Here's the gun sitting on the nightstand right now. It's a <600 buck used Kimber TLE/RL II. I have no idea the round count on it when I bought it, it's an LE trade-in. I replaced all the springs in it, because...you know like buying a used car, change the oil and inspect it. I've shot ~1200'ish rounds through it without cleaning. I cleaned it when I bought it. I've lubed it two or three times in the past 2.5 years. I don't really know, I just kind of look at it and if it seems dry I shoot some silicone spray on it.
Like @
45dotACP's Kimber, mine has the lower-lugs not perfectly fit. I don't really get barrel bump, but the gun is riding the link a bit, as evidenced by the wear pattern on the slide stop. The contact of the lower lugs is uneven on the slide-stop. I also am a bit undersized in the upper lugs, combined this gives me a bit of barrel hood play at lock-up. Whatever, this gun shoots ~2" groups with 230-grain ball and <2" groups with HST (1.79" currently being the best group) at 25-yards. So it's clearly not a problem. If the lower lugs crack, I'll just fit a Kart and drive on.
It has had zero malfunctions of any type with this gun, including an initial 150 on whatever springs the gun originally had in it when I bought it, with the suspect 7-round Kimber magazine the gun came with. It passed the 10-8 extractor test out of the gate, I've never even had the extractor out of the gun. In fact, I've never had the mainspring housing off of this gun. I just replaced the full length guide rod with a GI-style plug and guide rod setup and replaced all the stupid allen-head screws with proper flat ones. And I replaced the plunger tube spring and plungers, firing pin spring, and mag catch spring (when I replaced the allen-head mag catch lock with a slotted one), because maintenance.
This gun rides frequently on my hip in addition to on the nightstand. I trust it. If it breaks though, I know how to fix it. I don't need a $6k 1911 to have one that works...but if I'm spending the kind of coinage that buys a vacation for the wife and I on a gun, it damn sure
better work. Which is to say, I kind of expect lower-end guns (<$1500 guns) to potentially need remedial work, but I expect >$3k guns to work right the fuck out of the gate and stay working as long as I maintain them.
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