Hello gents,

Picked up a Kimber LW Nightstar 1911 in 9mm about two months ago.  After a slight adjustment to the extractor the pistol has run 100% in approx 500 rounds. Very accurate and very easy to shoot.

When I disassembled the pistol I noticed the internals were not of the same "quality" of say my Colts - or a SA (All have MIM parts).  Pistol runs great, but you can tell there is a difference in quality.

Does Kimber have an "economy line" of 1911's, like the Nightstar - and a "higher quality" line too  ? Are all of the internals the same in their 1911's  ?

Thanks !

Is this your 1st Kimber?

Yes it is  . . . . .

maybe my last ?

I don't believe Kimber offers better internals or fitting on their higher priced lines, just more bling.  If somebody actually knows and can set me straight I'd appreciate it.

I have 3 Kimber pistols that have been reliable and accurate and will run against the conventional wisdom here to say that the lower end of line is a good value.  The few malfunctions I had early on were solved by switching to Wilson, CMC, and Metalform magazines.  All 3 have had the plastic MSH replaced, and the only 5" gun of the bunch has a GI type recoil spring guide and plug instead of the FLGR it came with.  I don't carry any of them.  If something does break at some point I'll replace with better quality parts.

FWIW, the pistols are a Stainless II, a Pro Carry II, and a Pro Carry HD II in .38 super.

This is a Team Match II, and one of the more recent versions. I haven't disassembled this one completely yet, but I will say it has been 100% through at least 1k rounds so far. I do know the MSH is not plastic.  I changed the mainspring, sear spring, front sight, and barrel bushing right out of the box and it is one of the most accurate guns I have.  I am also using Wilson Vickers magazines - the Kimber mag is still in the box.  If there are inferior parts inside, I'll find out later, but for now I have a sharp looking, accurate, reliable 1911 that is everything I hoped it would be.

My Kimber internals lasted over 12,000 rounds before I started to get creep in the trigger.

pre series II.

All Kimber parts come from the same bins they just swap parts till they find one that fits correctly. At one time you could not even be sure if you had blackend Cress or blued steel parts till you went to get the gun reblued and found out the hard way.

Been creeping around this thread for a few days. Here it goes.

You’ll see me defending Kimbers more often than most because well the “Kimber Hate” for the most part is unwarranted.  I not a fan boy but Kimbers have been good to me for the last 20years. I much rather have a custom built to my specs 1911 than anything else. My warrior and classic custom are great and have a lot of mileage on them.



I’ve detailed stripped both of these and the ignition parts are Mim but they are coated in the KimPro finish. They have a great deep skinny black color that is smooth with wear where they should have it for being well used guns. On pair with what I have experienced on my Kimber journey.

The LW guns like yours were produced during the Trump Slump salad days and hit the market selling for around $600.  My FFL bought two in 9mm one black and one “stainless” in color, for class guns. He got the black one new for $550 and the stainless for $595 both off gunbroker.

We compared them to the older Aegis model and there is a noticeable difference in features and finish quality.  As there should be, the Aegis originally sold for twice the price and are currently going for $900-$1000 used.

As of last weekend both have had a case of ammo through them without issue and are getting smoother by the day.  

Understand that these LW models “Nightstar, arctic” are set at a price point below the Custom II model the cost savings comes from the aluminum receiver, fiber optic front sight and lack of features like checkering and finish though out. They were designed to compete with SDS/tisas, rock island and Springfield defender which all had an msrp of $499.

On my series 1 pistol I have changed the rear sight twice, plunger tube once and slide stop once. On the plus side the slide to frame fit is 2nd to none and is extremely accurate. Won't be buying another because of the poorly built rear target sight and the proprietary dovetail. Not all bad since I have owned it since 98.

Kimber IS the economy line. The price just doesn’t reflect that

I have two Kimbers. 5" TLE/RL and a Pro TLE/RL. Both have been great. I am happy with them.

Our Kimber's have run perfectly, including the Solo.  The Solo just required some mag tweaking, the gun itself runs great.

Kimber went through a bad period with their QC which soured a lot of people but that was then and this is now.  Unfortunately, just like Pepperidge Farms, the internet doesn't forget so people keep repeating what they heard.

I like them but I think Kimber should staff up their quality department with some genuine 1911 experts who can help them drive consistency in the small details like extractor tension, barrel lower lug profiling, etc.

It seems like they are OK with a certain level of issues going out the door and that can make them look amateurish compared to Springfield who can crank out flawless mil specs that people snap up to build into nice customs.

Last two Springfields I had, both had issues and had to go back several times. I got tired of sending them back. They never resolved the issue. Constant jamming and last round would not lock slide back.
So they are going the way of Kimber.
Issue was fixed by replacing the Slide stop with a Wilson bulletproof. Easy fix, they just never even looked at them and by then I was just wasting their money on shipping back and forth.

I have a Kimber CDP II Ultra that’s been my EDC for several years.  I had problems with the original Kimber mags. Switched to Wilson Combat and haven’t had a problem since.

