Kimber malfunction

[EMSEVEN]

I have a Kimber Custom Target .45 cal pistol. that was working fine. Fired 3 or 4 hundred rounds. Now it will not cycle properly. The empty casing is ejected but then the slide will not return to the completely closed position. This happens with both my reloads and commercial loads. I checked my reloads several times for length and charge. Seems to be OK. What went wrong?

[TheFlashG]

Check the chamber for any gunk or obstruction.
Check the recoil spring assembly - installed and working correctly?
Perhaps field strip and reassemble after a good cleaning and lube.

[OlderThanDirt]

Clean and lube your gun?

[lastinline]

Had something similar happen with a recent Kimber. Scrubbed chamber, cleaned whole pistol completely. Did same thing after 75 shots of Federal new ammo.
Sent it back to Kimber. They said pistol was out of spec for frame, barrel, and slide. I told them to keep the pistol. It was dog crap. Done with them. Tisas is much better people say.

[stormvet]

In my life I have owned 7 Kimbers, four 5” barrels, two 4”barrels and one 3” barrel. The four and three inch barreled guns worked almost flawlessly from day one, malfunctions were very rare even with my reloads. Still own the two 4” guns, one I’ve had for 24 years and will never sell.

Now the four 5” guns are a different story, two of them had the same problem as yours. What I discovered was that the chambers were both too short and too tight. Used a finish reamer to open up and lengthen the chamber just a tad, no more feeding issues what so ever after that. Still have one of those to this day it’s been a good gun with many thousands of rounds fired without issue.

One of the theories I’ve heard behind this is that Kimber does not replace there reamers often enough, instead resharpening them too often causing them to be out of spec and leading to short tight chambers it’s plausible.

[tacticalcity]

As others have said clean the heck out of the gun. To include the rails on the frame and grooves on the slide. Keep those oiled from now on. They sell gun oil in small bottles with a thin needle specifically for this purpose. Works great. Also consider replacing the recoil spring. It could be worn out. Depending on the tolerances of your gun it might have been too light in the first place. 1911s are fussy guns with tighter than usual tolerances. That makes them accurate as heck but it also makes them temperamental. Some more so than others. They need to be cleaned and oiled regularly, and if the springs start to get worn out it messes everything up. Especially if there is carbon build up somewhere on the gun that is causing things to seize up.

[Scotty]

Pull the barrel out and clean it. Take a Q-tip and run it inside the chamber to see if the fibers snag on anything. If it does, lightly polish the chamber.

1911's often come with a chamber that is on the tighter side of the tolerance. Do you have a case gage? Drop each round of your ammo into the gage. It should just plop in under its own weight. If it doesn't, your ammo is at fault.

You can also check the ammo with your removed barrel. Again, the round should plop in under its own weight.

[EMSEVEN]

I'm on it, Thank You

[newbie1234]

(1) Clean (polish if you can) the feed ramp
(2) Do you have "1911 Recoil Spring Calibration Pack" ? Factory standard recoil spring is 16#. Try 17# and18# recoil spring and see how is it .
And ask the same question in "Gunsmith board".

[ABR]

Frustrating spending that kind of coin for a POS. I still have 2 Kimber pistols. A stainless TLE with 20k rounds through it, never a malfunction. My K6S is a dream to shoot as well.
Sorry for your troubles OP

[walmart_ar15]

SS model? SS are purtty but it can gauge. 3 to 4 hundred rounds means the gun are just worn in. If it is my gun here is what I do.

Use fine steel wool and polish the rail area on frame and slide. Take out the extractor to make sure it is tensioned correctly. Oil the gun at the rails and disconnector. Replace the recoil spring if u like.

If not a ramp barrel, another issue is the barrel are settled too far back during load cycle. Back to Kimber if that's case.

[Dan_Eastvale]

My Kimber micro carry pistol always had malfunctions even with trips back to Kimber for repair...
Beautiful little thing but crapola.

[ar15barrels]

I have a Kimber Custom Target .45 cal pistol. that was working fine. Fired 3 or 4 hundred rounds. Now it will not cycle properly. The empty casing is ejected but then the slide will not return to the completely closed position. This happens with both my reloads and commercial loads. I checked my reloads several times for length and charge. Seems to be OK. What went wrong?

Were the first 400 rounds all commercial and you have just now started introducing your reloads?
Length of the cartridge won't stop a round from chambering but too much bullet sticking out of the case can if the bullet is larger than the throat in the barrel.
It's common for lead bullets to run 0.001" larger than jacketed bullets and it's common for factory throats to not accept the 0.001" larger bullets.
Throating the barrel for the larger bullets will solve the issue if that's the issue.

[mausercat]

I have owned 2 Kimbers and they both needed work. The 10mm I own had the extractor spring too tight and would not let pick up cartridges well. The 9mm also had to have the extractor tension adjusted and I used a Dremel rubber polisher to smooth the breech face, the chambers and the ramps. This took about 3 hours for each gun, but they both ran well after that.

If you send your gun to Kimber all they do is swap out parts and leave the same poor finish on the breech face and the barrel. The extractor will work when you hand cycle it but not when you fire it.

Kimbers are not bad guns but the extra hour it takes to make sure everything is right is not spent by the factory.

[smoothy8500]

Fired 3 or 4 hundred rounds...

Several people suggest full strip and clean....

I'm on it, Thank You

Sounds like cleaning was the issue? Keep us informed if it took care of it.