| Posted: Wed Feb 25th, 2009 11:06 AM |
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DENNIS B
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I just bought a Kimber royal 11 , pistol. This is my first 45 acp 1911. I never heard of breaking in a gun before ,just what can I expect this break in period to acomplish.. Any tips or advise will be apreciated. thank you
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| Posted: Wed Feb 25th, 2009 12:38 PM |
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Charley
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Breaking in will smooth some rough edges, perhaps increase reliablity. I think all new guns need breaking in. The good news is breaking in consists of taking it out and running a couple hundred rounds thru it. Some call it "playing" with a new gun, "breaking in" sounds much more clinical.
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| Posted: Wed Feb 25th, 2009 04:16 PM |
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Dirtkicker
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As Charley says. Parts wear-in and get to know each other. You should have no trouble with your Kimber. If you intend to carry it as a self-defense piece, you should put at least 200-400 rounds through it before trusting it absolutely. You also need to pay particular attention to individual magazine performance and reliability.
Have fun!
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| Posted: Wed Feb 25th, 2009 06:15 PM |
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Charley
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Dirtkicker wrote: As Charley says. Parts wear-in and get to know each other. You should have no trouble with your Kimber. If you intend to carry it as a self-defense piece, you should put at least 200-400 rounds through it before trusting it absolutely. You also need to pay particular attention to individual magazine performance and reliability.
Have fun!
Agreed, especially with the have fun part. If you're not having fun, you're obviously doing it wrong!
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| Posted: Thu Feb 26th, 2009 04:30 AM |
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woodsman777
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in the book that came with my kimber they recommended at least 500 rounds through it to be broke in
also some of the after market mags will cause it some times to fail to come to battery,
I'm taking back all of the chip mcCormick ones I have because of this .probaly try the wilson combat mags,I've heard good things about them
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| Posted: Fri Feb 27th, 2009 03:00 AM |
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Dragon88
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I bought a used Kimber Ultra Carry II, the previous owner only had about 200 rounds through it and sold it because it jammed. First 50 rounds, it jammed FMJ some (4 rounds in 50) and was very unreliable with hollow point. I replaced kimber mag with a Wilson Combat, which helped a little, and continued to fire FMJ through it. After about 400-500 total rounds fired, all jamming problems were resolved. It is now reliable enough to be a carry piece.
This was my break in experience. The previous owner sold it without even completing break in, and I got a great deal.
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| Posted: Sat Feb 28th, 2009 05:21 AM |
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TONK
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I have 3 Kimber 1911 models and yes you sure should break them in always! You first get plenty of ammo and take that trip to the range. Once there simply begin to shoot, shoot and shoot some more etc.
Now before you know it, this pistol will be broke in after about 300 rounds. I clean my pistols after every 50 rounds of break in ammo. You also need to let that pistol cool in between every 3nd clip full of shells OK. Good Luck!
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| Posted: Sun Mar 1st, 2009 06:01 AM |
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SCSlim
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Charley wrote: Breaking in will smooth some rough edges, perhaps increase reliablity. I think all new guns need breaking in. The good news is breaking in consists of taking it out and running a couple hundred rounds thru it. Some call it "playing" with a new gun, "breaking in" sounds much more clinical.
I used to call it "getting used to the gun". Getting used to shooting a new .45 auto takes a couple hundred rounds, at least.
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| Posted: Sun Dec 12th, 2010 12:56 AM |
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getgot
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Just about the time I was rady to ask for my money back on a Custom Target II, all new firing issues ceased. It'll take anything now.
Patience my friend
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| Posted: Sun Dec 12th, 2010 12:50 PM |
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OldStuffer
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Any autopistol needs to be "run in", unless it is already quite, ummm, shall we say "generously toleranced". The mil. 1911's that are so decried about as "innaccurate" because you can't hit a golf ball at 100 yards with them were not designed to be playing card splitters, they were designed, and tolerances specified, to be absolutely 100% reliable when fed teh ammo they were designed for, clean or dirty, well oiled or not so much.
Making a very tight "target" pistol out of an auto is asking for trouble untill parts are "power-fitted" into place and surface in a bit.
Saw a guy bring a brand spanking NEW Les Bahr 1911 to an IDPA competition years ago (State Match, Ks, about Y2K or '01). It'd throw a 1" or smaller group, 25 yards, had a target from Les proving it. It would fail to close fully every 4th round, no matter WHAT he did (clean, again, different oil, AGAIN, clean AGAIN, different oil, more oil, AGAIN, etc, etc.) untill he got about 180 rounds thru it. He was in my group, so I watched it all.