I really like my Kimber LW - just the "quality" issue.

Any opinions on replacing the hammer, sear, disconnector, sear spring with Wilson Combat  ? Fitting parts is not an issue.

I had a CDP ,the hammer would follow the slide down bought new sent back gone now , a Cust Tac 2 that never ran right gone , I have 1 st week out Warrior that I kept and never sent back for any thing . I look at many of the new ones but don`t buy .

not really, but I would got with EGW parts and a Colt sear spring or just keep your existing sear spring. the hard sear may need to be stoned some and some slight tweaks to the sear spring to get that glass rod 4.5 lb trigger.

I can see most of you fuckers never had the pleasure of owning a Team Match 2 with their external extractor and it shows.

I agree with this.  Maybe they could get baer to show them how to profile lower barrel lug, lol.

I have a little different take. I have a 5" TLE in 45 and a Custom Shop Pro Aegis in 9mm. The 5" 45 has been pretty much perfect. The Aegis Pro I bought for CCP when it first started. I run Dawson mags and it runs well with factory 9mm ammo. It has thin grips so my thumb ends up riding the slide and causes malfs. Had to tweak my reloads a tad to fit the chamber on the gun since they were loaded for Glock/M&P. So regular size grips and "better" reloads solved 99% of my issues.

All that is said to say that what percent of the Kimber hate that isn't just "I read on XYZ forum" and what percent isn't "people just have no clue how to shoot a 1911" comes down to mass production issues. You rarely hear the oh my X brand Y product is great! You always hear the horror stories.

The Custom Tac 2 I had was a beautiful looking 1911 it had the external extractor , it never would run . I just looked at a 4 in Kimber today bull barrel type , I just could not buy it . maybe it would run maybe not .

Well you guys did it to me ,I was at a shop Fri and they had a new Ultra Carry two tone with like rose wood grips , I took it home grabbed a few Wilson mags cleaned and oiled it up , we will see how she runs , worked the slide about 100 times and left action open , today we will see .

Avoid external extractor kimbers, those were built during Cohens time.  If you still have that tac2, kimber will replace topend with an internal extractor(traditional) topend.

They still doing that?

I've owned several series 1 and series 2 Kimbers. They were fine guns.

Not for sure, that was their SOP for awhile.  I avoided the external extractor kimbers because of all the issues.  Ive had several series 1 and 2 pistols, mostly 4" pro sizes, no issues and I generally pull the fp safety block from slide.

What I mean is I went and got another Kimber after years of not buying them , they look so nice but I would pass , the only one that never needed a thing was a first week out and after waiting for weeks to get it was a warrior I got years ago . I picked up the ultra carry 2 Fri cleaned and lubed ready to go ,will shoot it today for a try out .

Pretty much THIS.

The external extractor debacle and Ron Cohen's brief stint were a really bad time.  Once they gave Ron the boot, QC went up exponentially.
And that was a long time ago now.

Their factory mags are sub par, but that's fairly true across the industry.

Four Kimbers in my safe.
One in a drawer of my kitchen island and one right next to me now.

All of mine have worked from round one.

Any of theirs without the firing pin safety are good to go

I would take any Kimber without with Swarz (sp) firing pin safety, their stock parts while not the greatest I would get the most of use out of as I could and then replace with tool steel parts later.

There is no workaround with the Rube Goldberg Swarz safety in the Series II models and I honestly would rather have a Rock Island Armory or a Turkish 1911 than one of those

Yeah, pull the rear sight off and remove the fp safety and spring.  The biggest issue I've saw on the swartz safety is fp safety block no moving up in the slide, causing the slide to stop 1/16" from fully rtb.   I have saw where the frame mounted plunger/grip safety bar wore and would cause a no fire issue.  The fp safety block wouldn't move enough to release the fp.

 If the fp safety block is removed, it eliminates both possible issues.  It is equivalent to removing 80 series slide parts and using a frame slot filler.  The frame mounted cam needs to be retained, as it fills the space next to sear, but it doesn't do anything else besides move up when grip safety is depressed.  

I might get flamed, but the swartz(if properly machined and fitted) is no better or worse than a series 80.  I think the window of fitment on the swartz is narrower than a colt series 80, but it also doesn't effect trigger pull any.  I have a 1985 ss colt officer that I redid, undercut wilson beavertail, novak front.....I kept the series 80 parts, in fact kept all the fire control parts except grip safety and thumb safety.  Trigger pull is a nice crisp 3.75lb pull, I did stone the sear nose, but the series 80 parts didn't really cause any trigger break grittiness or excess weight.

All my Kimbers run at 100%. I will admit, one of them needed an extractor tuning when new. 1911’s are a different animal from most modern designs so, keep them lubed properly and they will run fine, including Kimbers.

I really don't understand that. More malfunctions are caused by bad magazines than anything else. They'd save CS time and money just shipping the guns with CM magazine.

Yep to above.  Dw is only company that sends good mags with 1911s.