New 9mm Stainless Pro Carry II has arrived

[Bret]

I'm more of a Hi Power and CZ75 fan than I am a 1911 fan, but when it comes to getting a gun the way you want it, nothing beats a 1911. I was looking for a 4" 1911 in 38 Super with a stainless steel slide. After holding some 1911's, I really felt that an aluminum frame was in order due to the significant weight difference. I found a new Colt for sale at a local store, but really didn't like the color difference between the stainless slide and the frame. It's like they really didn't even try to get them to match. I found that the Kimber Stainless Pro Carry II fits the bill, but it's only available in 9mm and 45ACP. However, I spoke with someone at Kimber and was told they can convert a 9mm over to 38 Super. So I decided to get one. I searched locally to no avail and then decided to get one from Gunbroker.
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/Vie...Item=166132959
The transaction with the seller was good. It arrived at my FFL yesterday and I picked it up today.
http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/3218/kimberprocarryii9mmleft.jpg
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/9636/kimberprocarryii9mmfiel.jpg
My initial impression of the pistol is as follows:
1) The machining looks perfect and the finish on the frame looks perfect. If there's a tool mark on this pistol, I have not found it. Without a doubt, it looks better than any other pistol that I own in regard to machining.
2) The rubber grips feel great. I'm a fan of Hogue wrap around grips, but the Kimber factory grips feel just as good and look better.
3) The sights look nice. My only complaint is that I wish they were 3-dots instead.
4) Racking the slide, the pistol seems tighter than any pistol that I've ever owned. I hope the translates to accuracy without negatively effecting reliability. I inserted a cartridge in to the empty barrel and then turned the barrel with the muzzle pointing up. The cartridge wouldn't fall out without a hard tap. Me thinks it has a tight chamber.
5) The magazine looks OK, not cheap, but not high end either. Of course, who really cares how it looks. It's how it functions that matters. I do think it's kind of cheap that Kimber does not include two magazines with such an expensive pistol.
6) I really like the take down of the pistol. It was easier than I anticipated. I wish my full sized Para P1640 field stripped the same way.

I'll be taking it to the range in a couple of days. I'd appreciate any advice you have in regard to my first range trip with it. I have a good variety of factory 9mm 115gr FMJ ammo. My Fiocchi seems to have the most kick while my Federal American Eagle seems to have the least. Both of these are fairly clean. Winchester white box seems to have kick in the middle, but is not so clean. Which would you shoot or does it matter?

[BuckyP]

:thumbsup:

Congrats. Looking forward to the range report.

[glock2740]

Congrats!

[majette]

to break it in i would shoot a couple hundred rounds of the fiocchi. recoil will be similar to what you are used to in the high power. i have a full size 1911 in 9mm and the recoil is negligible to me.

[Quack]

congrats!!!

[Wade-19]

Congrats ! This is how my old stainless 9mm. Pro Carry looked after a trip to D&V Small Arms. Dave helton did a geat job on it.

http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz153/Wade-19/933f353f.jpg

[CMG]

Nice pistol!

Break it in with any of the FMJ rounds, you'll probably see that it shoots better with one particular load.

I went with the Pro Aegis, but I'm a sucker for front-strap checkering. :cool:

[bac1023]

Congrats! :cool:

It looks nice. :)

[Tactical black]

Congrats!

[TexasVine]

Nice. I definitely want a 9mm 1911 in the future.

[Hokie1911]

Sweet. I gave some serious thought to picking one of those up. Congrats man. Shoot the snot out of that thing. :50cal:

[Nicko]

Very nice. :cool:

[ArmoryDoc]

Nice gun. I hope it shoots well and provides lot's of range fun. Keep us posted !

[Bret]

Thanks guys! I'll definitely post a range report.

[steve1911]

Sweet looking pistol, Congrats!

1911club#410

[ProCarryNAustin]

I had a Pro Carry for years that I really loved. The only down side was that magazines (like the the one that comes with it) with metal followers gouged the frame inside. I switched to Wilson 47D's with have a polymer follower.

[Reignman]

I envy you.... let us know how she shoots...

