I’ve done the following project many times to a 1911. I installed an ambidextrous thumb safety to a Kimber Stainless Steel II.

Technique as per MANY times, wrapped leather around the fore end of the frame, and placed it in my vice, snug but not over done. This keeps it put so I can work on it securely. I’ve done this many times, to SA’s, Colts, Rock Islands, ETC.  After the job was done, I went to put the slide back on, and NO FIT!

Upon examination, one of the “lips” of the fore end is slightly BENT. WTF??? There was not nearly enough pressure, and what light tapping by a small rubber gunsmith’s mallet should not have employed enough force to bend these “lips”.

A quick measurement showed them inconsistent, meaning BENT.

Ok, I’ve STOPPED my work! Now I am scratching my head trying to figure out how to proceed.

I don’t want to pronounce such a fine 1911 as “JUNK”, but guys, I am seriously baffled as to HOW! Next is going to be what shall I do about it?

I live in an area where we don’t have “actual” gunsmiths. There is a guy who is a tinkerer like me who is an FFL and does “light gunsmithing”, but in being humble, I am just as good as he is. I’ve been playing with the 1911 on and off for 30 years, and never seen a frame’s metallurgy THAT soft.

I can’t help but feel disappointed. I’ve never had a Colt or a Springfield act like this, and I am not kidding when I say I tightened my vice JUST ENOUGH, and at the very tip of the fore end just to hold the frame in place to work on.

Anyone else have this issue with steel strength from a Kimber? I’ve never worked on a Kimber before, it’s MY pistol, so, I am not worried about it being someone else’s gun, but wow, the level of disappointment I feel is pretty high. So, this pistol now fully disassembled so I can go through it piece by piece to see if anything else is weird, it sits in a plastic zip lock bag until I “feel like messing with it”. I know better than to call Kimber, their CS has been fairly unreliable and “dickish”. So, I am on my own. This may end up a gun that lives in a plastic bag fr a few years until I can locate a real honest to God Gunsmith to work on it. I HATE using a Gunsmith though, I’ve always been able to work on my own guns, from a trigger job to fitting custom parts, to rust bluing. I am a hobbiest, this is what I do for fun.

Please keep responses limited to actual persons who have had this occurs, or other hobbiest gun tinkerers (Techy types) to or gunsmiths familiar with this sort of thing. Thanks guys.

I realize you want to limit this to respondents who have had this happen. But your resulting “N” will be very, very small.

But I’ll answer as a hobby gunsmith (have not worked with a shop for almost 20 years).

I own a number of Kimbers and have worked on a few others and I have never had this issue. But then again I don’t put the front end of frame in a vice to do this kind of work, let alone the very tip. .It’s much safer to put the lower portion of the grip frame in the vice.

I do think Kimber quality assurance has sagged a bit (along with most other large production manufacturers) over the last decade, but it’s not likely to be an issue with the hardening process for the frame.

I strongly suspect you over did the vice by one or two ugga uggas.

I think you’re right about putting too much pressure on the frame in the vice. It really is the weakest part of the frame. It just surprised me though as I’ve done this many times when working on other 1911s. I really didn’t think I applied that much pressure to it though, I tightened it just enough to keep the frame from moving in the vice, having wrapped my (very old) piece of leather that has been what I’ve used for THAT, for a super long time, I thought the leather would not just protect from scratching the frame, but would allow for some “cushion” against any deforming of the frame.

So, I took it to an actual gunsmith, he’s working on it now. We’ll see, he thinks he’s got this. We’ll see. All I can do is hope for the best, and with a lesson learned. Worse case scenario, it gets another frame and becomes a “Frankengun”.

If it’s in a vise I set it up to drive load through the barrel bed / frame bridge.

I am not surprised by your situation, and would be hesitant to blame the manufacturer. However, stainless is inherently softer than carbon steel, so if you are used to carbon frames then that may be the issue.

Ok, that makes sense, I was kind of “WTF” when that happened. I took it to my local gunsmith and the problem was rectified. Still, I wasn’t expecting that. It really threw me.