I found a Kimber CDP II Ultra in the local gun store, used, for under $1000.  I had looked earlier in the day at one in another store for $1300.  My wife likes the 1911 platform, and the 9mm round is still cheap and easy to get, so I figured getting her off of the .45acp round might be advantageous for the next 3-5 months, while the ammo supply catches up to demand.

Appearance:  Fit and finish are top notch, as one would expect from Kimber’s Custom Shop.  The CDP is an alloy frame in black, with a silver slide (the opposite of my CZ-85’s look) with cocobolo grips.  I find the grips a bit thick for the gun, but not uncomfortably so.  It’s a 3″ barrel, 8 round single stack magazine, with beavertail, skeletonized trigger and hammer.  (Guessing the trigger pull at about 3-4 pounds.)

Nice gun.  Looks great, light weight, and small enough to easily conceal.

We took it out to the local indoor range and put 150 rounds through it, the first 100 were 230 gr Winchester FMJ, the last 50 Brown Bear 230 gr FMJ.  We did have double feed malfunctions on the magazine that came with the gun (there were small dents in the left side of the mag), but the extra Kimber mag bought had no troubles.  All of the malfunctions were the wife’s, I had none and suspect they were due to her limp-wristing the gun for the first 60 or so rounds.  She only had one or two more malfunctions on the original magazine after that.

The accuracy for me at 10 yards are about 2″ at a speedy pace of shooting.  Her accuracy was about Texas at 7 yards, but by the time she was done shooting, she was blasting 2-3″ groups at 10 yards.  One magazine fired at 15 yards by me gave up another 2.25″ group.  Accuracy is solid, recoil is surprisingly stout for a 9mm due to the light weight, but still much more controllable than her Rock Island Officer’s Model in .45acp.

After the range, cleaning is the usual Kimber headache where you have to capture the recoil spring with a little bit of paper clip or the wee tool for it (that Kimber makes you buy separately!)  Lock the slide open, capture the spring, drop the magazine and move slide forward to get the slide stop out.   Take off the slide and barrel.  Move the lug back to get the spring assembly out.  Remove the barrel.  Reverse once done cleaning.  Getting the friggin’ slide to get back onto the frame is fun and takes a bit of patiences…but it works.

Overall, the wife gives the gun top marks for looks (5 out of 5), a 3.5 of 5 for accuracy, a 3 out of 5 for reliability, and a 3 out of 5 for ease of cleaning.  I give it an excellent (5 out of 5) for the looks, 4 out of 5 for the accuracy and reliability, and 3 for ease of cleaning.  My marks were higher on the reliability and accuracy, as I had none of the troubles she did.

For this reason, I expect that a few more trips to the range will increase her ratings on the handling of the gun.  It’s a bit pricey for a 1911, in my opinion; a lot of the current crop are too expensive, especially when you can get the fantastic CZ or Tanfoglio for half the price.  But if you want a 1911 in 9mm, it’s this or Kimber’s Aegis, the Springfield Armory EMP, or the STI.

Here it is with the CZ-85…