Why was the Kimber Solo such a bad pistol?

Kimber's quality control would be my first guess. I won't be buying any more Kimber 1911s for sure.

Kimber spends all their money on full-page color ads in every gun rag instead of on quality control. They've earned their reputation.

I have a friend who has a Solo and loves it. I personally think that they are a bit overpriced for what they do. But my friend swears his a great shooter and he can afford anythng. As far as Kimber being bad guns, with the exception of the run of external extractor 1911's they did for a couple of years, I don't find that reputation deserved. I worked in a gun shop and sold plenty of them and saw very few returns or issues. I carried a 4" Kimber for years and shot it excellently. But since I switched to 9's as my main carry Glocks became my primary.

Having said that Kimber offers excellent fit and finish, comparable to some far more expensive 1911's, and I found they were one of the most accurate guns you could buy out of the box. Kimbers are tight and need break in, but that's common with high end 1911's. Kimber is the best selling 1911 by far and I do suspect much of their bad reputation comes from a jealous competition. I certainly would take a Kimber 1911 over their competition in the same price range (Springfield, Sig, S & W). Are there better 1911's ? Yep, but you'll pay more.

burk said:

I have a friend who has a Solo and loves it. I personally think that they are a bit overpriced for what they do. But my friend swears his a great shooter and he can afford anythng. As far as Kimber being bad guns, with the exception of the run of external extractor 1911's they did for a couple of years, I don't find that reputation deserved. I worked in a gun shop and sold plenty of them and saw very few returns or issues. I carried a 4" Kimber for years and shot it excellently. But since I switched to 9's as my main carry Glocks became my primary.

Having said that Kimber offers excellent fit and finish, comparable to some far more expensive 1911's, and I found they were one of the most accurate guns you could buy out of the box. Kimbers are tight and need break in, but that's common with high end 1911's. Kimber is the best selling 1911 by far and I do suspect much of their bad reputation comes from a jealous competition. I certainly would take a Kimber 1911 over their competition in the same price range (Springfield, Sig, S & W). Are there better 1911's ? Yep, but you'll pay more.

Click to expand...

My experience with Kimber has been vastly different from yours. Furthermore, when you call Kimber's so-called Customer Service to complain about your Kimber and seek a solution, you will find their Customer Service people are some of the worst in the industry. If I was to win a Kimber in a drawing, I would not fire it, I would just immediately sell it for what I could get for it. There is no reason to waste good ammo trying to shoot it through a Kimber.

I agree that Kimbers have a great fit and finish generally and sure are pretty gun, but I prefer a gun I can depend on to go bang over a pretty gun in which I have no confidence.

The biggest thing I recall is it required stout ammo, not your run of the mill range fodder.
People would shoot the cheap range ammo and the gun wouldn't work.

I always wanted one as it seemed darn near perfect, but held off for the obvious bad press.

tarosean said:

The biggest thing I recall is it required stout ammo, not your run of the mill range fodder.
People would shoot the cheap range ammo and the gun wouldn't work.

I always wanted one as it seemed darn near perfect, but held off for the obvious bad press.

Click to expand...

I could never attribute a problem with a Kimber to weak ammo.

Balrog said:

I could never attribute a problem with a Kimber to weak ammo.

Click to expand...

then your obviously jaded. If they tell you they recommend premium ammo and you shoot the cheapest stuff you can find is it their fault our yours?

Screen shot of the manual.

Ask a simple question and the Kimber bashers fly out of the woodwork.

I found the solo overpriced and didn't love the trigger. They are known to have feeding issues with weak ammo.

Kimber does have a reputation for poor quality assurance and customer service.

Ive owned 3 Kimbers (still have 2) and have had no issues with them.

A good friend of mine fell in love and impulse bought a solo 3 or 4 years back. We took it to the range and he handed it to me to shoot first. It failed on the 4th round. We'd run one mag then have the next two fail. He did all the internet research and bought all the recommended ammo brands for our next trip. Same results....he bought a nice holster several spare mags. Spent many months or a year doing research and "tweeking" but never got it running right. He eventually traded it for a G34 and moved on.

