The Kimber TLE II 10mm. A one year review.

[Dieselman]

     A little over a year ago now, I decided to jump into the world of 10mm firearms for the first time.  I began researching my options and came to the conclusion that I wanted a 1911 chambered in 10mm. After all, I had several 1911's already in .45 acp and although I'm a fan of Glock pistols, I tend to like 1911's a little bit more.  After looking at my options in 10mm 1911's, I chose to purchase a Kimber TLE II.  I generally prefer Springfield Armory 1911's over Kimber 1911's. However Springfield wasn't offering a production 10mm pistol and I could not afford a Springfield Custom Shop gun.  I didn't want a Colt Delta due to their lack of using a ramped barrel and I just didn't know if I would be happy with a RIA. Dan Wesson Razorbacks were out of my price range and difficult to find at LGs's.  Then I happened by chance to come across a new Kimber TLE at a local gun store for a reasonable price and quickly snatched it up.  This was the first time I had even seen a TLE in 10mm. Prior to this, I thought my only Kimber options were the Eclipse and the Target. Both of which didn't really float my boat but were better than nothing.  But the TLE was different. It sported features that I wanted in a 1911  from the factory without the need of me adding or modifying later.  The following is a my review of this gun approximately a year later and roughly 800-1000 rounds down the pipe.





     The Kimber TLE II 10mm comes in a black oxide like finish.  Like most of Kimber's factory coatings, it is not very durable. Holster wear and general use takes it's toll on the black oxide quicker than many other manufacturers finishes. This is actually one of my complaints with any Kimber gun finished in their black oxide. Its just not durable.  It also sports factory installed Meprolight tritium night sights and 30 LPI front strap checkering.  Grips are rubber double diamond and offer a good purchase on the gun even with sweaty hands.




      The barrel is of the ramped variety and includes a notch in the top of the barrel hood that serves as a loaded chamber indicator. The ramped barrel offers great cartridge case support. It was because of this great chamber support that I chose to go the route of the Kimber 10mm. Comparing pictures to other production 10mm firearms, I felt the Kimber offered some of the best support available.  (Sorry about my less than ideal pictures, I couldn't get my crappy phone camera to work well in the lighting that I had to work with.)






     Before I even test fired my new Kimber, I set out to research any modifications that I felt would be necessary for me to enjoy the gun with full power ammunition.  Actually the very first modifcation came in the form of ordering and installing a Kimber factory ambidextrous safety. I am a southpaw and I always add an ambi safety to any 1911 I purchase that doesn't already have one.  Then I ordered a EGW flat bottom firing pin stop and a Wolff extra power recoil spring.  The parts arrived and I went to work fitting them to my gun.




    Finally I was able to go out and give it a go for the first time.  Even though I reload for nearly every gun I own, I had not yet set myself up to load for the 10mm when I first took it out to the range. So I purchased a few 100 rounds of 180 gr Remington UMC and several boxes of Underwood 180 gr Gold Dots to give it the initial test.  The gun ran flawlessly! It chewed through all the Remington UMC without a hiccup and did equally as well with the hot Underwood Gold Dots. I was impressed!  Accuracy was good, reliabilty was good and it felt good to shoot a 1911 that had much more enthusiasm than my .45 1911's do.  Only problem I had at this point was keeping the single magazine that came with the gun loaded to keep shooting. Yes, Kimber only ships one mag with this gun.  So after reading here and elsewhere what peoples opinions were on aftermarket 1911 magazines in 10mm, I chose to order up a couple metalform 10mm mags so that I would have more than one on hand for the gun. A week or so goes by and my new metalforms arrive at my door. With extra magazines in hand, I head back to the range.




