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A barrel needs to be fitted to the gun, especially on one that has tolerances as tight as a Kimber.

G.A. Heath wrote:A barrel needs to be fitted to the gun, especially on one that has tolerances as tight as a Kimber.

Kimber is a CNC (computer number controlled) machinery shop with very tight quality assurance inspections. While the individual fitting requirement was an absolute for anything but a loose military gun in the past, I'm not sure this is true any more since the tolerances on the machines are now better than what most gunsmiths can do manually.

Brownell's offers drop in barrels that are advertised as fitting Kimbers. If anyone has checked with Kimber on this, I'd be interested in what they had to say.

You can run a drop in barrel in a Kimber, but its not going to run as well as a fitted barrel would. To my knowledge even Kimbers have some fitting done at the factory, you can believe me when I say I have shot 1911s that were built using "Drop in" parts, and its not like shooting an AR built the same way.

I did the same thing with my 1911 after hurricane rita. I was in a hurry to buy ammo and got what I thought was the last box of .45. I should have looked at what the guy handed me.


The good news is my gun no longer jams. I have a springfield 1911 that used to jam once or twice every time I put 50 through it. Well no more, it eats everything I give it now. I guess I scared it.

my kimber hasn't jammed yet with about 300 rounds through it... lol except when the wrong ammo was put into it...but i really dont count that