Kimber Camp Guard 10mm issues. Anyone else?

[Coffindaffer]

I have a Kimber Camp guard I bought a couple months back.I bought it for archery hunting in bear and lion country this September. Beautiful pistol. The fit and finish is great and the ergonomics of it are perfect to me. I personally love the way a 1911 handles. The only major sacrifice is ammo capacity in my opinion. Its still 4 rounds more than a revolver, so I guess its great compromise between the revolver and a double stack polymer gun.




Now that I've said good things, its time for the problems...

Honestly theres only two major things.




1) It is almost impossible to get a fully loaded magazine to lock into place on this thing when the slide is closed. Take one round out, it slips in like butter. Fully loaded, not happening.

Is this the end of the world? No, but its still annoying.


2)The big problem is failure to feed. The first box of ammo I put through it, it happened at random here and there. Now that I've put a few hundred rounds through it, its developed a pattern. The last round in the mag always gets jammed. Not bad, but you have to bump the back of the slide to get it to chamber all the way.



I shot a little bit of premium ammo with a 220gn hard cast flat point bullet, and it didnt have any failures at all whatsoever. Thats the only thing saving my faith in it. Thats the ammo I will actually have in it for defense.


Regardless, I dont feel like a gun that's almost $1500 should be having these type of issues.


Has anyone else run into this with a Kimber and found a fix?



I do not have time to send it back between now and my September elk hunt. So its along for the ride one way or the other.

 

[keystone112]

I don't have a kimber 10mm but have shot thousands of rounds of 45 in 1911s. My suggestion would be to try different brands of magazines. Wilson are top quality but keep an eye on the springs. They will get weak if you leave them loaded for extended periods. I've also read good things about tripp research cobramags but haven't tried them personally.

 

[BjornF16]

I was having a lot of FTF issues...I tried several different magazines...no difference in the FTFs.

Took it to my gunsmith. He worked on the extractor (too tight on the brass).

Haven't had an issue since.

(I realize I could have sent it to Kimber to fix, but honestly, they're the one that let it pass QA/QC...so I'd rather have someone I trust go through the pistol).

 

[Coffindaffer]

I know its not a super common gun, but has no one else owned one and had similar issues?

Thanks for the replies so far.

If I can find a decent gunsmith local to here, I may just let them give it a once over.

 

[JD Jones]

Not on that model but… many Kimbers

FTF is why I woundt buy kimbers going forward. Seemed to always get better with rounds down range but at the price it’s unacceptable. Magazines were never a solution for me

 

[OdinIII]

Magazines and extractor tension is usually where to start with 1911’s.

Extractor tension is easy to check and adjust yourself. There’s probably a YouTube video on it from someone you already know like Wilson Combat and many others.

Do you want flush mags? I would personally go ahead and buy some Wilson or Tripp mags for it but the ones you’ll see recommended the most will not be flush. I think you end up being happier with the extended mags.

Are you loading 8 or 9 in the mag? I think even Kimber gave up on calling their flush mag a 9 round and went back to calling it an 8 round. 9 can be very tight in a flush mag.

 

[BjornF16]

Here is a pretty good video on extractor tension

 

[FarleyMcJohnson]

I dont have that gun but have shot a buddies Kimber a few times, and I always had problems with it loading. Being a machinist, I chalked it up to Kimbers being very high precision in their manufacturing process, where a glock is held to +/-.005 a Kimber is probably held to .001 or less. Get any dirt or grime in there and it will mess with stuff. I could be completly wrong here but its something to think about.

Maybe it just needs more rounds through it to wear it in.

 

[Terrapin]

I gave up on my Kimber 10mm. It was so picky on ammunition that I lost my faith in it performing after 10 days of wallowing around in the dust elk hunting. Beautiful gun and fun to shoot (when it worked). I bought a Glock 29… it has digested every factory load and hand load I’ve fed it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[EdP]

All I hear about Kimbers is how nice the fit and finish is and problems, problems, problems. I would not buy one.

 

[Wapiti1]

Cycling with heavy loads and not lighter tells me the recoil spring is a couple of pounds too heavy. Or you are limp wristing it. Probably the spring.

Springs are cheap and easy to change. Get a 16lb from Wolff. They come with an 18. I'd also recommend extra power springs in the magazines, but you'll hate loading them. With heavy hardcast stock springs may be a little weak to keep the nose from diving.

Jeremy