He had several friends there, all of whom were very, ummmm, "sympathetic" to his plight.
One reminded him he offered to sell him the SIG HE was using, for 1/3 the price of the L.B., reminded him several times. ;)
BANG!/BANG!/BANG!/****!!/smack the slide/BANG!/BANG!/BANG!/ ****!!/smack the slide?...........
About 2 in the afternoon, it clerared out, quit choking, and ran fine, including Sunday (next day, rest of stages).
He brought it out UN-FIRED, and not "broken in".
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williamwaco
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I have owned about a dozen 1911's including two very expensive handmade customs. I currently own four Kimbers. 1- .22lr, 2- 9mm Ageis and Target model, 1 - .45 Grand Raptor. These are spectacularly good handguns. 98% as good as the Wilson at half the price.
Yes they DO need to be broken in. New "out of the box" Kimbers are too dry to function reliably. Before you ever fire it you need to field strip it and lube it carefully, especially on the rails. I will bet that new Kimber that jammed did so because it was suffering from the effects of friction.
This is how I do it. Lube it liberally ( too much for normal use ) with a good commercial gun oil. Fire 50 rounds of 230 grain hard ball.
Strip it, clean it, degrease it. Now relube it liberally with JB borepaste. ( Midway USA ) Lube it everywhere: bushing, locking lugs, guide, rails, If it rubs, and you can see it, lube it. Reassemble and cycle the slide 2,000 times. (NO MAGAZINE - NO AMMO PLEASE) This does not take as long as you think but you will not want to do it all in a single setting. ( By the way, Kimber Custom Shop says do not ease the hammer down. Pull the trigger and let it snap.)
Now fire 250 rounds of your normal practice ammo. Yes you may have some dirty gun issues. Now clean it. Really clean and degrease it. Then lube it again with good gun oil and enjoy. This procedure reduced the 25 yard groups of my full size 9mm Kimber from 6 inches out of the box to 2 inches after the 300 round break in. In all honesty, I can't tell that break in did anything to improve the Grand Raptor. It was silky smooth right out of the box.
I never had any feed or jamming problems with any of them and I don't own a non-Kimber magazine.Last edited on Tue Feb 8th, 2011 02:34 AM by williamwaco
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OldStuffer
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DENNIS B wrote: I just bought a Kimber royal 11 , pistol. This is my first 45 acp 1911. I never heard of breaking in a gun before ,just what can I expect this break in period to acomplish.. Any tips or advise will be apreciated. thank you
Choot, at minimum, 200 rounds thru it, then you can mostly figure it's "broken in".
"Break-in" depends really on how "tightly" everything that moves and slides arround is fitted, mostly slide to frame and barrel bushing to barrel.
Autopistols, every single one of them, function on springs against a certain ammount of friction in the slide-rail area. Too much friction adn they can often fail to open far enough to eject reliably (causing "stovepipes"), they can have too little slide velocity to drive the cartrige home fully (failure to go fully 'into battery' ").
"Loosely tolleranced" pistols (such as the original ordinance-specification 1911) and many others really don't HAVE "break-ins", becasue they are not dragging on themselves a lot.
The Barretta aluminum frame CANNOT be fitted extremely tightly to the steel slide, and the barrel is VERY loose in the front of the slide. The Glock has a very loosely fitted barrel as well and the actual rails on all the "plastic pistols" are very small, short affairs, 2 sections of 1/2" rail, not 4" of solid rail like in a 1911. Just some examples.
Mfr's these days make the 1911 a very "tight" pistol, which makes it extremely accurate, as handguns go, but, this increases friction. Saw a gent holster up a BRAND SPANKING BOX-NEW Les Bahr Custom 1911A1 one year at the IDPA Kansas State Match (I think August 2001). Wonderful piece of artwork, beautiful, it'd do 1" @ 25 yards all day long, or better (came with a proof target). Never shot it before this "practical pistol" competition.
Every 4th round would "Fail to go fully into battery".
"BANG! BANG! BANG! f***!!
bang hand on back of slide to close fully (miss the hammer)
BANG! BANG! BANG! f***!!
