LOA for SWC in a Kimber BP10

[KimberA8]

What length works best for SWC bullets [200 gr.] in a Kimber BP10. I have irregular feed problems with mine. I tried 1.235 and got problems. Commercial round nose do not cause the problems so I set my swc bullets at 1.265 LOA same as the commercial, same problems. I am about to try 1.255. Would love some help on this so I don't keep doing the 'hunt and peck' solution.

[Shipster]

Which brand of SWC are you using. The reason I ask is everybody at my club that has a Kimber can not shoot the West Coast 200 gr SWC. That's about Six kimbers that won't digest them.

Shipster

[Rockwell]

I have shot five or six thousand rounds of Meister 200gr SWC Bullets set at 1.245 through my Kimber Custom II without any problems at all. Laser Cast runs great with the same OAL in my gun.

[KimberA8]

The bullets I am shooting are from a local maker in the Philadelphia / King of Prussia region. Eveyone that uses them seems to like them.

I will try the shorter length and report back. thanks

[Tokarev]

I used a Kimber 10 II for awhile in Limited before I bought my STI. I was lucky enough to find a bunch of factory Kimber high capacity magazines for the gun.

I tried several different OAL's with a 200 SWC but could never get them to run 100%. If I loaded 10-12 rounds in a magazine they fed fine but anything more than that and the gun got fussy. I ended up just shooting round nosed bullets in the gun and never again had a malfunction.

The Kimber was a nice gun, especially for the money and the BP10 is even cheaper. Hopefully when the ban sunsets Kimber will introduce a .40 with a 15 or 16 round magazine that will be aimed at the IPSC crowd.

[DWG007]

I tried loading Remington 185gr SWC for my KImber Gold match. No matter what OAL, they still did not feed properly (1in 10 round jams using Wilson Combat 10 round mags). Had to switch to Flat Point or Round nose.

[KimberA8]

Interesting responses. I am getting failure to feed problems with SWC at a rate of about 2 per 10 rds. This is a reletively new development over the last 3 or 4 thousand rounds although I have always had some feed problems with SWC. I tried round nose but saw no particular improvement.

Any of you Kimber shooters out there care to comment on service you have recieved from Kimber. I am still surprized at the poor treatment I got. Is that an aberation or a common result.

I am going to try various legnths varring by 0.020 starting at 1.235 going to 1.265 and with crimps from 0.472 to 0.467. I'll report on my experience.

[Shipster]

I have Kimber Custom Classic with over 20,000 rds of 200gr SWC fired through it. Most of them are Laser Cast about 90%, and have had 1 jam using them. Now the west coast 200gr SWC plated thats a different story, a 1 in 10 was common no mater how I loaded them. Run-n-Gun a member of this board and my shooting bud bought a 1000 in hopes of finding the magic length and never did. I load my Laser Cast to 1.245 and they run like the wind.

Steve

[KimberA8]

After testing rounds with lenghts from 1.230 to 1.271 and different bullet shapes nothing showed real improvement on the mis-feeading problems. At someones suggestion I took the Kimber to a local gunsmith and had him throat the barrel and polish up the fit between the ramp and the barrel. He believes the alternating angles of bullets in a double stack mag caused the problems. By widening the throat he believed the problem would be corrected. HE WAS RIGHT!

I have gone back to confirm the assumption by shooting the same variety of cartridge lengths and the gun works fine now. My conclustion is that because the gun design was relatively new [in detail] it was not designed right for the double stack mags. I am surprised because I expected better from Kimber.

In any case, if someone else is having feed problems, I encourage the same solution.