jtaylor996

Seriously, I love mine (now). Get another gun for 40, there's no way I wouldn't keep a 1911 9mm ready to go at a moment's notice. I modified mine as: Dawson FO front sight C&S fire control (I made drill rod pins for perfect fit) EGW HD extractor (order series 70, file a notch for the kimber swartz safety) EGW firing pin stop (tiny radius, again get series 70 here, the s80 part hangs on the swartz plunger making assembly/disassembly a pain in the ass) EGW firing pin (only because I had a little erosion on the breechface, may not be a legal change as it kinda disabled the swartz). If you have this issue, solution is to get a kimber 45 pin and sand it down to fit, which I haven't done yet. STI Ti hammer strut I think I run a stronger mainspring (with the FPS radius this makes it shoot SOFT but recoil cycle is slower this way) Ed Brown grip safety. You remove a LOT of frame to fit it, as well as some thumb safety, but it's so worth it for the much higher grip it allows. The team match model I have came with a MSH attached magwell, bomar rear, frontstrap checkering, and ambi safety. Tripp cobra mags. Avoid the Wilson ETM, which ride higher and hit the kimber ejector causing feed chaos. I did more than recommended, though. The stock trigger was actually pretty good. A lot of that was just preferences and me wanting to tinker. I regard only the following as essential for any kimber: EGW S70 FPS Good extractor

Double tap

This guy seems to work well for me: http://www.midwayusa.com/product/538228/tactical-solutions-performance-muzzle-brake-1-2-28-thread-for-2211-rimfire-conversions-steel-matte?cm_vc=ProductFinding I haven't tried cleaning it yet, but it must working great 'cos I was on fie-err at the ar22 match this weekend. It was man on man, I went 6-0. When guys who normally beat me handily finished shooting they'd look over to see me already cleared, bagged, and doing yoga stretches on the line. 22LR comp is the only explanation...

He seems to be getting great consistency, assuming he's aiming for the comp.

It's common with some barrel manufacturers that the bore isn't concentric with the threads. I don't think a washer will change anything if that's the case.

I just wanted to add that my build was done as cheaply as possible, like all PSA parts except a few. I'm even using a $79 PSA barrel. And then when I got it to the range, it's just about the most accurate AR I've ever shot. I'm not kidding a little bit. This is simply an amazing round at anything less than 100yd distance. I'm not kidding, seriously. Better groups with that 8.5" $79 PSA barrel using el cheapo Fiocchi ammo than my 223 race gun with the Nordic barrel. I plan on putting a can on it (likely the Omega), and at some point I may need to put in a JP silent captured spring (really makes the gun quiet when shooting suppressed). I don't know anybody who hasn't gone to 300BLK and isn't just blown away by the results. You won't regret it. But my advice is to use stock cheap parts instead of your race parts. I can give you a link where you can get the PSA BCG/CH combo for $99 any day, and you don't want adjustable gas on this gun. All 300BLK should be pistol gas systems. The whole thing has been designed around this, and they did a good job here so tweaking mass of components doesn't end up benefitting much, just introducing reliability issues.

I just built one, but without the suppressor for now. Just build it with an 8" ish barrel using the sig brace. There's really no reason to register an SBR anymore, since pistols have no paperwork to cross state lines, etc. 16" bbl plus a can makes a pretty unwieldy gun, IMO. (I built mine for home defense). Also, IMO, 300blk doesn't work unless you reload if you're not Scrooge McDuck. A good place to chat is 300blktalk.com. The designers of the 300blk round and lots of industry guys are on there a lot. It's been a really helpful place to me.

I tried to solve that same problem in my kimber with the STI trigger and it was even looser

Width isn't the issue, the kimber 9mm ejector is extended, a lot:

But at that point, what on Earth do you gain by not just building that top end on a new frame? As I said, the kimber breechface doesn't fit the 40 round. 2 people on this thread have measured for you, and the idea is batting a big zero. Don't forget, you can just sell the 9mm later and buy a 1911 in 40 for little to no difference in cost. That's much cheaper than all the work you are planning.

Don't put the powder in anything too strong. The factory containers are designed to fail at a certain pressure. If you end up with a house fire you want the container to fail before they become a bomb and a hazard to the firefighters (who may just decide to watch your house burn rather than risk saving it). I think you should call Alliant and talk to them about this. Ask if they can send you some empty 8# jugs they use for other powder now. Surely they'll have some on hand. If that doesn't work, then post on the classifieds seeking empty powder jugs. Personally, I would leave them as is long before I'd put them in those HD paint buckets.

I'm going to be trying CFE for 40 MAJOR shortly. I think it's a bad idea to use this powder in a minor load...

I have a kimber 9mm, and what you want will absolutely not work at all. Nobody has mentioned it so far, but kimber uses a majorly extended ejector for 9mm. There is no way in hell a 40 case is going to clear the ejector they use for 9mm. You're going to have to do work on the frame to change to any other caliber. Not to mention the extractor issues already mentioned so far... Just for shits and giggle I took my Kimber Team Match apart to test the slide fit. My gun was made in 2008 or 2009. The 40 case fits no possible way over the breech face. Not only is the bottom too narrow, but the largest width isn't anywhere near large enough, either. Other issues you would have are: 1. Mainspring will be wrong, or at the very least very poorly tuned to your caliber 2. No extractor would ever work reliably, and kimber extractors are terrible to begin with. 3. Good luck getting a good bushing fit. You'd have to turn the barrel on a lathe and hope it's big enough to begin with. Normally you would change the bushing, but it's going to already be tuned for your 9mm barrel. 4. Your sights would need adjustment between calibers 5. Super long 9mm ejector pinned into the frame 6. Recoil spring would be way off. If you want a 9mm, then get the gun. If you want a 40, get a different gun. It's that simple. The general rule of thumb is that you can swap calibers with an entire new top end (slide, barrel, sights, etc), but that rule has an exception for 9mm because of the ejector. You can't convert a 9mm 1911 into anything easily. Heck, you can't even put kimber's 22LR top end on it...

