Talk about an "impulse buy"

Had gone to a hardware store that had the wood cane I wanted for after my knee surgery on Thursday. Right down the street from said hardware store is one of my favorite LGS'. So I had to stop in, right?

Literally the second pistol upon which I laid my eyes went home with me:



Kimber Rimfire Target

Slide is like buttah. Trigger is very nice. (It's adjustable.) I like the target adjustable sights. Has a match grade barrel and bushing. Their price was good, too: $50 below MSRP.

Only minus is the slide does not lock back after the last round. OTOH: Their firing pin design is dry-fire safe.

Really looking forward to getting this bad boy to the range!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ensigmatic,

Sweet!

I also have a Kimber Stainless rimfire I got from a pawn shop many years ago.

Same story as yours. Stopping by just because I was in town. Didn't need anything.
'This one is cheap because it is missing the extractor.' the guy said.
(Kimber will mail you a replacement extractor for free for any reason).
All rimfire extractors are the same part. 17s or 22s.

That and I had to add some carbon fiber grips and a magwell to make it match my Eclipse 10mm.

Ok a little positive story on this gun. My personal experience with Kimber has been truly terrible, I have several center fire ones primarily 1911 9mm and they truly suck despite several tries at fixing. One of the regulars at the range where I RSO weekly steel matches bought a Kimber rimfire like yours to the match a couple of years ago and shot it. Like many rimfires that run in our matches I expected some minor problems on the way and given my terrible Kimber experience I really really expected serious problems. Nope ran fine. Has done so now for at least 2-3 years and what are thousands and thousands of rounds. I hope yours is that good, you will be happy. FWIW>

hrcjon, sorry to hear you've had such bad luck with Kimber

My other Kimber, my first, is a 10mm Custom II GFO, which was a Shot Show special... last year? I was getting pretty bad FTFs (feed) with it. A friend and 1911 aficionado said "No problem" and pointed me to a YouTube video on how to adjust extractor tension. I've reduced those FTFs greatly, but it's not quite carry-ready. I figure one more little nudge and it'll be reliable.

Apparently this is pretty common with 1911s.

This, my 2nd, Kimber gets generally good reviews, so I'm hopeful. Thanks for the positive story

Former SE Michigander - good choose you will have years of fun with it - I have had mine for the past ten year, it likes to run wet, CCI Mini-Mag & Winchester Super X works the best in mine, standard velocity can cause issues, check out Pro Mag's they work as well as the Kimber mags and are cheaper.

Thanks, mich/ca81.

I've read the conversion kits like to be run well-lubed, but the RTs not so much? Guess I'll find out. (I tend to run all my pistols well-lubed, anyway.)

A guns.com Kimber Rimfire Target 1911 review, testing one that had been well broken in, found the one they tested was quite happy with a variety of ammo:

quote:

We ran 10 different brands of ammunition through the Rimfire Target, from light .22 shorts to the heavy, 60 grain Aquila SSS. They all operated in the gun without problem, and the gun cycled just fine.

I'm hoping that's the case with mine, because my stash of .22 RF ammo is all over the map

Wow ensigmatic, that's a beauty! Congrats.
I'm also in S.E. Michigan.
Rod

quote:

Originally posted by sig sailor:
Wow ensigmatic, that's a beauty! Congrats.

Thanks!

After dental surgery, the aftermath having me on industrial-strength pain-killers for a couple days, my G/F at the time brought me a few simple children's toys, saying "When we were sick we always got toys to play with." I think of that pistol as my post-knee-surgery toy

Very nice!! A .22lr 1911 is high on my list. I’m quite jealous of that one.

quote:

Originally posted by Pale Horse:
Very nice!!

Thanks!

I had to have a Kimber Micro 9, the closest I could find to my loved but misengineered Colt Gov't .380 (traded a kinda clunky Sig P238). The Kimber is sweet but then the P365 came out so I now have two great compact 9's.

Forgive my ignorance, the slide doesn't lock back because not enough energy with a .22? Fixable with spring change?

Very nice...I have several .22 conversion units for my 1911's: Advantage Arms, Ciener (2), Colt Ace with the sliding chamber, Sig P226 exchange unit and a Marvel. The Marvel is the overall accuracy champ, but not by much. Ciener is next tied with the Advantage. Then the Sig...Colt a distant last.