I want a 1911 9mm with rail so damn badly... wTf

[den888]

Very nice Kimber !

[Bret]

The only down side was that magazines (like the the one that comes with it) with metal followers gouged the frame inside.
Was yours a 45ACP? Was the feed ramp built in to the barrel or frame? Mine (9mm) has the feed ramp built in to the barrel.

[ProCarryNAustin]

Mine was .45. Forgot the 9mm had the feedramp on the barrel. Congrats on a fine pistol! Looking forwared to your range report.

[Bret]

I went to an indoor range today with 175rds of ammunition as follows:
1) 25rds Dynamit Nobel 124gr FMJ
2) 25rds Winchester white box 115gr FMJ
3) 25rds CCI Blazer Brass 115gr FMJ
4) 25rds Fiocchi 115gr FMJ
5) 25rds S&B Range Safe 115gr FMJ
6) 25rds Federal American Eagle 115gr FMJ
7) 25rds reloaded Zero 147gr JHP over 3.4gr Tight Group powder

I chose all of this ammunition because it has proven reliable with a wide variety of pistols.
http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/8553/050310rangetripammo.jpg
The trigger has a nice clean break, although it feels a little heavier than I would like. The reset was very gritty when I started shooting, but smoothed out by the time I was done.

Accuracy was very good. It's in the top tier of pistols that I own in this regard. It pretty much put the 115gr & 124gr right where I aimed. The 147gr reloads impacted about 2" lower at 10 yards.

The ejection from this pistol was very odd. Most of the ammunition ejected pretty much straight upward or straight up and back at my face and chest. Some of the remaining amount ejected to the left while a bit more of the rest ejected to the right. The ejection was very weak. I've never has a pistol eject so weakly. I'm very disappointed about this because this problem happed with all ammunition. Because it happened from the first shot fired, I'm confident that this the problem would have been apparent when the pistol was test fired. From my experience with all of the above listed ammunition, the Fiocchi is the hottest of the bunch. It ejected with a bit more force, but again, it was still very weak. The Federal American Eagle is the weakest of the bunch. Some of it looked like it was just falling out of the pistol.

I had a couple of failures to eject with the S&B ammunition.
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/7674/sbrangesafe115grfmjfte1.jpg
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/7181/sbrangesafe115grfmjfte2.jpg
On the magazine that had the second FTE, it also prematurely locked the slide back on the second to the last cartridge.
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/2122/sbrangesafe115grpremant.jpg

I had a couple of failures while shooting the Federal American Eagle. The first was a stove pipe of a spent case.
http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/9999/federalamericaneagle115.jpg
The second was a failure to extract. The spent case remained in the chamber and the next cartridge didn't feed. When I pulled the trigger, all I got was a click.

Overall, I like the feel of the pistol. The trigger is decent, but could be a little lighter. The lack of three dot sights on a carry pistol is a bad decision in my opinion. The accuracy was very good. Reliability was poor. Again, I'm especially disappointed that Kimber allowed it to leave the factory with such weak and erratic ejection given how obvious the problem was from the start.

I'm interested in what ya'll think the problem(s) with the pistol is. Perhaps it's something simple that I can do. If not, it will be going back to Kimber. Let me know what you think.

[stopatrain]

I like it!

[Rinspeed]

Wow, you got a bad slide stop, poor extractor tension and you're using lousy mags. Other than that you're good to go. :supergrin: Seriously start with the easy part, order some mags and hopefully you will be fine.



http://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=73565

[CMG]

...and while your waiting for mags, check your extractor tension and take a look at the shape/condition of the ejector.

[17119jfkioe]

how many rounds does it hold

[Bret]

how many rounds does it hold
9 in the mag +1 in the pipe.

[Bret]

I called Kimber and left a message because all of their customer service representatives were busy. About an hour and a half later I received a call back. The gentleman asked me several questions regarding what happened. I explained everything in as much detail as possible. I think he felt confident that it wasn't me or something simple like poor ammunition. He said that he wanted me to send it back to them and that they would make it work right. He then went over the return procedure in great detail. They emailed me a UPS call tag and he even called back to make sure I received it. I'll have ten days to ship it back to them. I'm very impressed with the professionalism that he exhibited.

