If the Commander pictures I just looked at on the Colt site are a representative sample, then you are out of luck because the Commander has a bushing and yours does not and your frame is not set up to accept the bushing, and there is nothing to retain the spring cap. You also have the bull barrel.

 

Yes; it is.

Just keep the reverse plug (with the hole in it) and recoil spring that you have now and everything'll work fine.

I have that same set-up in a four inch Wilson Combat Professional (no barrel bushing). About 1/4" of the standard recoil spring "guide rod" protrudes through the hole in the plug when the slide's fully to the rear.

It cycles very smoothly; and no tools are necessary to field strip the pistol.

Take care,

Rick

 

Thanks, Rick.........I'll contact Wilson.

 

I think that the Wilson one is actually longer than an Ed Brown Commander sized (original short) one that I bought for a Colt Commander recently.

I'll have to compare them the next time I have them out.

The Wilson is a 9mm pistol with a ramped barrel.

Take care,

Rick

 

Rick.......I ordered the Wilson "short" guide rod and both the 22lb & 20lb guide rod spring. The stock Kimber spring is 22lb, but I thought it best to have both available. I spoke with a contact I have at Wilson and he said it should work without any problems.......basically the same setup as their Professional model. After it arrives, I'l post an update after I have a chance to get to the range.

 

That 22lb spring for the Kimber is the same as for a Colt 3-1/2" gun. The free length is a bit short for good "in battey" lock up. You may want to conside the Wolff improved spring for 4" Kimbers.

http://www.gunsprings.com/Semi-Auto Pistols/KIMBER/Compact & Pro Carry/cID1/mID32/dID413

 

I'm sure it'll work fine (and take down/reassembly is much easier).

Take care,

Rick

 

Postup some pictures of this. I'd be very interested. I have a stack of Pro sized guns that could use this mod.

 

OK:

Sorry for the couple of blurry pic's; I was taking them with a phone in my "other" hand as I was holding the pistol. I haven't had much practice at that.

Here's the 4" bull barrel/bushingless W/C Professional at slide lock.

Front showing bull/bushingless barrel.

Shot of front showing the short guide protruding through the hole in the plug.

Showing left hand grip of pistol with slide/frame aligned for SS to match up with take down "scallop" in slide. At this point, the SS can be pushed out from rear with the other hand; then removed.

Showing recoil spring being held captive with left hand/thumb as slide is pulled forward off the frame.

Same left hand grip after slide is removed; spring and guide are held captive.

Disassembled recoil spring, short "guide rod" and plug.

Assembly is in reverse order.

I believe that with a shorter Commander guide rod a solid plug could be used; BUT you should measure everything first to be sure!

Take care,

Rick

 

Rick McC..............the Wilson parts arrived today and I exchanged them with the Kimber original guide rod plug & spring. I hand-cycled the pistol and it "feels" exactly like the original parts. However, I haven't had a chance to shoot it since I'm leaving in 3 days to attend a defensive handgun course and don't want new stuff in the gun until I'm able to check it out at the range. One thing.........I also ordered the Wilson 20lb & 22lb springs that are used in the Professional, but they appear to be too long. They are almost twice the length of the Kimber spring, but the package says they are for Wilson/Kimber/Springfield 4" slides. It just seems too long to compress enough to get it to fit between the guide rod plug and the barrel link. I may give Wilson a call and ask them as well.

 

I'd check it out; too.

A new recoil spring will be a bit longer than the old one until the new one has taken it's "set; but I've never seen a new spring that was twice as long as a used one with the same spec's.

That said, if you check for spring bind and the new one checks out OK; you should be good-to-go.

I wouldn't exceed the rating of the original spring; a heavier recoil spring will just put extra stress on the barrel feet and slide stop holes that they weren't designed to take.

Have a blast at your course!

Rick

 

Well.......I returned from my Defensive Handgun course at ITTS near Los Angeles, took my Pro Carry apart to clean/lube it, & changed out the guide rod parts..........used the stock guide rod reverse plug, the stock Kimber 22lb guide rod recoil spring, & the Wilson Combat stainless G.I. guide rod.
I went to my local indoor range, shot about 100 rounds, & the pistol performed flawlessly and was dead-on accurate.
I posted a YouTube video showing the conversion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSne_GWjB4Y
I should have done this a long time ago and wonder why Kimber doesn't take this approach.

ITTS: http://internationaltactical.com/index.html

 

Do you think this modification would work on a Kimber Pro Carry II in 9mm? I would really like to do this.
And exactly which guide rod did you order?
Thanks

 

Yes it'll work; my Professional is a 9mm 1911.

The change has nothing to do with the caliber; you're just replacing a FLGR with a short guide rod.

18echosf:

Glad you like the changes!

Rick

 

Thanks Rick, is this the correct guide rod?
http://shopwilsoncombat.com/Recoil-Spring-Guide-Commander-Bullet-Proof-Stainless/productinfo/576S/

 

Thanks for posting this link, I just ordered one for my Raptor Pro.

