I’ve been a fan of Kimber 1911 pistols since the mid-1990s when I first became aware of them. I bought the first one I had for test and evaluation. They’re staples of the carry handgun menu of my friends. We’ve used and had a number of them over the years.

Over the years, a favorite Kimber wandered in from the Custom Shop. This is where it was made. It took a trip with me to Texas for a police class I was teaching and a lot of Texas’ finest got to shoot it.

Called the Custom Eclipse II, it made it into the line in the Eclipse Target II and Eclipse Pro II formats. It’s quite a gun. My original had the target sights, but it is marked Custom Eclipse II on the right side of the slide.