    The Metalform magazines proved to be quite a disappointment. With my factory ammo, I continued to get FTF and stove pipes with my new Metalforms. The factory Kimber magazine would run like a champ. Reload with a Metalform and it became a jam-o-matic.  Tweaking he feed lips on the mags helped a little bit, but wasn't the cure-all.  By chance I had my Springfield Armory with me and thought just for fun I would load up my Wilson Combat 47D .45 acp magazines with 10mm and give that a go. Guess what, 47D .45 mags also run flawlessly with 10mm ammo loaded in them. Even though they are not intended as 10mm magazines.  While I was actually happy to learn this, it left me with a conundrum as to what to do next.  My whole reason for purchasing the Metalform mags for my 10mm was to avoid purchasing magazines that look like my existing  Wilson Combat 47D .45 mags. This idea was to prevent me from accidently grabbing a 10mm mag and trying to fire it in my .45 or vice a versa.   By purchasing a magazine that looked visually very different, the chance of mixing them up in the heat of defending oneself from a home invasion or similar was greatly reduced.  So the solution has been to purchase more factory Kimber 10mm magazines. They work well in my gun and they look nothing like The Wilson .45 mags.

Ok, now I have mags that work and a gun that works. Time to start reloading!  I purchased all the necessary components and equipment for 10mm. I happened to find a deal on Rocky Mountain Reloadings website for pulled 180 grain Federal HST bullets and bought enough to load a couple thousand rounds of ammo.  I also purchased a few hundred Hornady 180 gr XTP's, a few pounds of 800X, Blue Dot and longshot powder.  After lots of work ups and experimenting I standardized a few different loads that I liked. My favorite pushing  the HST to right around 1250 feet per second. And another pushing the XTP to about 1300 feet per second.  From this time forward for the following year, that's about all I fed this gun was full power 180 gr loads.



  Rarely do I shoot anything with a muzzle velocity less than 1250 fps.  Close to 800 rounds of my 1250fps HST's have been digested through this gun with no issues.  Some of my experimental loads have pushed 180 gr bullets into the 1350- to 1380 fps category.  These loads are ones I consider to be too hot, but the gun handled them well.  Even during these high velocity , high pressure tests, I did not note any sort of bulge in my cases. The chamber support from that ramped barrel has been absolutely excellent. I have inspected my gun for cracks and wear but none has been found. Well other than the crappy black oxide finish, but that is not an ammo issue.  The only ammo  issues that I have had in this gun has been with factory loaded Buffalo Bore 220 grain Hard Cast.  I fired a dozen or so and blew the primers out of about 70% of them. Needless to say, that was the last time I shoot Buffalo Bore through my gun. 

All in all, a year later and I am very impressed with my Kimber TLE.  It shoots good. It is reliable and it has held up well to a steady diet of full power 10mm ammunition.  And while I am not a huge fan of Kimber, I can't help but give this gun my seal of approval.  It has been a far better purchase than I ever thought it would be. 

[sqlbullet]

Great review!  Love the pictures and good to know about the metal form mags.

Just curious, you mention a Wolff recoil spring, but not the rating.  Just "extra power".  Do you recall which rating the spring had?

[Ramjet]

Nicely done thank you for the review.

[Dieselman]

Great review!  Love the pictures and good to know about the metal form mags.

Just curious, you mention a Wolff recoil spring, but not the rating.  Just "extra power".  Do you recall which rating the spring had?

The reason I didn't mention spring weight is because I can't remember. And I can't find my notebook where I wrote it down either.  I'm still looking for the answer for my own records. Should I find it, I'll add it to the post.  If I was too guess, I would say its a 23 or 24 pound spring.

I found my data! The recoil spring is a 22 pound Wolff

[sqlbullet]

All good.  I think I ran a 24 lb for a while.  I ended up going back to the 18.5, and it works fine too with my hot loads.

[Dieselman]

All good.  I think I ran a 24 lb for a while.  I ended up going back to the 18.5, and it works fine too with my hot loads.

I need to find out what it is and write it down somewhere where I won't loose it. I know for fact that all my .45 ACP 1911's have a Wolff 18.5 pound spring. The 10mm might be a 21 pounder. One thing I was thinking about doing that I haven't tried yet is searching my old posts on this forum. I probably posted what weight I installed last year when I joined

22 pound Wolff recoil spring

[Dieselman]

I wanted to add a little more about the Metalform 10mm magazines that I have.  I had actually forgot about this issue until I was fooling around with them yesterday.

I can load up the Metalforms, then start unloading them by hand. When I get about three rounds unloaded, the follower will sometimes bind up and no longer put tension on the cartridges. At this point, I can turn the magazine upside down and give it a little shake and all the remaining cartridges will fall out.  A few taps on a hard surface and the follower will unbind and spring back to the top.

I forgot this was happening when I wrote my first post.

[drnls]

I have the Tripps 9 round 10mm magazines.  They worked in my Kimber 10mm with no problems.  They are a little expensive but may be worth it not having to wonder if they will work.  Nice write up.  I had the same pistol with the rail, sold it to a friend's friend.  Just purchased another with out the rail today. 

[sqlbullet]

I wanted to add a little more about the Metalform 10mm magazines that I have.  I had actually forgot about this issue until I was fooling around with them yesterday.

I can load up the Metalforms, then start unloading them by hand. When I get about three rounds unloaded, the follower will sometimes bind up and no longer put tension on the cartridges. At this point, I can turn the magazine upside down and give it a little shake and all the remaining cartridges will fall out.  A few taps on a hard surface and the follower will unbind and spring back to the top.

I forgot this was happening when I wrote my first post.

That would cause lots of issues.  Some beyond the obvious.

The magazine spring in a 1911 actually plays a critical part in preventing a 3-point or "bolt over base" jam.  The spring has to do two completely separate tasks during feeding.  First, it has to move the next round up so the base of the slide will catch the rim and strip the round from the magazine.  Next, when the round clears the feed lips, the mag spring has to push the next round up and "bump" the rim of the round in motion up onto the breech face.

A weak mag spring or a binding follower will interfere with one or both of these tasks, and you end up with a failure to feed jam.  Generally it will resolve if you just lightly pull back on the slide and then let it go forward again.

You may want to try some Wolff +10% 1911 single stack mag springs for 40S&W.  They should work just the same in your 10mm mags, and might resolve your issues.  As an interim you can also try the following:  Oil the magazine liberally, then use a ruler to manually cycle it about 100 times.  When done, disassemble and completely clean the oil (dirt trap) and try again.  It could just need to "wear" in some burrs.

[Dieselman]

  As an interim you can also try the following:  Oil the magazine liberally, then use a ruler to manually cycle it about 100 times.  When done, disassemble and completely clean the oil (dirt trap) and try again.  It could just need to "wear" in some burrs.

I was always going to try this, but I never did.  For starters , I'm not sure how you get the base plate off the mag to disassemble it. 

[Bluefish]

I ran an eclipse for awhile that is very similar. I had great luck with Tripp cobra mags, 20# recoil spring, and a firing pin stop that my guy custom radiused.  Glad you are enjoying your kimber,  they make a nice gun.
Russ

[sqlbullet]

  As an interim you can also try the following:  Oil the magazine liberally, then use a ruler to manually cycle it about 100 times.  When done, disassemble and completely clean the oil (dirt trap) and try again.  It could just need to "wear" in some burrs.

I was always going to try this, but I never did.  For starters , I'm not sure how you get the base plate off the mag to disassemble it.

Mag plate is welded on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0eGETQlSqI

Hope that helps.

[Dieselman]

  Thanks for the vid sqlbullet.  I think I'll give that a try.  Of the two Metalforms that I have, one is much worse than the other for malfunctioning. I think I will try disassembling gthe better of the two and seeing what I find.

  I will probably leave the worst of the two as is.  I have it well marked (painted) so that I know it is very unreliable.  I actually use it this way sometimes when at the range to practice malfunction drills.  As odd as that sounds, it's sort of nice to have one that randomly fails to allow random malfunction drills in a controlled environment. 

[yfdcap]

Great review.  I had a Eclipse for a couple years.  It was very finicky.  I tried Trip Cobra, Wison, Colt and Kimber mags in it.  Kimber worked the best.  Colt mags did not work at all.  I sure wanted to like that gun.

[sqlbullet]

As odd as that sounds, it's sort of nice to have one that randomly fails to allow random malfunction drills in a controlled environment.

Doesn't sound odd to me at all.