Springfield Loaded Stainless vs Kimber Stainless II

[fyrfytrcwd]

Sorry guys, but I would choose the Kimber instead. Not because I'm a huge fan of Kimber (have 14 of their pistols, and a mixture of 23 other 1911's which are mostly SA with a few high-end customs in there for good measure ) In this price range, it's about the best out there. Last time I checked, you could find one for around $800-850 new. The guy I go to has one right now for $789 brand new, and will negotiate a little, or at least throw in a couple of free mags...

Fyr

[WilliamWallace]

i wouldn't... i spent $1200 on my first pricey 1911 and a year later still wish i hadn't done it. my Warrior has ~675 rounds through it and still FTF or FTRB (not sure which, i was so frustrated last time that i didn't even look). i have had it for around a year and just feel like shedding man tears every time i think about it. it has the amazing talent of failing with any 4 different brands of magazines. i wanted so badly for it to be the dream that Kimber lovers say they are, but it just keeps letting me down. it almost has me to the point where i am ready to give up on the 1911 platform as a whole, though i like it so much.

i know that people say "any maker can have a lemon every once in awhile" but when it is my hard earned money and i had a choice to make on what i bought... well, i placed my trust in a company and now have a lot of money tied up in something that i will take a serious loss on if i get rid of it. it's a real shame...

[bigun]

Originally Posted by WilliamWallace

i wouldn't... i spent $1200 on my first pricey 1911 and a year later still wish i hadn't done it. my Warrior has ~675 rounds through it and still FTF or FTRB (not sure which, i was so frustrated last time that i didn't even look). i have had it for around a year and just feel like shedding man tears every time i think about it. it has the amazing talent of failing with any 4 different brands of magazines. i wanted so badly for it to be the dream that Kimber lovers say they are, but it just keeps letting me down. it almost has me to the point where i am ready to give up on the 1911 platform as a whole, though i like it so much.

i know that people say "any maker can have a lemon every once in awhile" but when it is my hard earned money and i had a choice to make on what i bought... well, i placed my trust in a company and now have a lot of money tied up in something that i will take a serious loss on if i get rid of it. it's a real shame...

William have you tried adjusting the extractor tension? Go to 1911.com and the how to page it will tell you what to do. Usually if a 1911 doesnt run right its either extractor or magazine related. Also check for a burr on the face of the extractor.

[WilliamWallace]

i hadn't tried that yet because i was concerned about screwing something up, in which case Kimber wouldn't fix it...

[AZXD]

Originally Posted by Magzilla

SA loaded all the way. I'm very happy with the service and turn-around time they have provided when I needed them. No questions asked either.

It may have been posted here once already, but if you haven't read this thread on the 1911forum you should. It's a great example of what SA is all about and if you don't have 100% confidence in SA's customer service after reading this you're nuts. Read the initial post and then the problem with pics are at the bottom of page 2. Then go to the 2nd post on page nine is what Springfield did for him. AMAZING!!!

http://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=174946

That post should be an advertisement about what customer service is supposed to be.
Thanks!

[Lazarus]

My Kimber has been good to me.

[Delija]

Originally Posted by bigun

The Kimber will be much smoother from the start. All of the Loaded's ive handled including one of my own are much rougher internaly than the Kimber. That said the Kimber is also more accurate. They are both perfect as far as function goes.

This is very interesting for me to read. I myself was in the same position as the original poster about 3 years back, and had actually left a deposit on a Kimber - but for reasons unrelated to your post, I ultimately got my deposit returned and bought an SA Loaded at a different store (under the same ownership - a small chain of relatively small gun shops under common ownership).

What is related to what you say, and I don't for one second doubt that what you say is true in your case, is the fact that my SA (stainless 9151) is as nicely a finished firearm as I have ever owned. And I have owned many different guns. But this was only my second 1911 (first being a mid 1980s Colt Gold Cup that was horribly unreliable).

I realize that there is somewhat of a "lottery' possible with these guns since they are fitted and finished by hand.....and obviously in such a method of production, each piece can and will differ to some degree (but with all theoretically falling withing the established parameters of whatever level of quality control is determined by each manufacturer).

And granted, when I bought mine, I bought it at a local shop where I got to examine several of the same model.....dry fire them, look at the finish, field strip...pretty much anything reasonable (too bad we cannot ever actually test fire a new gun....and even that does not seem unreasonable, but seems to be the way it is).