 

hxer..........yes, that's it. My Pro Carry is stainless, so I ordered the stainless guide rod, but the two models are exactly the same except for the metal.
Also, I tried the Wilson 20lb recoil spring for 4" bbl that is packaged saying it is for the Kimber.........but, I could not compress it enough to get it to work. I tried Rick McC's recommendation using the stock Kimber recoil spring and it worked perfectly.
I'm sure anyone who has a Pro Carry will love this modification.
As I mentioned, after making the change, I shot 100 rounds thru the pistol.........zero malfunctions and accurate as you'd expect. Good luck.

 

I'm sure anyone who has a Pro Carry will love this modification.

I'm just curious why I will love this modification? It would seem to me that what you did has now left a hole in the front of the frame. What if dirt or grime or debris gets in it while holstering? I carry IWB and someties use a hybrid holster where the barrel is exposed, debris could very easily get in there. Debris inside the recoil spring is a bad thing.

I see no advantage to this modification personally. Is the reason you did all this so you could break the gun down without the tool?

 

BTW: Here's my Stainless Pro Carry ll:

 

My Pro carry is a stock stainless, used for carry in 9mm, I had some early fte problems but those are worked through, and I think this modification may have solved them anyway. Thanks for the help I will give it a try. Off to the gun show today to look around. Thanks

 

I tried this in one of my Pro Carry's (series 1 gun) last night and it was a no go for that gun. Using the stock plug, Wolff spring and a GI plug it gave my gun about 1/8 of play in the slide front to rear. I replaced it with a Commander spring from Wolff that I have and same issue. However, I did this same modification in my Springfield Champion and it cycled just fine without any play.

 

hxer:

That Wilson plug looks just like mine; and should work fine.

smolck:

W/C makes many models; (including five inch Supergrades) with a bull barrel, the short guide rod and a reverse plug with a "hole" in it.

If the hole created any sort of functional/reliability problem; I doubt they'd be using it.

I know it's caused no problems at all with my Professional Model.

Rick

 

smolck:

W/C makes many models; (including five inch Supergrades) with a bull barrel, the short guide rod and a reverse plug with a "hole" in it.

If the hole created any sort of functional/reliability problem; I doubt they'd be using it.

I know it's caused no problems at all with my Professional Model.

Rick

Fair enough. I guess I still don't understand why everyone seems so wrapped up in making a Kimber break down without the tool.

 

Here's a photo of the pistol during teardown:

Happy to hear my posts were helpful.

 

That's exactly the point..........you'd never be able to get the pistol apart unless you had the tool or a paper clip with you at all times. There are quite a few commander style 1911's available that require no tools at all for disassembly. So......that's what I wanted to accomplish with my Kimber Pro Carry.
And, as crashoverrideplik said, it actually makes the gun cycle better.
BTW: I'm former U.S. Army Special Forces and anything I could do to make my guns run better without any hiccups.........I was doing. Now, as a civilian, I'm doing the same thing.

 

Interesting. Still don't see the point, but if you guys are happy with it, go for it. For the record, my Pro Carry has been dead nuts reliable in factory trim.

 

AzDave.........Thanks very much for the tip. Do you happen to know what the Wolff length is?

 

Thank you. I must have had a brain freeze. I didn't realize how old the thread was when I responded and didn't notice the bake and forth on Wilson springs until I posted. I was about to just delete my original.

I bought an xtra power for my CDP Compact. Unfortunatley I think I only bought one to check out. I nomally buy mulitples. I don't recall if I measured it, but I do remember it was considerably longer than stock. Perhaps by as much as an 1" or more.

I just now looked through some of my parts. The spring that came with the CDP Compact is 3-1/4" long after 150 rounds.

I also rab across an orginal NEW 22# Wolff Officer spring that I bought some time ago for a COLT, still in the package. This is the spring Kimber uses in the 4" gun and it measures 3-1/2". So 150 rounds did cause some initial set. Note that one the package it specs it as "standard" spring for Colt Officers and Kimber 4" guns, so it must be the right one.

 

AzDave.......Thanks again. When I received the Wilson recoil springs, they were 1 3/4" longer than the stock spring and I couldn't get it to insert properly, so reverted to the stock spring. That worked perfectly. But, based on your suggestion, I did order one of the Wolff recoil springs as listed for the 4" Kimbers. I'm now really curious as to the length of it, since I was told that Wilson uses their springs. We'll see after it arrives and I'll post an update. For now...........the Pro Carry runs perfectly with the stock spring.

 

Always glad to help if I can.

The Wolff XP could have been has much as 1-3/4" longer. As long as the spring doesn't reach solid height within the working dimensions, there is room for spring designers to play with coils/in. and wire diameter. I just wish I had measured. I do know that it was somewhat tricky to get the spring on the guide rod even using a vise. Maybe there is a trick, but I don't do it enough to have figured it out.

My CDP Compact ran with no issues, out of the box, for the 150 rounds I put through it before I changed to the Wolff. I read about the 4" guns and the Wolff recoil spring here, and wanted to change early to avoid launching bullets with stock spring and ultimatly changing later. After the change I ran another 300-400 through right away with no issues. This was a few years ago, and the gun continues to operate well. I'm not one to count rounds after a certain point, but the Wolff spring may last for many rounds. Well beyond what the stock one would have.