Welcome to M1911.ORG
The M1911 Pistols Organization Forums Site


John needs your help
Please read this message.


Sponsors Panel
If you intend to buy something from the companies advertising above, or near the bottom of our pages, please use their banners in our sites. Whatever you buy from them, using those banners, gives us a small commission, which helps us keep these sites alive. You still pay the normal price, our commission comes from their profit, so you have nothing to lose, while we have something to gain. Your help is appreciated.
If you want to become a sponsor and see your banner in the above panel, click here to contact us.

Results 1 to 4 of 4

Thread: Kimber .22 Conversion Kit. Range Report

THREAD CLOSED
This is an old thread. You can't post a reply in it. It is left here for historical reasons.Why don't you create a new thread instead?
  1. #1
    Join Date
    4th October 2012
    Location
    Southern California
    Posts
    7
    Posts liked by others
    0

    Kimber .22 Conversion Kit. Range Report

    Just got the Kimber .22 conversion kit last week for my Custom II and thought I'd post my experience with it -

    Installation:
    Swapping between slides is very quick as you can remove the entire slide (with barrel and recoil spring still in the slide) as one unit and replace with the other slide. Getting the .45 on/off takes a little practice (as the recoil spring is under tension), but getting the .22 slide on/off is very easy. Total time to change slides is less than a minute. Initially I had a difficult time positioning the .45 slide so that I could remove/install the slide stop, but after practicing about 6 times it became pretty easy. If you don't want to fight the .45 recoil spring, you can just do a regular field strip on the .45 slide to remove/install it. Since the recoil spring in the .22 slide is so much weaker, it won't be necessary to remove anything to remove/install the .22 slide.

    Initial preparation before break in:
    When I first installed the .22 slide the fit was tight - the slide would not go to battery due to friction between slide and lower. So before going to the range I manually racked the slide 150 times, disassembled, cleaned, lubricated and then it operated very smoothly. I suspect if I hadn't done any preparation the first 150 rounds would have resulted in a lot of failures to return to battery until things smoothed out.

    Ammo used:
    I used the recommended ammo (CCI mini-mag) for the first 100 rounds and that went without a hitch. Since it went so well and since the Mini-Mag is hard to find, I thought I'd try some Winchester M-22 that Big 5 carries (it's pretty cheap - about .05 a round). This worked flawlessly as well, and for the entire 400 rounds I didn't have a single malfunction of any kind - I did however wipe the feed ramp with CLP once at 300 rounds just because it was starting to get dirty and I couldn't resist wiping it down. I'll have to try some more cheap ammo (like the Federal Bulk), but for now I'm happy I've found an alternative to harder to find mini-mag.

    Live Fire:
    In 400 rounds there was not a single malfunction, and the only unexpected 'click' is when you empty a magazine, since the slide doesn't lock back, the hammer drops on an empty chamber (this is by design because the slide is aluminum and according to Kimber, dropping the firing pin on the empty chamber won't hurt the firing pin even though this is a rim fire). Initially the sights were low and slightly to the left, but since they are easily adjustable that was quickly fixed with a screwdriver. I was quite surprised how well the slide cycled and extracted brass considering how small the round is... I emptied several magazines (10 rounds) in under 4 seconds each without any malfunctions and the cycling seems very smooth and consistent. I'm sure I could have gone faster with no problems, but that was about as fast the the RO was comfortable with.

    After the 400 rounds of .22 I switched to the .45 and found that my groupings were much smaller than I've been shooting before the conversion kit, so the practice with the .22 does seem to transfer when you switch back to the .45. Groupings with the .22 are still smaller than with the .45 slide from 30 feet on, but closer than 30 feet they are nearly identical.

    Cleaning:
    The take down of the conversion kit is very easy - less than 2 minutes to take it off the lower and have it completely stripped,and a minute to put back together. It is almost identical to taking down the .45 slide, except that since the recoil spring is weaker, you don't even need any tools for it.

    Overall Impression:
    Much to my surprise, I am extremely pleased with the conversion kit. The smaller recoil took a little getting used to, but once I did, I really started enjoying sending lead downrange and being able to work on Trigger control and Sight alignment knowing that it was about 1/10 of what it normally would cost. I originally was planning to only spend a couple hours and 200 rounds, but it was so much fun I spent nearly 4 hours and 400 rounds at the range. I found that I was actually enjoying shooting the .22's at paper just as much as with the .45. Same trigger, same grip and feel (the weight with the conversion kit still feels much like with the regular slide because of the .22 bull barrel) really gives you the experience that you are firing a 1911 - just without the recoil and blast.

    It's not exactly the same experience as firing .45 caliber, but extremely enjoyable in a different way. I suspect that I'll be shooting much less .45, but overall a lot more rounds than I've been shooting and for much less. There's also something cool about practicing with a few hundred rounds of .22 and then switching to .45 - it's hard to explain, but I think the contrast in recoil and blast actually makes it even more fun to shoot the .45. (kind of like practicing racing a car normally, then turning on the nitrous oxide)

    Initially I was hesitant to get a conversion kit since it is about the same price at a Buckmark or Ruger 22/45 or mkiii and it seemed like getting a whole pistol made more sense, but after actually using it on the Custom II, I'm really happy that I went with the conversion kit instead. It just totally enhances the experience of having a Custom II and I'll sure be getting a lot more out of it being able to use lots of inexpensive rounds...

    Here's a couple pictures -

    Stock .45 ACP:



    Conversion Kit .22 Mode (I got Silver so I'll know instantly if it's .22 or .45 - plus I think it looks pretty good in silver...)

    Last edited by pch1911; 6th November 2012 at 15:41.


  2. #2
    Join Date
    28th January 2006
    Location
    The Great American Desert
    Posts
    4,749
    Posts liked by others
    123
    They are pretty neat and quite accurate. The Kimber was O.K. with lead target loads, but high velocity copper plated loads worked the best.

    Below is one over my Kimber Target Elite II.

    NRA Life Member

  3. #3
    Join Date
    24th January 2012
    Location
    South Meriden, CT
    Posts
    4
    Posts liked by others
    0
    Are the magazines plastic? How do they hold up?
    NRA Life Time Member - Si vis pacem, para bellum

  4. #4
    Join Date
    4th October 2012
    Location
    Southern California
    Posts
    7
    Posts liked by others
    0
    Quote Originally Posted by hayes1966
    Are the magazines plastic? How do they hold up?
    The magazines are polymer and seem pretty durable. Even though they don't have a thumb slide to compress the magazine spring (like the Ruger MKIII), the spring tension is pretty light so they are easy to load. I haven't had them long, but so far they are holding up pretty well with just over 1000 rounds through them.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  



Sponsors Panel
If you intend to buy something from Brownells, please use their banners above. Whatever you buy from them, gives us a small commission, which helps us keep these sites alive. You still pay the normal price, our commission comes from their profit, so you have nothing to lose, while we have something to gain. Your help is appreciated.
If you want to become a sponsor and see your banner in the above panel, click here to contact us.

Non-gun-related supporters.
Thank you for visiting our supporters.