Kimber K6s what's the verdict?

[gtmtnbiker98]

I've never owned a Kimber product in fear of the dreaded reports concerning their 1911's. Now that the K6S has been out a little while, what is the low down on this revolver? I've looked at them in the shops and they are simply beautiful to look at and the trigger is on par with my Colt's. Locally, the 2" will set a person back an even thousand bucks. I like the size, decent sights, and 6-round recessed cylinders. Any experiences out there with a decent round count?

[HeavyDuty]

My round count isn’t up there because of the shortage, but I’m very happy with my 3” DAO. I’ve had it a few years now.

[Zeke38]

I have the K6s in 2" and the DA/SA in 3" and they are jewels in the revolver world. Classy revolvers that harken back to the "old days" of S&W. Fit and finish is polished and refined, melted edges and excellent sights for the purposes that they were built for. Six rounds of 357 and I've shot a fair amount of 357 in them and in J frame Smiths and I will take the Kimber over the J Smith any day.

They remind me of a nice watch that is carefully produced with the intent of lasting a long time and bringing a sense of satisfaction and pride to the owner.

I have a lot of snubbies and I rank them above all the other snubbies on the market at this time, with the new Colt's coming in second. The 640 Pro in 3rd place.

https://i.imgur.com/HF2mYwW.jpg

[OlongJohnson]

The design is offensively ugly to look at, IMO. Offensive because it's being pushed as the best that can be done, but it strikes me as what you'd get if you had either engineers who didn't have the the ability to design a better looking gun using their CAD tools, CNC programmers who didn't have the ability to program a better looking gun, or simply unsophisticated CNC equipment that can't reasonably efficiently generate more complex forms. I say that as someone who's overseen the design and production launch of more than a few pieces made with CNC equipment.

There's no art to it. It's like a proof of concept, a demonstration mule, that shows the mechanism works. OK, now go do the rest of the work to make it something someone would actually want...

But beyond that and setting it aside, I've handled a few at LGS in town. I just haven't been that impressed with the fit and finish and the out of the box triggers have been unremarkable. Nowhere near anything I would consider good enough to leave alone. My GP and J are both head and shoulders better after receiving a thorough cleanup.

I like the concept and the basic mechanical design quite a bit, but spending that much money for something that strikes me as a really halfway effort isn't going to happen.

[fatdog]

Had a 3" a couple of years ago, put about 900+ rounds of full power 357 through it before I sent it down the road. It held up just fine and was still tight, but that is no long term torture test.

[FrankB]

The YouTube channel Justin Opinion did a review, and Justin said it’s easy to short stroke the trigger. My only experience with the K6 was driving to the store to buy one, and finding that it is easy to short stroke the trigger. That’s largely the user’s fault, but I did have to make a conscious effort not to. I have plenty of revolvers, and shoot them often, but this has never happened to me before. It seems a bit small for .357 magnum, it’s probably great with stout .38 special +p loads. The Colt King Cobra Carry might be worth a look.

OlongJohnson Your description is too funny. 😕😁

[BN]

I'm the guy who recently bought a Taurus 856, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

It looks like Kimber tried to make a revolver as ugly as a Ruger LCR. ;)

[RevolverJIM]

And almost succeeded!

[Totem Polar]

I have the K6s in 2" and the DA/SA in 3" and they are jewels in the revolver world. Classy revolvers that harken back to the "old days" of S&W. Fit and finish is polished and refined, melted edges and excellent sights for the purposes that they were built for. Six rounds of 357 and I've shot a fair amount of 357 in them and in J frame Smiths and I will take the Kimber over the J Smith any day.

They remind me of a nice watch that is carefully produced with the intent of lasting a long time and bringing a sense of satisfaction and pride to the owner.

I have a lot of snubbies and I rank them above all the other snubbies on the market at this time, with the new Colt's coming in second. The 640 Pro in 3rd place.

https://i.imgur.com/HF2mYwW.jpg

I agree more or less. The K6S is *generally* finished nicer than competitive options. I also like the trigger and the sights. Early guns had firing pin issues—documented here—but they are cool wheel guns.

I personally rank the 640 Pro above the Colts, and the Kimber on par with the 640 Pro. JMO.

I have a 640 Pro in front of me now, and I’ve owned the Kimber and 3 of the new Colts, including the Night Cobra and the 3” King.

If I was to go re-buy any of them now, it would be the 3” K6S, which I foolishly sold in yet another fit of 1911 lust.

With the 640 P in house, along with a pile of good S&W Js and Ks, I’m not in a hurry to go shopping, but I will probably end up with another K6S at some point. It’s a good revolver. OMMV.

[Navin Johnson]

Other than big box gun stores no gun store in my area carries any Kimbers.....based on experience

[JHC]

The YouTube channel Justin Opinion did a review, and Justin said it’s easy to short stroke the trigger. My only experience with the K6 was driving to the store to buy one, and finding that it is easy to short stroke the trigger. That’s largely the user’s fault, but I did have to make a conscious effort not to. I have plenty of revolvers, and shoot them often, but this has never happened to me before. It seems a bit small for .357 magnum, it’s probably great with stout .38 special +p loads. The Colt King Cobra Carry might be worth a look.