So yes, I took the gun with the trigger that felt best to me. Finishes (at least exterior and quick looks at them just field stripped) on all -it was four or five different 9151s - all appeared to be of equal quality.

But after becoming an owner and getting the thing stripped down beyond a simple field strip (for an initial cleaning and lubrication) I really got to see the exquisite workmanship put into this gun. I could see where the last few digits of the serial number was lightly etched (obviously by hand) onto several different parts of the gun, so clearly the fitting was done in a manner that the frame was matched to that particular frame, as was the barrel and bushing. There are zero tooling marks anywhere at all inside the gun. The hammer bar, ramp and throat were very cleanly polished and the fit of the slide to frame (and the bushing) seemed almost too tight. In fact I was afraid the gun would not function because when I hand racked the slide, when the disconnect would slip into the hammer bar notch when the slide was nearly fully retracted, it seemed that the slide did not quite want to return to battery.....but the sales person (who I trusted and had bought several guns from in the past) assured me that was a good quality, and that in actual use the slide would (of course) never 'hang' on the disconnect.

Bottom line is this gun both internally and externally is a thing of beauty. The finish is equal to guns costing more than double the price.

Granted, to this day I believe I got somewhat lucky and found a gun that whoever did the final fitting took probably more than the average pride in his or her work. Four pound trigger out of the box, etc.

But still....it would be virtually impossible for me to believe that someone decided to go above and beyond in their workmanship outside the expected. After all, SA is in business to make a profit on each gun. A time constraint has to exist on the fitting of each gun (obviously more or less depending on model), but I would not think that anyone would take it upon themselves to spend an inordinate amount of time fitting (in this case a 9151) just because he or she was in the mood. A Mil spec would get 'x" amount of time for fitting, a 'Gi' a different amount of time, a 'Pro" or any of the different levels of the "loadeds' must be allotted some reasonably uniform time to be put through final assembly. So even though my gun MAY have a better fit and finish than another 9151, how much difference could it really be? This is not a custom shop gun where time may not be a constraint if it interferes with quality in any way.

This is pretty much a middle level Springfield...probably more toward the lower end than the higher. After all, below the basic "Loaded' (which is really what a 9151 is), there are only the "GI" and "Mil-spec" models. Above (more costly) are literally dozens of different SA 1911s.

As for accuracy, that too is in no small part a result of final fitting. My eyesight is not good enough to attempt groups at 25 yards, and I don't have access to a machine rest. But shooting off a sandbag at 35 or 40 feet, even I can consistently group five shots all touching. And certainly I am not a shooter of any unique skill. It is just that the gun is inherently that accurate.

If I had gotten the Kimber as originally planned would I have the same impressions of that gun? Very possibly so. Maybe "likely so" would be putting it better.

But to say "The Kimber will be much smoother from the start. All of the Loaded's ive handled including one of my own are much rougher internaly than the Kimber" seems in my experience to be a statement that is hard to swallow.

Unless of course you are not comparing apples to apples. To compare a $400 SA 'GI' to a high end Kimber...then yes, I'd expect the Kimber to be "much smoother' and possibly for the SA to be "much rougher internally"

But to compare two examples at the same price level? I cannot see how such a statement could hold up.

The internals of my 9151 are as "smooth" as seems possible. I recently closely examined a SIG X5 9mm I was interested in buying. I found the internals to be finished at virtually the same level as my 9151.

Beyond having no tooling marks whatsoever, and seeing that the inside of both the frame and slide were obviously hand polished, how "rough' can such a firearm be? (I refer here to both the SIG and the 9151 SA).

Is it possible that a company like SA would have such wide parameters that one gun could be "rough" and one finished with obvious pride of workmanship within the same model line and both pass their QC levels? I don't see how a company as large and as successful as today's Springfield could permit such discrepancies to exist. It just makes no sense at any level.

Then again, I do hear a lot of "bashing' (not saying this is what you are doing). And I also have read and heard much in the way of under-estimation......

Example: When I bought my Kel-Tec P32 (second generation), I stopped on the way home from the gun store at Home Depot to get what I needed to do the "fluff and buff' as suggested on the Kel-Tec owner's board. But when I got home and took the gun apart, there was absolutely nothing to fluff or to buff. Why? I can only think that the quality control had improved enough between the first generation and the second (mine was an early second) to make such work unnecessary.

