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Dear Sweet Wife and I ran some ammo through her new Kimber. All handloads using Montana Gold 124 grain FMJ and Speer 124 grain Gold Dots. 250 rounds total, although some went through my well-used FN Hi Power as an ammo checker.
4.5 grains of Win 231 with the FMJ, OAL 1.161" - some failure to return to battery. These ran fine through my Hi Power.
4.8 grains of Unique with the FMJ, OAL 1.135" - she had a few fail to eject while they ran fine for me. When she focused on tightening her grip they did fine for her too. Similar results with magazines; Kimber mag always locked back the slide on the last round, the slide would return to battery on the empty Metalform mag unless she was paying attention to her grip.
5.2 grains of Unique with the Gold Dots, OAL 1.120" - no failures for either of us.
With the only failures being less than max loads, seated on the long end of the spectrum, in a brand new gun. . . I'm considering this a win. She likes it, and that's a high-priority requirement. I'll shorten the FMJ loads a little and we'll run a few hundred rounds of that through it next.
Here is a, "His & Hers" picture after clean-up.
Enjoy!
Jeff

I think you are on track shortening the FMJ's a little... a quick check of my logs show 1.150-1.155 in FMJ depending on brand/profile. As for the lighter loads, I'd try to keep them closer to factory until it's broken in a bit, just so you don't introduce something that may not be a problem when springs are set and things smooth out a bit.

I sold MY full size Kimber that my wife enjoyed shooting, and still have not lived it down... many years later! I offered to buy her a new one but she enjoys giving me a hard time about it.

Sometimes my wife would rather give me a hard time than have something she likes too!

After some reading, measuring, and mathing, I bumped the FMJ rounds up to 5.2 grains of Unique and lengthened the OAL to 1.148". I ran 50 of those through with no failures of any sort - any grip tight enough to squeeze the grip safety ejected and fed the next round, and locked the slide after the last round. I'll load a bunch of these and shoot 'em up!