Repeat, ad infinitum, EVERY MAGAZINE, untill he fired something like 180 rounds, then she ran all 7 from a magazine and ran EVERY magazine, like a top. Between stages he'd go back to his Suburban, re-clean, re-oil it, change oils, find SOMETHING to make it run, untill finally it simply decided it was happy enough and ran. He SHOULD have shot it a couple/few hundred rounds first, oh well, experience as a teacher.
I have no recolection of the above man's name, never saw him before, or after (I got very busy in the mil. a month later), but we were in the same group of 10 shooters all weekend, so I saw his waking nightmare happen, live.
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| Posted: Mon Feb 14th, 2011 10:11 AM |
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sergeant69
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this thread caught my attention as i gave my 70 series commander to my son recently. i had fited a bar sto bbl and various wilson parts to it and carried it as a duty gun for years. now have a MP 40 cal. and am 1911-less. anyway....will retire in a year or so and am thinking about saving up for a kimber for that momentous event. that or a tank of gas. but then i have begun to read on various forums that kimber is having some mfg/reliability issues as of late. heard it won't stand up to a high rd. count. anyone else hear this?
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15th, 2011 05:26 PM |
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LuckyGunner
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I've always done the same cycle for each new pistol. More of a steel pistol issue though. Other than a Glock that needed returned, none of my polymer pistols have ever had an issue.
I disassemble clean and heavily oil. Fire 100 rounds out of it. Rotating magazines and noting any problematic mags. I take it home clean, lube and cycle for a couple days. I'm not sure how often I do it, but it has saved me around 200-300 rounds per pistol. I've never had an issue with a pistol I've done that to. I also try to dry fire (w/ snap caps) a couple thousand times.
I look at it as training for the pistol and I.
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| Posted: Mon Feb 28th, 2011 11:49 PM |
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Legion489
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The Kimber Custom (plain blued model) I bought dealer was a POS! I ordered it for a person who wanted a Christmas present and the gun LOOKED BE-A-U-TFUL! The slide felt like it was on rollers, smooooth. Then I made the fatal mistake, I tried the trigger pull. I have no idea what it actually was, I'm guessing at about 75 lbs, and I needed both hands to pull it and no measure I had could measure it. After dropping the hammer a few hundred times, so that it felt like about half of what it was, I was able to use one hand at least, and measured the pull at 36lbs 6 oz. Wonderful. Next I tried the mag, loaded up a few rounds to see if it would feed. The mag would not feed with ANY cartridge I tried, factory ball (WWB, Rem, Federal), handload, NOTHING! The pistol would load with other mags however, that is when I found problem three, the extractor was unfinished!!! No hooks were cut!! WTF?!?! Was this gun NEVER tried at the factory?!? I SERIOUSLY think NOT! This was suppost to be a Christmas present, ever try try to tell someone the gift they bought is junk and it won't be back for 3-4 months from the factory?!
Long story short(er), I gave it a trigger job, got the pistol AT LEAST an oz lighter after all the burrs were polished off (yes, really), threw the mag, extractor, PLASTIC (Good Heavens! Is NOTHING scared?!) mainspring housing away and now it is "OK". Oh yes, in case you are saying "Well anyone can say anything and who knows?" The old INDEPENDENT AMERICAN MAG (sadly out of print now, but CDs of all the issues are available) actually published the story of this junker, so you can go read the whole story if you want.
Talked to a world famous pistolsmith friend and he just laughed and said this was fairly typical of Kimbers that come through his shop. He guts them and puts parts of KNOWN quality in and throws the mags away and puts in good mags as he has never seen a Kimber mag that he thought was much good.
ALOT of guns I have ordered were, well, not good, but this one took the cake! The reason many shooters don't see all these things is the dealer sorts them out and send them back before the end user gets stuck with them. I may write a book on all the junk guns I have had to return to the factory and the service (or LACK thereof!!) I received.
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| Posted: Tue Apr 26th, 2011 12:33 PM |
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Pete D.
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Y'know....I am usually skeptical about break in periods for pistols. But...some of you fellows make a good argument.
My feeling, still, is that if a gun needs to be "broken" in - parts mated, smoothed, residual burrs worn off, etc. - that should have been done at the factory by the manufacturer. 500 rounds to break in a .45? That's over $200 of ammo.
When I buy a gun, I want it to work reliably from the get go; so far, all of my semis have done that so I take exception to the idea that "all" need a break in to be reliable.
If I had paid the $$$ for a Les Baer and it did not work 100% out of the box, I'd be really upset.
Pete
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