I recently bought a Polish P64. I'd read and heard how junky they were. I certainly did not expect much out of a gun that was unfired and sold for $140 in today's gun market. But I took a chance on a gun that seemed interesting and happened to be a size I wanted for possible CCW. I took that gun apart almost to the last screw (pretty much necessary to remove 25 years of cosmoline and whatever gunk accumulates on a never issued gun from 1976). The thing is built like a tank and is scary accurate. But I suppose because it isn't an East German or Soviet Makarov, it is in vogue to call it a piece of "junk". It's only the owners that seem to agree they are fine guns. (In fact many on the P64 owners forum consider them among the best of all semi-autos....I wouldn't go nearly that far, but it is FAR from being 'junk').

I guess anything is possible. Maybe your SA 1911 that you feel came out of the box as "rough' is an older gun and not up to the standards of today's SA 1911s.....I don't know. I suppose there could be quite a few explanations.

But the bottom line is that it was not Springfield owners that convinced me to switch from the Kimber I had put a deposit down on to the SA.....it was actuallly the Kimber owners on the 1911 forums that did.

Originally Posted by AZXD

That post should be an advertisement about what customer service is supposed to be.
Thanks!

I remember seeing that post not that long ago. It is an amazing story, but not in the least bit surprising. SA has taken the old adage 'the customer is always right' to new highs. And how could any paid advertisement possibly compete with that story? The cost of a new gun would be a small fraction of any kind of advertising SA could buy. But it is amazing that they actually repaired the damaged gun rather than replaced it....which would seem so much more simple and probably less costly. But I guess that's the real point....the cost wasn't the issue. It was the ability and willingness of SA to do what they did...which seemed almost impossible.

Peace,
D.

[WilliamWallace]

Originally Posted by Delija

But to say "The Kimber will be much smoother from the start. All of the Loaded's ive handled including one of my own are much rougher internaly than the Kimber" seems in my experience to be a statement that is hard to swallow.

Why is his experience, as he clearly stated, any more difficult to swallow than your claim to have a Loaded that is fit and finished as well as 1911s twice it's price? It's his experience... just as yours is your experience. You're saying, "You're story is hard to swallow, believe mine."

I posted about a year ago, on the m1911 board I think, that I went looking for a 1911 and handled a Colt and a Loaded. My experience at the time, as I posted, was that the Loaded was far rougher than the Colt, which surprised me. Just cycling the slide suggested they were on two different levels. Now that was, admittedly, the only Loaded I have ever handled, but my Kimber is also the only Kimber I have ever handled and it is pure butter when cycled. Strip the name off of them and you would never place that Loaded that I handled in the same class as my Kimber.... that Loaded. Not your Loaded or any other Loaded, just the one I have handled... as he is discussing the one's he has handled.

Originally Posted by Delija

Is it possible that a company like SA would have such wide parameters that one gun could be "rough" and one finished with obvious pride of workmanship within the same model line and both pass their QC levels?

Obviously, the answer to your question is "Yes!"... if the rough one is at or above the QC failure line, then it goes out the door. They certainly aren't going to yank your gun just because it is the epitome of what a Loaded model can be.

Some people say they have 7 Kimbers that have never failed, while others can't get one through a mag without failure. The same is true of SA or RIA. I currently have a RIA that is pretty rough around the edges. It sounds funny when cycled and looks/feels cheap. There are tons of people who love them and say, "This is as good as any...". Nope, not mine. You pick it up and you can immediately tell it is in the cheap gun range, though there is nothing wrong with that. The point is that myself and many other RIA owners disagree about the quality of our weapons.

Hell, go to the Nighthawk board at m1911.org and read about the ones that are going back! They are certainly more "hand fit" than any Loaded and cost more than twice as much, but they still have problems sometimes. It happens. Maybe you got the crown jewel of Loadeds.

I know 3 guys at the m1911 board who have the exact same Kimber as I do. They all have zero failures. I have many, period. They are well documented on this board and others, as they happened. When I came back from the range, I hopped on here and posted my frustrations. My Kimber issues are well known here and they are my experience.

Can guns in the same line and price point be vastly different? Could my gun, which is the exact same model that others find to be flawless, possibly not be the same as theirs?

