FYI - those are both Kimber extractors. The black one is from Desert Warrior. Both extractors have machining flaws that cause me concern. The botched cut on the DW one really is nasty in real life.
I'm checking feed ramps and mag well right now. There is a wider variatiion between guns (the feed ramps) than I'd be comfortable with, especially since all these were made on CNC equipment. I'll be using the Colt's as the frame of reference for the 45s, and the Wilson for the 10mm.
Gotta get some work done first, though.
No, would be MIM. You can't effectively cast steel w/ a parting mould. It would need to be an investment cast part - meaning no "parting line."
For the record: I'd buy a properly MIM'ed S5 extractor all day long. Foregoing my usual WC Bulletproof extractor w/o hesitation.
Note about that extractor: The bevel on the extractor is nearly non existant. The DW has a great bevel - and no parting line.
Sorry, that was imprecise terminology on my part.
I'm not at all a MIM hater, although I have grown leery of Kimber's ability to, as you so aptly put it, 'properly MIM'.
FWIW, I don't think that Kimber's problems stem from them using some special, non-standard dimensioning on their pistols, but from an amazingly casual level of QC for the price point, a rarely*-equaled-in-the-industry willingness to allow customers to be beta testers, and a constant quest for cost-cutting measures to increase profit margins on an inherently low-profit-margin design (cf. the aforementioned 9/.40 breechface issue.)
*(*cough4thGenGlockcough*)
RE the rusting, I work for a master Kimber dealer and maybe 1/5 guns they ship have some form of rust on them out of the box. Guns that have been sitting in the display case longer than a month or so start to get speckling on the barrel or barrel hood regardless of how much oil they have on them initially. We have a bag of steel wool sitting on the gun bench in the back specifically for touching up guns before customers buy them... So this is definitely not a rare occurrence.
I've seen some pretty embarrassing extractors, including ones so tight that the gun would not chamber a round from the magazine because the round couldn't slide under the hook.
We have some Kimbers in inventory for the folks on SRT to use if they so choose. The one our K9 handler was issued was rusting constantly as his air conditioning had to always be on due to the K9. The AC put enough moisture into the cab to rust the pistol. He swapped pistols with one of the guys working in the jail whose pistol had a better finish.
I had an ER nurse in a class. I noticed she kept taking all head shots. Her response when asked why, "'I've seen too many people who have been shot in the chest putting up a fight in the ER." Point taken.