A fun shooter - Colt 1911 with Kimber 22 kit

[Olle]

Found it last night on our local interweb marketplace, and picked it up this morning: A near mint Colt Series 80 frame with a Kimber .22 conversion kit. Unfortunately, the owner bought it like this so the original slide and barrel are long gone. This is way better than the cast zink junksters they sell nowadays, the frame is the real deal from Hartford, CT, and the slide is US made machined aluminum.

I ran about 50 rounds through it, and had two hickups that looked like they were caused by lack of lubrication. The light slides on these need to be clean and well lubed to function properly, so a good cleaning will be the next thing on the agenda. It's not the most accurate gun I have shot (between 2" and 3" groups at 10 yards), but you just can't beat the fun factor in a good, solid .22 like this.

And if you happen to have a nice .45 Series 80 Govt slide laying around, please let me know...

[rhuff]

That should be one fun shooter. It MAY require the MiniMag category of ammo to be happy(HV).....I own a couple of .22cal handguns that prefer MiniMag ammo.

[Olle]

Could be... and maybe together with a slightly stronger recoil spring. Still need to clean it, so we'll see how it works after a good lube job.

[Eugen]

Shooting 22s is fun. I was just out with my favorite 22lr, my first gun a Remington Nylon 66 that my dad bought me in 1965. I just got a new scope for it and was dialing it in at the range. It shoots about any ammo, but CCI mini-mags are the best. I had a great day.

I am a fan of Kimbers, but never had a chance to shoot one of those 22lr conversion jobs. Looks like a nice gun.

[Sergio Natali]

Olle

Congratulations on your 1911!
Shooting .22 lr is good fun and particularly cheap.
The only two pistols that I owned in that caliber were a cheapish S&W 2206 and a used and abused COLT ACE.
I remember I could shoot tons of ammo for very little money, unlike now that although I reload my own ammo I always seem to spend a flipping fortune!

Regards.

[kurusu]

A fun shooter. And 1911ish trainer.

[alanint]

Sadly, .22 ammo is no where near as cheap as it used to be. Although supplies are coming back on line, we are now paying between two and three times what .22 cost just a couple of years ago.

[Sergio Natali]

Originally Posted by alanint

Sadly, .22 ammo is no where near as cheap as it used to be. Although supplies are coming back on line, we are now paying between two and three times what .22 cost just a couple of years ago.

I can only give you the prices here, for instance the price of a box (50 cartridges) of Eley is about Euro 5,50 (6.27 $) depends on the sort of cartridges, while a box of Fiocchi .45 ACP (230 gr FMJRN) is about Euro 23,00 (26.23 $)
Still a big difference...
...but to me the bang! of the .45 ACP is unbeatable!

[kurusu]

Originally Posted by luger.parabellum

I can only give you the prices here, for instance the price of a box (50 cartridges) of Eley is about Euro 5,50 (6.27 $) depends on the sort of cartridges, while a box of Fiocchi .45 ACP (230 gr FMJRN) is about Euro 23,00 (26.23 $)
Still a big difference...
...but to me the bang! of the .45 ACP is unbeatable!

No big argument here (although I also enjoy .45 Colt and .44 WCF).

[Olle]

Originally Posted by luger.parabellum

I can only give you the prices here, for instance the price of a box (50 cartridges) of Eley is about Euro 5,50 (6.27 $) depends on the sort of cartridges, while a box of Fiocchi .45 ACP (230 gr FMJRN) is about Euro 23,00 (26.23 $)
Still a big difference...
...but to me the bang! of the .45 ACP is unbeatable!

Over here, that used to be the going rate for pretty much any .22, even the "floor sweepings" were selling for 10 cents a pop a while back. It's getting better now, but the strange thing is that the quality ammo hasn't been affected nearly as much by the hysteria as the cheap bulk pack. I usually use fairly good quality ammo (Federal Automatch and Blazer), and this hasn't gone up nearly as much as the cheap bulk pack ammo.

The same thing happened several years ago when you couldn't find any .223 and the scalpers were selling cheap bulk pack ammo for $1 a round. I went to the store to get some Hornady V-Max, and I thought I would have to pull down my pants and bend over to get it. Strangely enough, this quality ammo was still the same price as it had always been, which was about the same price as the UMC bulk pack was going for at the time. It's a strange world.

[flydive]

Originally Posted by luger.parabellum

I can only give you the prices here, for instance the price of a box (50 cartridges) of Eley is about Euro 5,50 (6.27 $) depends on the sort of cartridges, while a box of Fiocchi .45 ACP (230 gr FMJRN) is about Euro 23,00 (26.23 $)
Still a big difference...
...but to me the bang! of the .45 ACP is unbeatable!

Well, prices here are quite similar.

For the ammo I use it goes about like this:

price for .22, then a bit more than double for the 9 Para, then again double for the 7.65 Para(and 7.65 Browning)
.223 a bit more than the 7.65 and double for the 7.5x55.

Luckily we can buy it in bulk which helps to lower the price a bit.

[Sergio Natali]

If I remember propely a box of 50 FIOCCHI FMJ 9X21 IMI costs about Euro 16,00 (18.23 $)

Thank God I've been shooting my reloads more or less since 1990

[alanint]

CDNN is discounting 1911 components.

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=...0&e=acf7660cb0

[flydive]

Originally Posted by luger.parabellum

If I remember propely a box of 50 FIOCCHI FMJ 9X21 IMI costs about Euro 16,00 (18.23 $)

Thank God I've been shooting my reloads more or less since 1990

Man, that's expensive.

Last batch of 9 para I bought I paid 11 CHF for 50(10 Euro), Geco, (got 5000 rounds).
Buying on bulks of 1000 rounds the prices are around 11 to 13 CHF.

[Sergio Natali]

Originally Posted by alanint

CDNN is discounting 1911 components.

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=...0&e=acf7660cb0

Not bad is it?
Here if I'd like to buy some spare parts for my shooting guns (at the moment I only own a WILSON COMBAT 1911 and a BERETTA 98 FS) I can only address myself to BROWNELLS Italia, which is pretty expensive.