My 1911’s

[TheBackyardRange]

Due to the way this site handles pictures of different sizes, I’ll be breaking this up into pieces.

So, I started off by selling off some 1911’s late last year. Had a couple low end Citadel and RIA’s I wanted to upgrade. I kept 4 of my original 1911’s with the intention of building up the collection slowly with some nicer stainless models. I kept my 2 MetroArms American Classics in hard chrome, 1 S&W E-Series and 1 RIA BBR 3.10, all chambered in 45. This was the base of my collection in February.

Well, I got a late start. About March, I started getting a few in. I started a thread on a couple forums comparing two of the new ones I had just received, a Kimber Stainless II and a stainless Springfield Armory Loaded. That’s when things got a little nuts. I ended up buying 10, 5 Springfields and 5 Kimbers. In addition, I just bought two more (one of each) this afternoon, for a total of 12 additional 1911’s in 3 months. This post is to try to explain what happened…

It started with these two… The Springfield Loaded (CA Compliant) and a Kimber Stainless II, both chambered in .45

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Both were put together very nicely, both ran great. Only issue was, the Springfield was shooting 6” high at 20 yards. Off to Springfield it went to have the sights replaced. This would be the first of many that would end up going back to the manufacturer.

Continued below…

[Cofisher]

Beautiful pistols. Never been a 1911 fan, but you've got my interest.

[TheBackyardRange]

In the meantime, I had ordered two Kimber Stainless II’s in 10mm. I like them in pairs (which will also change during the course of this saga). I had actually ordered both 10mm before I ordered the .45 but be things as they were, stuff came in at different times. Long story short, I ended up selling one to little brother before it was ever fired. I figured I’d still have a pair of them even if they were two different cartridges.

Anyway, I had a new 10mm Kimber Stainless on hand, figured I’d add to the comparison review. It was a bit gritty out of the box, required deep cleaning, as in stripped it completely down to the frame and reassembled. That helped a little but it was still gritty. During breakin, it required an oiling every box of ammo or it would get gummy and start having issues.

Still not satisfied, I ordered a second Springfield Loaded, also in 45. This one had issues chambering and ejecting spent cases. I opened it up and identified the problem. The hand engraving of the building numbers had raised edges that were chewing on the disconnector.

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Long story short, rather than send another one back to the manufacturer, I grabbed some sand paper, knocked off the rough edges and smoothed it out. Put it back together and it ran perfect.

My anniversary rolled around in April and the wife wanted to buy me a new gun for our anniversary, so i took her to Scheels and we looked at a Kimber Rapide Dawn. A beautiful gun. I did the math and after taxes, it was going to be just shy of $1800. Told her I appreciate the willingness but I can’t spend $1800 on a 9mm. So I went home, found another Kimber Stainless II in 10mm for half the price and ordered it… man that was a mistake…

Continued below…

[TheBackyardRange]

Here we are, the first Springfield was back, the new Kimber 10mm was here. Ready for the range review!

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Of course, things wouldn’t go quite as smoothly as I’d hoped.

[TheBackyardRange]

All pistols grouped well at 10 yards.

The newest Kimber Stainless in 10mm that the wife got me had a 90% failure to feed. Tried 2 ammo brands and 3 mags. Nada. I did manage to get the group though, loading 1 round at a time.

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The first Kimber Stainless in 10mm ran good and grouped well, however, could use a sight drift.

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The Kimber Stainless in 45 shot a great group, although could use a sight drift.

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The new Springfield Loaded was the tightest group at 5/8”, could not be happier.

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The original Springfield Loaded that got the new sights was spot on.

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When it was over, I packed up the Anniversary gun and shipped it to Kimber for warranty repairs.

Of course, that would not be the end of our story, I haven’t bought enough guns yet! Continued below….

[TheBackyardRange]

Now, first, let me say, my anniversary guns are special guns. Those will never leave my collection. That becomes an important point later in this story.

While the Kimber 10mm was out getting repaired, I decided to try one of the new Springfield Garrisons. So I ordered one. While waiting on it to arrive, I found another at a better price so I ordered it too. Both in 9mm.

My Kimber 10mm came back. I loaded up two mags and was a bit surprised that the first mag had a failure to feed. The second mag locked the slide back mid magazine. I filmed running those two mags and sent the video to Kimber. In addition, I also ran 3 more magazines through it with the recoils spring from the 10mm that worked and the gun ran fine. Swapped the springs back, sent all of the information and the gun back to Kimber for a second time. I also asked them for a second time to fix the screwups the smith did to it in the factory, then tried covering it up with a bead blast. I told the rep I had asked the previous rep to have it fixed the first time and they didn’t. He assured me that they would do it this time.

Quite frankly, at this point, I really wanted nothing to do with that anniversary 10mm. I talked with the wife and decided to order the original gun we looked at, but $400 cheaper online. When the 10mm came back, I’d auction it off. Just had bad juju all over it.