Meanwhile, I went ahead and purchased three Wilson 10rd 9mm magazines. I'll shoot a few rounds using these magazines prior to sending the pistol back just in case they do make a difference. I don't think they will given what occurred, but stranger things have happened.

[pilsbury]

congrats-nice pistol

[Bret]

The quality of the Wilson 10rd 9mm mags looks great. The only thing that I don't like is that they don't fit flush to the bottom of the pistol. While this is fine for target shooting and plinking, it's not so good for concealed carry.

Since I have the new mags, I decided to take one to the range to see if it would make a difference. I cleaned the pistol up some and reoiled it. Since the failures I had occurred with the S&B Range Safe 115gr FMJ and the Federal American Eagle 115gr FMJ, I decided to take 40rds of each along with 40rds of Winchester white box 115gr FMJ for comparison.
http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/4278/051310rangetripammo.jpg

I rotated through each type of ammunition and each mag 10rds at a time. The results were interesting. I had eight failures to extract with the S&B Range Safe 115gr FMJ.
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/5659/sbrangesafe115grfmjftex.jpg
Six of the eight cases actually ended up being stuck in the chamber. I had to punch them out with a cleaning rod. Four of these failures were with the Kimber mag and four were with the Wilson mag, so the mags didn't seem to matter in this regard.

There were no other failures with either the Federal American Eagle 115gr FMJ or Winchester white box 115gr FMJ. The ejection velocity seems to have improved some, but it still doesn't throw cases out with near as much umph as all my other pistols. Ejection was more to the right, but I still got a few cases back in my face, chest, and straight up.

It's obvious that this pistol does not like S&B Range Safe 115gr FMJ. The thing is that I have a number of other 9mm's and have never had the first problem out of this ammo. The only thing that I can figure is that the brass coated steel cases are not contracting as much as regular brass cases in the tight chamber. This is only a guess, so I'd appreciate other opinions.

I'm going to give the pistol a complete cleaning and then take it back to the range to try out some more Winchester white box 115gr FMJ, CCI Blazer Brass 115gr FMJ, and Fiocchi 115gr FMJ. All three of these ammos have proven reliable in my other 9mm's. If the pistol is reliable with them and the ejection improves, I may hold off on sending it back to Kimber. What do you think?

[Bret]

I cleaned the pistol today and found a couple of pretty of decent sized burrs at the bottom of the feed ramps.
http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/9968/feedrampburrs2.jpg
http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/721/feedrampburrs.jpg

It looks like the bottom of the feed ramp is hitting on something, but I couldn't find any damage to the frame. Any ideas what's going on?

[Quack]

was it like that before you shot it?
is it hitting the magazine? even if it was i would think that the magazine would see the damage and not the barrel.

[MD357]

You need to send it back, obviously the barrel is not fitted correctly and most likely your extractor and ejector need some attention.

[Bret]

I looked over the magazine and frame and can't find damage to anything else. I can't say for sure if it was like that before I shot it or not. I sent it back to Kimber today with pictures of the various stoppages. I've got my fingers crossed.

[jrs93accord]

Nice pistol. I have one in .45ACP that I bought about 5 years ago. It is my CCW pistol.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m8/jamesrea_2006/jamesrea_08/jamesrea09/DSC00688.jpg

[Hokie1911]

Nice pistol. I have one in .45ACP that I bought about 5 years ago. It is my CCW pistol.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m8/jamesrea_2006/jamesrea_08/jamesrea09/DSC00688.jpg

I find that interesting that with all of the high end pistolas you and Brian have, you both carry Kimbers daily.

[jrs93accord]

I find that interesting that with all of the high end pistolas you and Brian have, you both carry Kimbers daily.

It is rather uncanny isn't it? It could be that great minds think alike. :supergrin:

[Rinspeed]

It is rather uncanny isn't it? It could be that great minds think alike. :supergrin:



Or is it simple minds think alike. :supergrin: