[jonnyslick]

The next pistol I'm buying is a Kimber. The Kimber has extensive use of MIM parts. I understand Taurus and Chip McCormick use it with great success. My online look into MIM is that the prouduct is very good. but when I hear people in my gunshop and someone here(I wen't looking for the post but could'nt find it) say that they have changed the MIM in thier .45 with better parts, Ed brown I think, I wonder if something is wrong. I know that MIM is very inexpensive in mass proudution, but does that make it bad? I would think that the goal of modern technology is to make great parts cheaply. I don't want to sink a grand into my .45 only to have to modify it as I plan on shooting it alot. Should I just save some extra money and buy a wilson?

 

[Charlie Petty]

Remember Fat Frank?

Gunshop bogus, uninformed crap.

Your information in MIM was correct until you started listening to people who want to sell you something else. Well made MIM are 95-98% as dense as forgings or bar stock parts and there is no credible evidence to suggest they have a higher failure rate.

 

[jonnyslick]

Piece of mind is priceless

Sounded like salesman BS. The way some high end companies talk is like the OEM parts will kill you unless you buy the forged or barstock machined part's. By the way, The exact quote from gunshop guy is "MIM is cast S**T". MIM is new and it's easy to be wary. Thanks, (By The way, I don't know who Fat Frank is.)

 

[jonnyslick]

Memory returning

I just remembered another place I saw a negative look at MIM. One of the recent "Gunzines" did an interview with a "famous" gunsmith who consulted on the new Sig 1911. In one part he went out of his way to state that he avoided MIM in favor of better machined parts. It might take me time but I'll think of the name.

 

[LIProgun]

As usual, Charlie is right, but note his choice of words: "well made MIM." This topic has been beaten to death on The High Road, 1911 Forum Board, and other boards. The informed consensus seems to be that well made MIM parts are fine, but that there have been notorious batches of MIM parts on Kimbers (and some other pistols) that have not been "well made" and failed catastrophically. These batches certainly seem to be the exception, and not the rule.

As I recall the issues, MIM reportedly requires more QC than traditionally made metal parts, and defects (e.g., voids) are hard to detect by observation. The first time a problem manifests is when the part fails.

 

[csmkersh]

Both Rob and Charlie are correct. A friend of mine had the barrel plug on his Kimber fail (don't know the model) but Kimber expressed one out to him at no charge. The Customer Service person said they had stopped using MIM plugs.