[And now that there's a few K guys over at S, look what's happing there, glossy adds, huuuge beautiful LGS displays, less quality and reliability across the board]

-The Solo needed full power ammo. So does the Glock 43 and Kahr(any 9).
-they attracted owners with no troubleshooting skills at all
-they attracted stubborn owners that can't get past wrong ammo, poor lube problems, and generally followed ZERO advice given to them
-rough machined finishes sometimes causing extra drag and reduced reliability on new pistols
-and far too many simply defective pistols.
-no QC guys at the factory with a troubleshooting mindset. (I'll do that job, make me an offer I can't refuse)
-MIM designs, can be hard to spot defects in shape. Usually when a CNC messes up, you can tell.

If just 1% of your pistols sold are defective, the other user errors will make it seem like 30% of your pistols are junk on the net. If 30% of your pistols are junk, well you're just pretty much out of luck.

I don't recommend the Solo to anyone. And generally, don't recommend Kimber.

There's plenty of good fullsize Kimbers out there. QC is a culture problem. Half of that lies on the manufacturer, and half on the customer. Kimber used to think that plain white steel barrels that inevitably rusted were ok. They also used to think that magazines that had steel followers that would contact the frame and almost the ramp and start eating the frame.....were ok. Sometime you have to swallow your pride and admit you screwed up to fix that culture.

1911 aren't easy to make, especially mass produce. Dan Wesson has an excellent culture, and excellent QC and customer service, but a few bad 1911's still got out.

I always understood they were ammo sensitive

I think it was a triple whammy

1) The pistol was expensive
2) Deserved or undeserved - it built a reputation for being unreliable - some may say it had teething problems, some may say the initial owners used the wrong ammo - but the Solo at best, had a mixed reputation.
3) Kimber's customer service and the way they dealt with the Solo rollout created a lot of angry ex-Kimber customers.


I think the smaller and lighter a manufacturer makes a 9mm, the tighter the range or window gets for what ammo will function in the firearm. Many of the pocket nines can't handle +P ammo. Some of the smaller nines are also designed around specific bullet weights or pressures. The Diamondback DB9 was designed to shoot less than 125gr bullets at standard SAMMI pressures, Kimber Solo was designed to shoot 124gr to 147gr bullets at standard SAMMI pressures. The companies are basically telling you the ammo types that the pistols were designed around.

When the Kimber Solo was first introduced - they didn't tell owners to use premium hollow-point self-defense factory ammunition with bullet weights of 124 or 147 grains - that warning didn't come until sometime afterward. So you had a lot of owners trying all sorts of different 115gr practice ammo in the Solo and it was failing with all of it, and Kimber really didn't deal with the issue very well at all. So you had an expensive gun that racked up a reputation for being unreliable, and it exposed all of the short comings in Kimber's CS. There weren't that many advocates for the Solo and there were a lot of people who were angry with Kimber over their experience with the Solo - and we know how that works on forums.

All of these things led to the Solo just not doing well in the market against other pocket nines.

I've read a lot of complaints about Kahr CS, but the CM9 was going for about $325.00 and the Solo was going for around $750.00. If you wanted an all-metal pistol, the Kahr MK9 was still cheaper than the Solo and I've always heard the MK9s ran like champs.

My experience with the CM9 is that it has not been finicky at all.

I did almost everything that Jocko on KahrTalk recommends doing for break in. I cleaned the CM9, including using non-chlorinated brake cleaner in the striker channel. I manually cycled the slide 500 times.

Yes I actually manually cycled the slide 500 times.