Yep... obviously!

[bigun]

As ususal whenever I post my experience someone takes offense. If you were close enough I would let you see for yourself and fire also. The springfield has the adjustable Bomars which are superior to the Kimber factory targets but the kimber even though it has many thousands of rounds through it is more accurate has a better trigger and is much smoother. In all fairness I am comparing a Hardchromed Custom Target 2 to a factory stainless Loaded Springfield so the ball bearing feel of the gun may just be the feeling of 2 polished hardchrome surfaces running together but I swear it is as smooth or smoother than a custom fitted gun of twice its price range.

[Delija]

Originally Posted by WilliamWallace

Why is his experience, as he clearly stated, any more difficult to swallow than your claim to have a Loaded that is fit and finished as well as 1911s twice it's price? It's his experience... just as yours is your experience. You're saying, "You're story is hard to swallow, believe mine."

(edit)

Can guns in the same line and price point be vastly different? Could my gun, which is the exact same model that others find to be flawless, possibly not be the same as theirs?

Yep... obviously!

Yes, you are correct and after re-reading what I wrote this morning after an entirely sleepless night (horrible insomnia brought on by stress), I realize now (after finally catching a few hours of sleep) that the way I expressed myself was not how I intended.

My point, which you DID seem to pick up on (so at least one person "got" what I meant to convey better than I would expect since I did such a poor job of trying to make my point) ---in essense that it seems absurd, but nonetheless a reality that the parameters of what is and is not acceptable as far as QC in a company as large and profitable, and presumably well run as Springfield would allow such a wide gap between the best and worst of what is (apparently) good enough within a specific model of any of their 1911s.

So yes, I used a very poor bit of wording when I said that I found the statement "hard to swallow'....for that I apologize. Certainly I did not mean in any way to cast any aspersion on the veracity of "Bigun"s opinion and experience.

I suppose my lack of sleep and my lack of clear headedness combined to make my long rambling post into an almost unintelligible bunch of babble. (as this one is seemingly developing into as well....LOL).

I should have just said that I was and continue to be amazed at the inconsistency of these guns.....all of them. My Colt Gold Cup was the only unreliable handgun that I ever owned (other than a .22 Jennings I bought just out of curiosity--I wanted to see if an American made gun could be as poorly unreliable as the rumors were, and it proved to me that indeed a gun that sold brand new for $50 (or whatever it was back then) really was severely over-priced.

I have no doubt that there are SA loadeds that look just like mine that are 'rough' on the inside. Just as I am equally sure that the vast majority of like-priced Kimbers are as well finished and fitted as my 9151. A gun I have claimed more than once on this board that I felt was a stroke of luck in relative terms.

In the last post, I made a reference to the fact that the reason I took back my deposit on the Kimber had nothing at all to do with that particular gun. I examined it just as I examined the Springer and the workmanship seemed to be indistinguishable to my layman's eyes. I made a brief study of what to look for when buying a new 1911 that time after my mistake 20 years earlier with the Colt.....a gun I just bought because of the name and the looks and the reputation (and yes, the status). But a gun I bought with no knowledge of what to look for when buying.

It was our resident gun guru "Brickboy" who pointed me in the right direction and gave me a list of a half dozen or so forums devoted to the 1911 or with very informative sections about them (sites like THR, in particular).

So even that time being somewhat well informed....vastly more so than I had been when I bought my Colt all those years earlier, the bottom line was that it was the tone of discontent I sensed among the Kimber owners that I felt no such reflection of at all among the Springfield owners.

Granted, some of the grumbling was about the then "new" design changes like the external extractor. "Purists" will find fault with anything just out of "purity" as they see it (the SAs took and still take plenty of heat for the ILS system which I still fail to see as an issue that can just be ignored). I wouldn't even venture a guess as to how many threads I have seen on how to swap out the ILS system....usually started by people who haven't even bought their Springfield guns yet, or who have but are in their waiting period.....all set to spend money to fix what they have no reason to believe is "broken". (And so it goes).

At that time there were polls about customer service on virtually all the major 1911 manufacturers. And assuming that the votes were on the up and up, it seemed that the Kimber owners expressed regret and frustration where the SA owners did not.