What this guy says. Get the gun with the checkering and fit you want. Everything else can be modified easily later. Adding checkering later ain't gonna happen, and you're going to want it. I shoot a kimber team match 9mm, and it was good out of the box. Well, mostly. All kimbers need a good extractor and FPS upgrade (like $70 for EGW parts). I still modified it a lot later, but it was a good game gun from day one. I think stock trigger on it was 3.5 and crisp, bomar rear sight, good 30lpi checkering (which I prefer over the coarse stuff from STI), and a magwell. The trigger guard isn't undercut, but my hands don't need that. Fit around the grip and thumb safeties is more important to me, so that's where I changed things.

Do you size the home cast bullets before you coat them?

WARNING TO ALL READING THIS!!!!! DO NOT DIMENSION YOUR SVI OLD STYLE MAGS BASED ON THE ADVICE GIVEN HERE. Apparently, nobody here read the title, and has been giving numbers based on STI mags. That does not work here for a few reasons: 1. The lip style and geometry is COMPLETELY different on old style SVI mags. There is a straight lip in the rear. MAYBE .388 front to back might work on that part, but these mags have a crimp forward, and this is the critical one that gets out of spec. Going anywhere close to .388 on that crimp will basically ruin the mags. Those need to me more than .430 just to even load a damn round in the mag. The desired number was never given here, nor seems available anywhere else. 2. These are NOT thin steel. "Adjust with a small hammer" doesn't cut it on this gauge steel. Think sledgehammer being required on these mags. At this point, I've opened the lips back up, but they are running rough, and I'm likely to have constant nose dive jams from here on out. Basically, all my mags are ruined at this point unless I can send them off to a professional for a fix. F'in A, worst advice I've ever seen on benos. I get crazy tilt with the TTI followers at any front crimp dimension that allows a round to be inserted into the mag. It's possible these followers are just not compatible with SVI OLD STYLE mags.

Well, crap. This is a new one for me: This is in the 126mm tube, with new SV spring and basepad, and old red follower. Not sure the lips had anything to do with this failure. Any ideas?

4227 is always in stock at bullets.com, FYI.

Wait, does this mean I'll need to retest my loads for the bullet without the groove? Wouldn't not having the groove mean the bullet will be shorter if it still weighs 180gr?

I've fitted SVI SS (bar stock) safeties and kimber SS (MIM) safeties, and the kimber part is like twice as hard, not even exaggerating a little. Like wear-your-file-out hard. MIM can be amazing if done right. Most manufacturers that are using MIM at this point are doing it right. There's no reason to decide on a gun one way or the other based on MIM vs anything else on new production.

Not if you are rebarreling. I consider all kimbers to require a good extractor and a firing pin stop (EGW), but that's cheap/easy. I shoot a "team match II", which has the bomar rear sight. It's quite a good gun, actually. I've done more mods to it, but they weren't strictly necessary.

It sounds like the gun runs fine. Personally, I wouldn't mess with it other than maybe a fiber front sight.

For some reason I'm just not understanding this. Can you, or someone else, try explaining it a different way? The reason for starting longer and going shorter (other than pressure, if there is one), or provide a source that explains this? I did a little looking yesterday but the only thing I found before I had to hit the bunk was from Nosler on setting up rifle COAL. Is it basically the same thing for pistol? I know there are some similarities between loading pistol and rifle but there's also differences, and I haven't spent nearly the amount of time looking into that, other than a couple YouTube videos and random articles I stared reading only to realize they were talking rifle. My only real understanding of seating closer to the lands is to reduce the jump but too close can cause pressure spikes too because, as I remember it being explained, it's like trying to hop a curb in your car with your tire almost touching it. It takes more effort to get started versus starting a foot back and having more acceleration. Thanks. Most people around here are shooting 1911's, and that platform was designed around a fairly long bullet compared to a 9mm. Generally speaking, longer rounds will feed more reliably in that platform. So, most people tend to start long and work back. As sarge has said, your gun may like something else or be more accurate elsewhere. Personally, I don't have the time to test a bunch of different COLs at the same velocity for accuracy, but some people do. But I still think you should run the test I described, at the very least to know what your chamber can handle. You don't want to load up a bunch of test stuff and find out at the range that it won't fit your chamber. So, load up a dummy pretty long, and take your barrel out, then do the plunk test. Give the round a spin see if it's free or not. If not, adjust your size die down a hair and try again (probably do all of this before applying any crimp to the round, if possible). Repeat until everything is free and dandy. Then you'll know the limits of your chamber. My kimber single stack gun has a pretty dang short chamber, which was pretty surprising. It would have stunk to find out the hard way that almost all loads posted on here for 9mm won't fit my gun

1.200" When y'all give dims, do you mean where it's flat, and the front groove? Just double checking before I ruin a bunch of expensive mags...

Yeah, sure, that's what I meant all along