tomtwodogs

This may have been asked before, but I have not been able to find the answer in this forum yet...I have a Pro Eclipse II and it is a nice shooter, especially after Kimber replaced the first barrel that shot 7 inches low and 5 inches to the left. (Turn around time by Kimber with no questions asked was 5 days) To make this gun 100% reliable what parts must be replaced, tweaked, cajoled,etc.? While doing reload drills, it instantly occurred to me that a mag well bevel would be nice, as well as rounding off the bottom of the MSH where it tends to cut ones palm heel a bit. Hey Dane! What would be your "Kimber Factory Wish List" , so that you could just concentrate on the fun stuff?

Stephen A. Camp

Hello. There are certainly much more knowledgeable Kimber shooters out there than I am, but my view is that very little "needs" to be done,depending upon the particular Kimber.

I have but one Kimber Classic Custom .45 and the only changes I made were:

Stocks: Couldn't stand the rubber ones so I changed to checkered rosewood.

Trigger: The trigger that came in the gun hung up during the press, so I fitted a new aluminum long trigger.

Slide stop: The one that came in the gun never broke, cracked, etc, but just didn't activate the slide lock with certain magazines so I replaced it with a Brown.

I did have to file down the front sight just a tad to bring POI to POA.

Of course, that doesn't mean that there isn't more that I want to have done and when the day comes that I do this, I'll send the gun to Dane Burns.

Best.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Stephen A. Camp on 2001-11-25 10:43 ]</font>

Jake Salyards

I've owned a few kimbers so I would like a stab at this. First off, the plastic mainspring housing is a bit sharp, I fixed this with my wife's fingernail file and very gently broke the edge. That was a good immediate fix, but I don't like plastic on 1911's. I would say get a new mainspring housing of your choosing. Also, I was never comfortable with the slide stop on the kimbers. I would think that piece takes and incredible pounding and I would want a really good one in it's place. I think that just drops in so no problem there.

Is your gun blued? I would do a bazillion presentations from leather in dry fire practice and shoot the gun as much as I could afford (money and time wise). When it needed a reblue job I would send it to a good smith for a nice dehorn job on the complete gun, a trigger job if it needs one, and maybe have a tritium vial put in the front sight if that kind of thing floats your boat. Also, I don't care for full length guide rods. So I would change that out for a standard colt style recoil system. I think I am in the minority here on this though. The reason I don't like it is interesting though: I think it discourages people from taking apart their gun and inspecting it and cleaning it, plus, it is just one more thing that is too complicated for my tastes. If I could find a sling shot that would fire 230 grain rocks at 900fps that's probably what I would carry; I do admit that finding a holster would be a drag. Grips are kind of personal, I like to have something a bit different than factory grips. Do they work any better? I doubt it, but I just think that is one area where you can express a little personal style without endangering the reliability of your gun. I still like the look of hex head screws, but the darn things keep backing out on me and I am becoming less impressed with them as time goes on. Anyway, sounds like you have a nice pistola there. Do you have good leather for it? It deserves something nice I would say. How about good mags? I think bad mags are responsible for over half the reliability packages being performed out there. Good luck. When you're knee deep in brass, let the gun cool off for a few minutes while you sweep up. Then start over.

Good shooting. Jake

Rikb

On my Custom Stainless I replaced the plastic mainspring hsng with a Smith Alexander arched/checkered housing,installed wood grips,a GI type guide rod with a 18 1/2 lb spring and got several CMC and Wilson 8 rd magazines, keep it clean and shoot the heck out of it, about 5K rounds so far and no failures that couldn't be blamed on ammo (reloads)or bad mags. Rick

Dane Burns

Great question :roll:

For my personal guns I do at the minimum the HP package on my web site...but that is me. I do this for a living and don't have time to waste when I want to shoot. So I do at least those mods and usually more to a new and unfired gun if it is going to be my personal gun.

I might suggest you take your gun and go shoot it. If it aint broke don't fix it :grin:

If you have problems after several 1000 rounds, then fix what you think needs fixing and at that time it is worth looking at the packages I offer to up grade a Kimber.

tomtwodogs

Thanks everyone for the kind input. I realize that by shooting a paltry 100 rounds through it and my TR Special every week , that I am practically in the non shooter class compared to most who frequent this forum. I am just trying to hurry my way along the learning curve with this type of weapon before I go to Thunder Ranch in February. Forums like this one have saved me a lot of frustration, money and , for that matter finger and hand skin in the past...but that was with my 45 long colts. By the way, what is the wait on a HP package these days?

RdB

I bought my Gold Match in March of '98. I have replaced the barrel bushing with an EGW unit, replaced the mainspring housing with Ed Brown's "Wedge". I also added mag well funnel (I don't remeber who makes it) and a Pearce rubber finger-groove grip under the factory grips (rosewood) I added 3-dots to the sights and radiused the "wings" of the rear sight (adjustables, of course)

I had the barrel and bushing hard-chromed.

Did this stuff NEED to be done? No. They are just some things I've done to make the gun suit me better. I use this gun in local Pin and Plate shoots. It has many thousands of round through it.