The new Kimber Rapide Dawn in 9mm.

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Continued below….

[TheBackyardRange]

I completely forgot to mention that this is what the feed ramp looked like on the Kimber 10mm compared to the one that worked.

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Yes, it came out of the factory that way. Instead of replacing the barrel, they tried “fixing it”. That was one of the major deciding factors in getting rid of it.

While waiting on the Springfield Garrison 9mm to arrive I also found a good price on a .45 version. As things always do, guns arrived out of order and I ended up with 1 in 9mm and 1 in 45 as the first to arrive.

Continued below…

[TheBackyardRange]

The Garrison 9mm.. well, the picture speaks 1000 words…

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This was all from the first magazine. Mag two ran the same. I brought the gun inside and checked the usual suspect and sure enough, rough raised edges on the engraving just line the Loaded 45. I sanded it down and smoothed it out. That took us from 100% failure to eject down to 10%. I ran several more mags through it before I decided that it wasn’t going to correct itself, I was going to have to send it in.

The Springfield Garrison 45 ran flawless and still is to this day. Not enough good things to say about it.

[TheBackyardRange]

The Kimber Rapide ran excellent. Not a single issue with it yet. I took the wife out back for a 1911 day. I intentionally left her gun in the vault.

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When we unpacked everything, she looked at me with that look, you know the one im talking about.. I screwed up look and asked me what she was going to shoot. I laughed and handed her that Rapide. That was a big mistake. She now claims my Rapide as her own. She put 400rds through that gun almost non-stop. I’ve never seen her shoot a gun like that. 400rds in about an 8” circle as fast as I could load the mags.

Shortly after this day, the second Springfield Garrison 9mm arrived. That one had other chambering issues. Rounds were hanging at the base of the feed ramp and having a hard stop, so again… off to Springfield…

[BrokenolMarine]

I hate buying things that don't work as advertised... Especially when they know your name by now. I'd expect they would offer something for all your trouble.

[TheBackyardRange]

I had now tested 4 kimbers and 5 Springfields. There was 1 Kimber I had not yet tested, that was the Stainless II I gave to little brother, so I called him and went and picked it up.

About half or the rounds ended up like this or worse:

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The rims weren’t getting behind the extractor, they were getting caught under it.

So now, at this point, my guns still at the manufacturers getting fixed have stared rolling in. The Kimber Stainless II in 10mm arrived first. They again, did not fix the manufacturing blemishes in the slide, they also did not include any documentation as they did the first trip identifying what had actually been done. At this point, there is no indication Kimber did anything to it at all. That gun is currently sitting at the auction house.

The first Springfield Garrison 9mm came back as I expected it would, running great. I ran 4 magazines through it the other day and it’s running smooth.

The last gun still at the manufacturer is the second Springfield Garrison 9mm. It has the better finish of the two. It will end up staying with me and the one I have back already will go to the auction. The Springfield Loaded CA compliant is also there.

[TheBackyardRange]

As for the ones so far in this story, I did some customization to them. The Kimber Stainless II’s, I sanded the matte finish off the slides, stuck new main spring housings in them with beveled magwell ports. I really liked the look of the Kimber Rapide so naturally, I made the dull matte stainless guns look like the pretty one. I also installed VZ Fallout grips on them, used a die grinder to contour the sharp edges so they are now as comfy too.

The 3 Springfield Armory 1911’s I took a different route. I thought they looked better the way they were with some pewter grips installed. Here are the 6 I intend to keep (the Garrison 9 will be swapped when it gets home)

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So I took 4 to the auction, I bought 3 to replace them. I ordered a MetroArms 10mm in hard chrome to match the two 45s I have. I ordered a Kimber Raptor 45 in stainless and I ordered another Springfield Loaded in 45, this time, not the CA compliant version. Those should all be here in a few days.

[TheBackyardRange]

Closeup of the Springfield grips

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[TheBackyardRange]

A better look at the finish I put on the Kimbers (before and after the magwells were installed).

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[TheBackyardRange]

Hope you guy enjoyed the read. Brothers 10mm is back from Kimber but he is on vacation. I’ll try to get that update and the Garrison 9mm that Springfield has soon.

I have new grips coming for the Metro Arms 1911s but they will have to be customized to fit the guns due to the oversized controls. I’ll post the group pic of those probably this weekend.

When the rest of them show up in the mail, I’ll get a family pic put up of all of them. Remember, March 10, I only had 4 1911s. I will have at least 13 plus any of the 4 that don’t bring enough at auction.

[Hatchdog]

What a shame you had to jump thur all the hoops to get “quality” guns to run correctly. Loved your story about expanding your collection but not so much all the trouble you have been experiencing.

My only 1911 on hand is a Springfield Range Officer in 9mm and thankfully it runs great, never had a hiccup even with my hand loads.

[BrokenolMarine]

I love 1911s, but sadly most of mine were sold off over the years. I should sell off most of the Glocks I accumulated over my career teaching LE firearms, keeping a couple special ones, then buy a couple special 1911s for the safe.

I'd love to find a Stainless National Match series 70 Gold Cup. It's been on my bucket list ever since I borrowed one while my match gun was being built. The owner's son and I won the team matches all that month, and I beat the son in the Service Auto matches with his Dad's gun all month.

I tried to buy it. But the dad cocked his chin at the son. "Nope, goes to David, when I'm dead." "He'll have to pry it... "

David and I finished that statement.

[markiver54]

That's some real expensive aggravation.

[TheBackyardRange]

Updates...

I am still awaiting the second 9mm Springfield Garrison. I ended up taking the one I already had to the auction because I had to go pick up 3 more 1911's today. The other one is expected to be delivered tomorrow.

To add to the frustration, I ordered 1 Metro Arms American Classic in 10mm, 1 Kimber Stainless Raptor II, both of these were in last week waiting on the third. The third was yet another Springfield Loaded which was used. Fedex had no idea where it was and was just adding stuff to the packages whereabouts (I am not even joking). Package mailed out Thurs as 2nd day air. Sat it apparently landed in a sorting hub in Berkely, MO, where it was still showing on as of Tuesday morning. No expected delivery date. I told the FFL on Monday, the last time I saw that, they lost the package. Sure enough, Tuesday morning, its still showing in Berkely, MO, no anticipated delivery date. Miraculously, it appeared in Indianapolis and hour later with an expected delivery date of Wednesday. An hour later it was in a delivery truck on its way to be delivered but again, had the expected delivery date removed. Half hour later, it arrived at the FFL (which would have been a 6 hour drive from Indianapolis). They had no idea where it was, in fact, the sorting facility completely disappeared from its travel history.

Now that the good stuff is out of the way, I grabbed the 9mm Garrison, removed my new grips so I had them for the one coming tomorrow and headed off to the FFL (which is an auction house). The Springfield was a bit rough. You could definitely tell it spent a good deal of time in a kydex holster. I will never understand why people do that to their guns but nonetheless, I left it at the auction house to be sold off with the rest.

The Kimber, Wow that’s a nice gun. I’ve handled on in the gun shop before but not to the extent I did today. This one was used, however, not by much. It did have a hairline idiot scratch which probably won’t even show in the pics. Has two hairline scratches in the slide which are very light, all 3 were due to improper handling of the slide stop during takedown and reassembly. It’s otherwise immaculate.

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While I did not get to take the very first shots, I can say with complete confidence, the mag I just ran through it wasn’t far from the first. The feed ramp hadn’t even been scuffed yet. 230gr PPU range line ammo ran perfectly. The fit and finish are perfect. Trigger is light and crisp. In fact, the only downside to this gun that I can tell is the plastic main spring housing, which is a $35 fix off eBay.

The proprietary scale serrations on the slide and front strap are surprisingly very crisp and give you a very good grasp. That’s good because drawing the slide on this one is probably the heaviest draw of any 1911 I own, but it’s smooth. The scaled top of the slide is a nice touch. Does look cool.

The final note on the finish, no paint! That puts it at least 1 tier above the Rapide. Yeah, the Rapide has cool slide cutouts, colored barrels and flared magwell, but it’s 50% painted with Kimber’s Kimpro finish. It will fail at some point. The Raptor appears to be all stainless (except the MSH).

In my opinion, this is the nicest of the 11 1911’s reviewed so far. I just wish Kimber had a warranty service that matched it.

[TheBackyardRange]

The Metro Arms American Classic II, 10mm, in hard chrome. I tested 3 Kimber Stainless II’s in 10mm throughout this thread. None I would consider were “ready to go out of the box”. One needed, and still is in, an extended breakin. By extended, I mean beyond 100 rounds. It is around 250 now and appears to be coming out of the breakin nicely.

Two went back to Kimber for failures to chamber. One went back twice, however, both needed a second trip had I not taken care of the slide stop myself. The American Classic II needed nothing but fed. No oil, no cleaning, just fed.

Now, this gun was new in box today, just as everything else except the Raptor. I already had a set of grips ready and waiting for it when it arrived. The group pictures so not give the gun’s finish it’s due credit.

The magazine that came with this gun left something to be desired, however, it did work when tested. No failures of any kind using the same S&B 180gr FMJ ammo tested in all 3 of the Kimber 10mm Stainless II’s.

Finish was very nicely done. Even the matte areas in person are so smooth that it almost looks painted on, but it’s not. It’s entirely hard chromed. No play whatsoever in the slide fitment, smooth action. The trigger does have a tiny bit of creep at the wall but it is very little and is as light and smooth as anything else I tested in this thread.

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This is it with the pair of 45s

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