That along with the difference in warranties (don't know if things have changed since then) combined with the fact that the guy that owned the local "chain" of four or five stores in this area refused to stock Kimbers in the one store he managed himself. (He owned, but did not manage the store where I had left a deposit on the kimber) -

When I talked with him about it, he told me he didn't want to deal with Kimber's support. Now customer support is different than the support the dealers and distributors are involved with. So if he had problems with Kimber's support that had no necessary reflection on the kind of support afforded to retail customers. And for all I know, it could have been a matter of a personality conflict or anything at all that made him not sell Kimbers in the one store he actively managed.

In fact as I got to know him better in the ensuing years, I've come to realize that he just is a stubborn and highly opinionated guy.

He was the first retailer I am aware of that charged more for the equivalent XDs than for the Glocks....still does to this day. Virtually every Glock he sells is priced at $500 even. While he shamelessly tags his XDs at $100 or so more. And yep, he sells them. In fact he sold my well maintained but well used XD9 SC for me on consignment for $450 over a year ago! That was $100 dollars more than what I paid for it a couple of years earlier.

So yeah, customers are influenced by salespeople. But this case where an owner of several stores refused to stock kimbers ONLY in the one store he actively managed.....well I guess that had a big impact on my decision to change from a gun I was so excited about for so long.....before having my mind changed for me. LOL

Anyway....heavy rambling again. Guess the two hours of sleep wasn't enough.

But I'll stick to my contention that it seems beyond odd that companies like Springfield and Kimber can have such lax parameters of quality control. When I picked up the SIG X-5 it was exactly what I expected. I feel that if I had a selection of 100 of them to choose from, it wouldn't much matter which one I took home with my hard earned dollars.

But to enter a "lottery" when plunking down $800 or more on a Springfield or Kimber (or ANY gun at such prices), you should know what you are getting. But apparently such is not the case

Hopefully I will be more successful both in expressing my thoughts and in getting my "ZZZZZs" from here on in!

LOL

Peace,
Very Tired D.

PS:

Originally Posted by bigun

As ususal whenever I post my experience someone takes offense. If you were close enough I would let you see for yourself and fire also.

(edit)

. In all fairness I am comparing a Hardchromed Custom Target 2 to a factory stainless Loaded Springfield so the ball bearing feel of the gun may just be the feeling of 2 polished hardchrome surfaces running together but I swear it is as smooth or smoother than a custom fitted gun of twice its price range.

Bigun....I regret I did not see this post when I started to respond to "William Wallace' (above). But I hope my message came across to you anyway....my apology for the way I used the term "hard to swallow".

And certainly I did not "take offense" at all. As I said, I just was too tired and too foggy headed to express my thoughts the way I intended.

I agree with both you and "William Wallace" - ....guns like we are talking about that are essentially "kits" that are hand fitted at the end of the production line seems to cause what i have been referring to as a 'lottery' among buyers. (My first piece of advice to a prospective buyer of any 1911 (other than perhaps something like the new Taurus which I believe is made of 100% proprietary parts, would be NOT to buy a gun in this price range on the Internet since it seems so crucial to see each example as an individual finished piece...

As for your comment about the feel of the hard chrome smoothness....I agree completely....the stainless on stainless of my gun is very tight and smooth, but nowhere near my buddy's hard chromed Browning Hi-Power. A gun he had hard chromed after leaving it to the elements and rusting enough that something had to be done. The hard chrome is slick and the smoothness of racking the slide is exceptional.

I got paranoid about galling on my stainless SA, so I fairly recently started using fishing reel grease (sythetic, non petroleum) on the rails rather than the usual dousing of Breakfree. Makes a huge difference.

BTW. it was the Custom Target II that I had so eagerly put my deposit on. Only reason I didn't take it home was the one I got to fondle was already sold to someone who was subjected to the waiting period (no CCW). So they had to order one for me. In the meantime I kept seeing all the "polls' going on at the time on one or two of the 1911 forums about the customer service of Kimber vs. SA.

I don't recall anyone having implied that the SA was the superior gun. It was all about customer service. (This was 3 or 4 years ago). And the comparitive warranties.

But the gun itself? Felt great. Sorry I never got to shoot it. But they did let me field strip it and just like the SA I ended up with, I saw no evidence of roughness of any kind in the interior finish.



Boy if this post doesnt prove that exhaustion can take you off topic, nothing will.





Peace,
D.