Kimber Woes

[Owen Sparks]

After experiencing nunerous 1911 functioning problems during matches last summer, I decided to "bite the bullet" and buy a new Kimber custom II. The first time out it jamed a few times but I was told by several knoledgable people that it just needed breaking in. My first match attempt yielded several malfunctions on the first stage but then it seemed to settle down and run fine. Next practice session at home it jamed 2 or 3 times. Then, after a thouough cleaning, disaster, jams on every stage of the match except the last one.

After the match was over the match director who does all of his own gunsmithing asked to examine my pistol and try to determine what the problem was. Between the two of us we fired over 100 rounds through it We fired it fast, slow, limp wristed and even upside down and COULD NOT make it jam.

After a thorough cleaning it went right back to malfunctioning at least once per magazine so I had to shoot the last match of the season with a borrowed gun.

Last night my gunsmith called. He said that the problem was primarily that the fiting pin stop was grossly undersized. This was allowing the extractor to rotate in its tunnel enough that it was not allowing the extractor to hook under the case rim and would fail to go into battery.

For 700 dollars you would think a new pistol should work right out of the box.

OS