Sad, but true! I left the following message for Dwight Van Brunt, the Majordomo of Kimber:
Dwight...you never call...you never write...you build plastic pistols without even a postcard! Are you seeing someone else?Heck, I thought I was being cool by not mentioning the other American firearms company with a plastic pistol in the back room, just waiting for the SHOT Show! Next thing I know, here's Son of S&W M&P, getting ready to Glock ya 'til you drop! Nothing on the Kimber website...just ad placement in magazines. Then, a litle cherub flies up to the window and says, "Hey, make 'em show you the hardware!" Yeah yeah...
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN DENTAL WORK GOES BAD — S&W starts building AR-15s. Winchester folds. Kimber Glocks out. Damn...I'm thinking Apocalypse Now Rather Than Later! Maybe I should have asked for more pain pills!
SOOOO what does this tell me? First, I don't know as much as I like to think I know, which is mostly everything. Second, the proposed military handgun contract is like having a Black Hole in orbit around the earth — it's sucking everything toward it. We'll be lucky to get through these Trials with anyone making anything except mil-spec plastic and 1911s.
As Tarzan would say, "Umgahwah!"
Any idea why both the S&W M&P, as well as this new Kimber KPD are .40 S&W? I thought the new army specs were for a 45acp? I don't know much about .40 ball ammo, but wouldn't expect it to be much better than 9mm ball. I believe that .40 S&W only comes into its own with non milspec ammo ala hollowpoints. Am I wrong?
ReplyDeleteThe Kimber reminds me of the H&K USP or old VP-70 in the slide/grip profile.
Overload, the fallback position on these new guns is law enforcement, and law enforcement believes in the .40 the way some of my more obscure relatives believe in handling snakes.
ReplyDeleteLaunching as a .40 makes good sense, because you're immediately in contenton for LEO contracts, and there's a lot of them out there. It's also not hard to "up" these new .40s to .45, and while I can't say for certain about the Kimber until I handle it (which hopefully will be in the next week or so when everyone gets back from the Safari Club convention, which I apparently should have gone to), the M&P was certainly designed with that in mind.
It looks to me like the H-K, the SIG and Ruger if they decide to play are the only designs that are ground-up .45s (I'd entertain the Glock there as well, but my case would be that everything is sized up from the original Glock 17).
I feel slightly better since Charlie Petty, who writes for FMG and is one of the most knowledgeable and pluged-in gun guys in the world , told me the first he heard of the new Kimber was the ad. Dwight surprised us all!
Michael B
Dwight Van Brunt has taken advertising and PR to a new level. Faced with the dilemma of which magazine, writer etc. should be the first to get the gun; long lead times for "old media" and a desire to have Kimbers new gun noticed and noticed quickly, he opted to contact no one. This then creates a very loud "buzz" he would not otherwise achieve.
ReplyDeleteIs there any doubt that every writer at SHOT will be making a bee line to the Kimber booth?
Masterful work!
Walt Rauch
Masterful work...assuming it works. Maybe they never told anybody because it isn't ready for prime time.
ReplyDelete