I noticed on Kahr Talk the the guys who reported problems with the CM9 or PM9 on the first range trip were shooting cheap 115gr WWB ammo. So I decided to use "NATO" ammo for the first few hundred rounds. When I say NATO - I mean 124gr FMJ rated at or near 1200 fps from a 5" barrel. Fifty rounds of the Winchester Ranger RA9124N (NATO) and 200 rounds of the Georgia Arms 124gr "NATO" I considered those 250 rounds the "Break In" rounds

I shoot 115gr Winchester "Target", 115 gr Federal Champion and even the fairly weak 115gr Blazzer Brass now, and the CM9 has never failed.

I've got half a dozen Kimbers. Did have a moderate reliability problem with one of their 3" 1911 format pistols, most of which was cured by way of Wilson Combat magazines. Still had problems after about 25 to rounds if I did not stop and clean the pistol; even after the recommended 500 round break-in period. Traded that one off. The rest have been excellent performers but I'm still a die-hard Wilson Combat magazine fan. I recently acquired a Kimber micro 9 and so far it's not ammo sensitive and very reliable. My other Kimbers are older type 1 pistols with no problems. As for the Solo, what I've heard is pretty much what others have shared here:

~ Ammo sensitive
~ hard to dissemble
~ heavy trigger pull

I'm concerned about what others have shared about their customer service. A little bit of poor attitude is gonna hurt them. I've gotten plenty of attitude from Ruger and the old US Repeating Arms company. Both along the lines that everyone that calls them is a dumb-ass and doesn't know what they're talking about. The Ruger 77 MKll I had had an elipitical chamber and would split even new brass on the first shot. Cured that problem with a Lila barrel. The Winchester M70 had no throat in the barrel and it was impossible to chamber a round. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when they test fired that one! My guess was that it was either a 5:00PM Friday or a Monday morning, after a hard week-end, barrel. Reamed .130" throat in the barrel and the dang thing will put five shots into 1/2" at 100 yards consistently with a load it likes...plastic stock and all!

Rubber_Duck said:

Kimber spends all their money on full-page color ads in every gun rag instead of on quality control. They've earned their reputation.

Click to expand...

That argument has worn thin.....Every single major gun manufacturer has full page, color ads in most every gun magazine......time for the Kimber haters to find a new cliche.

I guess that most have forgotten that at one time Kimber was offering more models then you could shake a stick at. Their CC dropped. They ended up cutting down the number of guns they offered and got better with their CC. But their sticker price has always been high. Those that got a bad taste when Kimber's CC wasn't up to par, will most likely stay away from them.
I have fired somewhere around 40 different Kimbers in the last 6 years. Some in great shape, some that looked like then had been rode hard and put up wet. Never know what your going to get when shooting Evidence guns. I've only had one are two with issues that weren't Kimber's falt.
The SOLOs I have fired worked with standard range ammo.

I have a 4" Kimber 1911 in .38 Super. It is about 10 years old. I carried it for a number of years. It has never failed to function perfectly. I once sent them the slide to change my sights. Stellar customer service. That's about all I have to say.

I owned a solo for a period of time. It had erratic extraction patterns and when I called they suggested I send it in. Upon return, within 100 rounds the roll pin that held the extractor in place started to back out. Every time the slide cycled the roll pin was eating in to the frame. I sent it in again and then traded it off as I wasn't confident in it any longer.

It is a shame as I really liked the gun overall. It was a great size for pocket carry. One feature I didn't like was that you had to drop the mag in order to eject an unfired round. If you were to have a light strike it would require dropping the mag to clear it, then reinsert and rack it again to chamber another round.

Rightly or wrongly, a reputation settled in, that, with Kimber you were spending $1.75 to get a dollar.
Once that cemented, every single CS uh-oh tainted the rep even further.

The dizzying array of choices did not help any, either. Was not just apple and oranges, was organic versus non organic, and vegetables, too. A bad tangerine and all the citrus was suspect. Even if the tangerine was an avocado.

Kimber could have helped their own case by casting themselves as an upscale maker, somebody contending with STI or the like. They would have to had demonstrated that value, but that's what top end companies have to do to stay at the apex. Hard to get people to pay Audi prices for a Fiat; but Audi prices for a Ferrari are a different story (not easy to do, and sometimes earning a gimlet eye, but still).