All of them share one significant trait...they run best when clean and oiled. CCI Mini-Mags do the best overall as far as reliability goes, but Federal Auto-Match is the most accurate.

For cleaning, it's oil only on the slide rails...no grease whatsoever. I brush out the chambers and bores with a nylon brush or bore snake and carefully Q-tip the breach block face, barrel face and make sure the extractor and its mating cut in the bbl. are crud-free. I also keep my magazine lips wiped down. All of this takes but a cpl of minutes and I try to do it once every 50 round box of cartridges. It's no trouble really and pays off in trouble free shooting.

Best regards, Rod

Congrats!
That’s a NEAT pistol! I wasn’t aware of its existence.

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:


I had to have a Kimber Micro 9, ...

I fondled one of those at the store's indoor range a few years ago. I kind of liked it. Now that I'm hooked on 1911's, who knows? (A full size 1911 in 9mm is next on my list, though.)

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
Forgive my ignorance, the slide doesn't lock back because not enough energy with a .22? Fixable with spring change?

Nope. It's by design. Not optimal, but I can live with it.

quote:

Originally posted by Rodfac:
Very nice...

Thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by Rodfac:
For cleaning, it's oil only on the slide rails...no grease whatsoever.

You've tried grease and it didn't work well?

I figure on first trying what's worked on everything else, incl. Slide Glide on the rails and other sliding bits. We'll see what happens.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
Congrats!
That’s a NEAT pistol! I wasn’t aware of its existence.

Thanks! I hadn't been aware of it, either.

I haven't had it apart, yet. Haven't even been through the user's manual. Been kind of occupied with the knee surgery thing and other matters. But it appears to field strip the same as, or similarly to, a center-fire 1911. Came with a barrel bushing wrench and everything. I hadn't expected that.

Usually I know more about the guns I buy before I buy them. When I wrote it was an impulse buy, I wasn't kidding

"Hey honey, look what followed me home".

"You don't need ANOTHER .45"

heh

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:


I had to have a Kimber Micro 9, ...

I fondled one of those at the store's indoor range a few years ago. I kind of liked it. Now that I'm hooked on 1911's, who knows? (A full size 1911 in 9mm is next on my list, though.)

My search for a P220 led me here years ago, I ended up with a very nice Kimber Ultra Carry .45, broken in and reliable.

Not familiar with the .22 rimfire, how much smaller than the full size frame?

quote:

Originally posted by Ripley:
Not familiar with the .22 rimfire, how much smaller than the full size frame?

Not one whit It's a Government model 1911 in .22 cal.

WOW! A great way to rehab the knee,too!

quote:

Only minus is the slide does not lock back after the last round

Thats how the 22lr conversion kits work for the Sig 226/220 models.

For those it was the design of the mag follower supplied in the mags. There is an interweb hack using followers from an aftermarket company, a little file use and it would lock back.

Finally got the Kimber Rimfire Target to the range today.

Results were mixed. First the bad news: It was a malf-o-matic. Name a failure mode and it exhibited it. Failure to eject, partial ejects, failure to feed--sometimes even failing to strip a round from the mag.

The good news: When I do my part it does its. This is five rounds, slow-fire, seven yards:



This is 13-14 rounds, rapid-ish fire, 7 yards:



It is hella fun to shoot

The other good news is by the time I got to the last mag-and-a-half it started to settle down fly right. I think I had one failure in that time.

One reason for the malfs was I tested it with a wide range of ammo types, including target ammo. I didn't expect the target ammo to work well. It didn't.

Oddly, the ammo that worked best? Plain old Remington bulk pack stuff. Performed even better than the CCI Mini-Mags.

I am not discouraged, or even particularly disappointed. I'm certain part of this was break-in, part of it some of the ammo I tried, and part of it my own fault. I used Slide-Glide Lite on the rails and other sliding bits, and Wilson Ultima-Lube II on the barrel and some other bits. Common wisdom with these guns is don't use grease.

So... I picked up some Lucas gun lube at the LGS. I'm going to check whether it or the Wilson Ultima-Lube is lighter, and use that everywhere, next time.