functioning pistols. It’s hard to change someone’s mind once they’ve formed a strong opinion and pointing out why their point of view might be flawed usually just causes them to dig in deeper.

In that regard I have no illusions about changing negative opinions here. But I do want to provide full information and balance the drive by shooters, so that the OP and other people considering a Kimber can make a fully informed decision.

- If you are not willing to put 200-500 rounds through a Kimber to break it in (steel frame target models like the Gold Match will probably need the full 500, while an aluminum frame Ultra Carry will probably get there in 200), a Kimber probably shouldn’t be your first choice.

- If you really want an adult Lego set and your main pleasure is “upgrading” with lots of aftermarket parts, rather than shooting, you’ll be far better served starting with a full size, lose tolerance 1911 like a 5” RIA that will be far more tolerant of “upgrading”.

- If you really believe all pistols should be run dry and visible oil on the slide and frame rails just attracts dirt, a Kimber 1911 just isn’t for you.

Good grief, I never meant to start this mess.
The OP asked for opinions and I simply gave mine. No, I don't like Kimbers. As i said, I consider them to be over rated and over priced. But I never said they were junk. They are a decent pistol for what they are. I will admit that.
But it seems that because my opinion doesn't go along with the crowd, I'm now a troll?
I currently own 23 1911 pistols. I've used them for self defense, concealed carry and competition. So yeah, I am vaguely familiar with the design.
Whatever happened to the open exchange of ideas and respect for a differing opinion? It sure ain't happening here.
Now can we just agree to disagree and let it go at that? I tried to do that, but some here just won't.

Sure. Until next time.

Gray Fox this post was meant to flame and antagonize. This is beneath you. How was this constructive .what say we let the OP have his thread back and call it a day.

That's what I've been trying to do.

I’ve got a few, only real issue was a 10mm target II, I bought new 5 years ago. Had to polish breech, chamber & ramp, and radius ramp just to feed a round. Nothing I put in it would feed; a couple hours work…. now it feeds hollow points.

Have a carry tde…****ns great. Surprisingly accurate, and very reliable.

An early Royal Blue model withou issues too.

I’ve had several Kimbers and all worked as designed, just didn’t care for the aesthetics and Swartz safety. I still have my Kimber GT10 #207 out of 250. They were spec’d without the Swartz safety.

Anyone here own or seen a GT10?

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213th FBINA

Agreed. The first and last sentences in his first post clearly telegraphed his intent.

Then he whines because he got attacked.

Just finished my 500 round break-in tonight (technically 507 rounds)

I was having semi-regular FTF issues (not every mag, but often enough that it was annoying) for the first 350 rounds or so … they seem to have cleared up with the exception of my compact Wilson mags - second to last round hangs up every time.

Every other mag I’ve used is now feeding just fine (with 230gr. ball) - even my 47D … I guess it just doesn’t like Wilson’s compact mags?


Next step - Hollow point testing.