I am the owner of a Custom II that I purchased new a while back. I purchased this gun because I had multiple friends that owned Kimbers and loved them, one of them specifically owning a Custom II just like the one I purchased. I also own a Glock and I have been around guns from multiple manufacturers including Colt, HK, Springfield, etc. After purchasing the gun, my wife and I had our first child, so I wasn't able to put a lot of rounds down range with it for a while. I recently started shooting again and I've had multiple issues with the gun. The first being that the sights were roughly 8 inches left at 15 yards, which is totally unacceptable to me. The second being multiple failure to feeds, which I initially attributed to the shooter (as well as the sights being off) or possibly bad mags. I also let one of my friends, the guy that owned the Custom II among multiple 1911s and who is a competent shooter, try the gun to take the "amateur 1911 owner" out of the equation. After he agreed that the gun shot too far left I sent the slide to Kimber to have it fixed. I also had to pay shipping. After getting the gun back, it still shot way left and continued to have multiple failure to feeds. I purchased new mags, Kimber brand, and tried it again. No change in the failure to feeds. This gun has had roughly 300 rounds through it and I keep it very clean and well lubed. It has been cleaned roughly every 100 rounds or less. I am now awaiting another RMA from Kimber to send it in for a second time.

After having the initial problems I jumped on the forums to see what was going on. I must say, if the forums are correct, I am definitely NOT pleased with my purchase. I've read everything from "you have to get 500 rounds through the gun for a 'break-in period' before it will be reliable" to another poster who said "Kimber advised that I was using the wrong kind of lube" to"Kimber mags are crap and you need to go with another brand." I don't know, but if all of this is true, what's the point? Who would pay the kind of money that you pay for these guns to have a firearm that is unreliable for the first 500 rounds and you can only use specific oils and lubes or that won't function with the mags that are from the factory? For the record, I use Break Free and Rem-Oil, which are reasonably good cleaners and lubes, at least to the point that a firearm should function when using them. I'm sorry but an $800 firearm that is from a design that has been tweaked on for 100 years should fire straight out of the box with any decent mil-spec lube. I find that this is totally unacceptable and I am close to losing confidence in this gun, which is vital to me continuing to own a firearm.

Along with the questions above I am curious if people think my case is unique or is this the norm for owning a Kimber or 1911 in general? I would prefer to hear from people who own and like their Kimbers or 1911s. If this is normal, it may influence rather or not I keep this Kimber and/or buy another 1911. I simply can't justify having a gun that normally does not run out of the box when I can buy a Glock, HK, or Sig that are normally reliable from the beginning. Owning a 1911 as a status symbol was never the reason for my purchase. I wanted a battle grade weapon that was reliable, accurate, and could take a beating...

Apologies if this appears to be a rant, that is not the point of this post. I am simply trying to figure out, after this experience, what my next move should be.

EDIT for using the wrong acronym

Here is my take, and anyone can feel free to disagree.

I hear all the time people dump on the Kimber and they always say, "For $XXXX you should be able to take it out of the box and it should fire perfectly, every time."

Well, I compare it to cars. A Volkswagon costs much less than a Ferrari. You can hop in your new VW and get right on the freeway and drive like you always will. You don't buy a Ferrari and immediately start hammering it. It's a precision machine, you have to break it in. And it will be finicky. We call that "personality". And it costs far more than the VW.

I'm not a saying a Kimber is a Ferarri. Not at all. The true Ferraris of the 1911 world may work right out of the box...I don't own one yet. But I'm not entirely offended that my Kimber needs a 500 round breakin, which they state right in your users manual. Nor do I mind that I need to get my extractor tuned so it doesn't eject the odd round at my head. It's beautiful, it works now that i meticulously broke it in, and it is very accurate.

If you want a utilitarian gun that works right out of the box, you are in luck because the Glock costs much less than a Kimber does. If you want a sexier piece that has "personality", you bought that in your Kimber. Treat your Kimber like a Kimber, not a Glock, and you can be very happy with it. If you bought a Kimber expecting it to be a Glock...shoulda saved your money and bought the Glock.

I second this post, I also have a Kimber TLE II SS and strictly use the Wilson Combat mags and clean it with Hoppes #9 and lube it with CLP. I switched out the mainspring housing for an ED Brown checkerd one with the removable feed maxi well.

I don't have a dog in the Kimber fight but do want to get my 2cents in.

Many different firearms seem to need some break in to smooth them out. Folks throw out round counts but I imagine it will very widely.

In my mind rough points of contact are smoothing themselves out and odd little burs are knocking themselves off.

I tend to use the clean it and lube it out of the box and then shoot the heck out of it without worry about some hang ups for the time being.

I see some guys stopping to clean and re lube every 30 rounds and wonder if that just extends the break in period? If the gun runs at all I am likely to just keep banging away.

I don't know what the OP is using for ammo but one potential problem I have seen is that some of the discount bulk ammos (Win white box for example) are a bit lower power and perform poorly in some tight guns .


1911s have generally been a PITA when new,not sure why as the design is simple enough. My feeling is that Kimber has had a few QC issues in the more recent years compared to the time period before that, I suppose that is related to getting bigger?

This is an excellent assessment and I agree with all of it.

Glocks are extremely reliable guns out of the box for the most part (although I am hearing reports that the Gen 4 guns have some issues). They are the "Chevys" of the gun world. Plain, no frills, gets the job done. And that's fine, if mass produced injection molded plastic guns are what you are into. There is a lot to be said for rugged, inexpensive guns that have a high out of the box reliability factor. No question about it.

However, like most Chevys, Glocks have practically zero personality or style.

Some people don't give a damn about "personality or style" in a pistol, and if you are one of those people, fine, go with the Glock by all means.

Some of us, OTOH, appreciate pistols which have at least some aesthetic appeal to go along with their functionality - pistols such as the 1911.

The fact is, 1911s ARE a tad finicky as handguns go. If you know this going in, you won't be frustrated or disappointed when you find (as you probably will) that you have to do some minor tinkering to get things right, but as madmike66 says, if you bought a Kimber expecting it to be a Glock, well, you probably should have bought a Glock in the first place.

In my experience (which goes back almost 20 years dealing with various 1911s), about 90 percent of the reliability problems that crop up from time to time with 1911s have nothing to do with the gun whatsoever - they have to do with the magazine and/or the type of bullet being used. If you find that your new 1911 is a "jam-amatic," that can usually be solved by trying different magazines or cartridges or both. As for the other 10% of problems, polishing the feed ramp or tuning the extractor can usually get to the heart of those.

My Ultra Raptor II has been very reliable (I replaced the factory stock mags with better ones), and I am extremely pleased with it.

I've got 3 Kimbers, Tactical Custom II HD, Pro Raptor II, and Desert Warrior. All three had a couple of hiccups within the first few rounds. The Tactical Custom has run flawlessly since. The Pro Raptor and Warrior, both needed new slide stops as the ones that came with them were slightly out of spec. Since changing them out, they have both been flawless. I wouldn't trade them for anything. I only use WC and Chip McCormick Power mags, besides the 3 Kimber mags that came with the guns.

My EDC is a Pro CDP II.