OlongJohnson Your description is too funny. 😕😁

That's interesting. Across decades with S&W revos I'd never encountered that then in the 90's I would run into that with my SP101 and had to work through it. Any idea on the characteristic of that leads to that? Mechanically that is, not the headspace/timing software. ;)

[FrankB]

That's interesting. Across decades with S&W revos I'd never encountered that then in the 90's I would run into that with my SP101 and had to work through it. Any idea on the characteristic of that leads to that? Mechanically that is, not the headspace/timing software. ;)

My guess would the trigger return spring isn’t like a S&W. I don’t ride the reset on any pistol, but the Kimber seemed to have a false reset. The members who own one would be of greater help.

[HeavyDuty]

My guess would the trigger return spring isn’t like a S&W. I don’t ride the reset on any pistol, but the Kimber seemed to have a false reset. The members who own one would be of greater help.

I never noticed that before, but it’s there. I don’t have a way of posting a video here, but there’s definitely a false reset just short of the full reset. I don’t shoot revolvers in a way that would normally come into play.

[TheNewbie]

How does the K6 compare to the LCR when it comes to easily short stroking the trigger?

[medmo]

My final verdict with my K6S? Outstanding. Especially with the Hogue grips with hot magnum rounds. The original wood grips were blood and tears invoking with hot magnum rounds. It conceals just as well for me AIWB with the Hogue grips so no loss there. It has the sweetest action, by far, over any other stock-out-of-the-box DA revolver I've stroked. I have several hundred rounds through mine and the only reason I don't have more is because I ran out of SPPs. No problem for me with short stroke in either live or dry fire. I'm thinking short stroking would fall more into the user induced category more than the inherent flaw category.

[UNK]

I cant comment on the Kimber but I will opine that making a removable front sight revolver, with no options for different height sights, that “might” be calibrated for one specific weight round that you may or may not be able to find is sub par.

[1slow]

At least with removable sights it is easier to make different ones and more likely to be done as a production item rather than one of custom work.

[Totem Polar]

How does the K6 compare to the LCR when it comes to easily short stroking the trigger?

About the same, IME. Both need attention to getting off the trigger on the reset, but it’s not hard to control. I do find that I have to pay extra attention if I’m coming from, say, a J-frame to either gun. I’ve short stroked both the K6 and the LCR at the range going right to them from shooting a J-frame.

Otherwise, a little dry-fire, or just not working a J-frame in between sessions seems to keep the issue at bay. JMO, OMMV, etc.

[skipper49]

I’ve had the DC version for about 2 1/2 years. I’m a big SP101 fan, and have J frames. Neither are in the same league with the K6, fit, finish, or trigger. Especially that sweet K6 trigger. I want a 3”, DA/SA version now, but alas, I’m a poor boy. Ok, a poor old man.
I want pretty wood, but after trying 4 different grips, I settled on the Hogue Bantams for my old, arthritic hands. They cover the backstrap, which is a must for me. I’ve tested it with .357’s, but settled on Gold Dot, 135 gr. +P for carry.

Skip

[BarryinIN]

I've had one for two or three years now; a concealed hammer 3".
I really like it. The sights are about as good as it gets without being too big and being a problem that way. The trigger is the best non-smithed DA revolver trigger I've tried. I have not had any short-stroking trigger problems as described here but will probably subconsciously create it when shooting tomorrow.

The goofy appearance gets mentioned by almost everyone. There are a lot of people who won't even look at one because of it.
My opinion: Big deal. So it looks funny. If I passed up ugly guns I wouldn't own many guns.

The truth is, I rather like how they look.

I did notice one potential/possible/maybe problem just yesterday. I was shooting some reloaded ammo, and maybe three rounds out of the approximately one hundred fired were dragging in places as the cylinder rotated.
OK, probably slightly high primers.
The thing is, I had shot at least 500 rounds of this same batch through two S&W 65s recently with no such problem, including six or eight cylinders of it fired through each of those 65s yesterday, the same day. So I found it interesting those few dragged in the Kimber but not the S&Ws. Somewhere around the recoil shield tolerances aren't as forgiving on the Kimber I would assume, but I haven't had a chance to check yet.
It was a problem because it made the trigger pull jerky and hard to manage as it hit the drag spots.
Yeah, it's an ammo problem, and carry ammo should be checked for free cylinder rotation, but it was still curious.

Early guns had pretty crappy sight regulation and some firing pin breakages but that appears to have been fixed for a while.

It isn't a problem with the gun itself, but it still sucks that support items like holsters, speedloaders, etc are still on the scarce side. I didn't expect such things overnight, but the gun has been out a little while now. I've seen holster listings for some not-so-common guns where the K6s was absent. I can't believe people are buying more new holsters for the Speed-Six and Trooper than for the K6 right now. SP-101 holsters sometimes work.
For speedloaders, I have always known Safariland would probably never give me any Comp IIs for it, but I still want some. In the meantime, the SpeedBeez have been OK. Some have said HKS Detective Spl speedloaders sometimes work, but they've only been so-so for me.

I like the K6s enough I'd like to see spin-offs. An L-frame size would be nice in .357 or 5-shot .44 Spl. The current frame in .22 would be neat. An aluminum alloy framed .38 in the current size might be nice also.