I own a pre-distribution model solo (sent to select retailers to test before the guns were distributed for sale), and I thought it would be the greatest pocket 9 ever. For me, anyway, it was not. It is a safe queen.

The gun was reliable and reasonably accurate with the premium hotter loads, and I was ok with ammo limitations (talk about ammo limitations, I have two Bobergs I like exceptionally well). My problem with the solo is that it was a pain (literally) to shoot. Pull the trigger and pain! So much so I dreaded each shot. So I put it away.

Tiny 9s are not always the easiest to shoot, I know that, but they do not have to be painful. My Sig p938s are not painful, and they serve the same purpose, which is why they are not permanently relegated to the safe.

BOARHUNTER

I

I got a shoot a solo in a pin match , using 115 grain ammo it worked great . I love the trigger. I shot it the entire match with it , worked great. beating people with a micro 9 who where using full size 22's was awesome. (guy thought the sights were off... it was him. )

There are two issues that have plagued automatics since their inception 100 years ago.

The first is ammo that isn't suitable for the gun. I was a problem even in the 1900's, during WWI. Ammo makers weren't working carefully with gun makers and the resulting product selection was spotty, at best. The consumer public doesn't like to pay premium pricing for premium ammo, and contributes to the problem buy trying to shoot substandard loads.

Guys, it's not "range" or "practice" ammo if it's cheap, malfunctions, and won't be your carry ammo. Ever. You train with what you will use. Shooting substandard ammo only creates suspicion the gun is unreliable and you can't trust it. If you paid good money for the gun, why do we consistently try to cheap out on the ammo? I get the same thing with car owners, reading codes all day long about misfires, complaints over driveability, yet when questioned they are pumping 85 octane 18% gasahol by actual test in their car. Just to save a few pennies. It's false economy. Better to buy a cheaper gun and use premium ammo if that is what it takes to get reliable and trustworthy function.

The second problem is the consumer public in the first place. As outlined above they are less than experienced about design, use, and operation of weapons. Guns are not their focus in life, it's a hobby for most. Extensive education, training, and research into problems isn't their way of life. Most pick a gun because it has gravitas, a great advertising campaign, and pulls all the right strings to get money to levitate out of their wallet. Add in the social tier construct of status and we get social buyers who either denigrate cheaper guns or who refuse to recognize their expensive favorites are just as prone to malfunction.

It then goes to who has great customer service - which is a fall back position for a lack of knowledge and skill on their part in the first place. If you buy based on how they will support you after the sale it then raises the question is that product your best choice, and secondly, why do you need to have your hand held while you work thru your learning curve to a higher level of understanding?

Social based consumers bristle at all that and demand the gun shoot whatever they shove into the chamber regardless of physics. They are the customer, by Jove, and the customer is always right!

Shooters understand the gun is a dynamically operating machine, and adjust their handling and care to do their best with it.

Sort out who is approaching guns with an attitude that they are no different than any other commercial appliance and you begin to separate the sheep from the goats.

Cheap or expensive gun, if it won't work reliably with Win "white box", CCI Blazer, etc. IMHO it isn't worth owning.

I guess there is a niche among the elite for expensive guns that won't work with less than $0.60+/shot ammo, same as there are cat owners who won't buy cat food that costs less than albacore tuna.

wally said:

Cheap or expensive gun, if it won't work reliably with Win "white box", CCI Blazer, etc. IMHO it isn't worth owning.

I guess there is a niche among the elite for expensive guns that won't work with less than $0.60+/shot ammo, same as there are cat owners who won't buy cat food that costs less than albacore tuna.

Click to expand...

I've had both CZ and HKs fail to run cheap 115 grain ammo well. Bad guns then?

Or perhaps just sprung for NATO 124 grain ammo (WWB NATO was the choice there).