Detroit's Short-Lived Kimball .30 Carbine Pistol
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- čas přidán 28. 03. 2018
- The J. Kimball Arms Company of Detroit introduced a semiauto pistol in 1955, chambered for the .30 Carbine cartridge - what better companion for the tactical uber weapon of the day, the M1 Carbine? Kimball’s pistol was styled heavily after the High Standard, and it looks good and handles well. The .30 Carbine cartridge is too powerful for a blowback pistol, however, and so Kimball needed some type of locked breech or delaying mechanism. He chose to cut an annular ring in the front of the chamber - the mouth of the brass would expand into this ring upon firing, and the force required to press it back down to the diameter of the chamber body would force the slide to remain closed long enough for pressure to drop to a safe level.
However, the system was not adequate for the cartridge. The slide velocity was high enough that the guns very quickly battered the slide stop block. The would peen and deform at first, then crack, and eventually either bend to the point that the gun would not cycle, or break off and allow the slide to come right off the back of the frame. I can’t find any documentation of anyone actually injured in this way, but that was obviously the concern. Only between 250 and 300 of the pistols were made before the company went bankrupt and closed. There had been plans to expand the line to include gun in .38 Special, .357 Magnum, and .22 Hornet, but none of those went any farther than prototypes.
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"Who's the guy with the knight's helmet at the range?" - "That's Dan, he's trying out his new Kimball and doesn't know how many shots it has left until the slide slams into his face"
It's Daniel! Not Dan! GAWWW 🤦♂️
That'll work. LOL
Ian: "The only gun where the physical position of the gun affects reassembly." Ruger Mk I/II/III .22 pistol: "Here, hold my beer."
That is what my brain said too.
If you know, you know
Yep. Got my wife a Mk III 22/45. Sweet little gun, but damned if it isn't the worst thing to reassemble. You have to pump the trigger like a Holy Hand Grenade and hold your tongue just so with your pinky out to get that blasted hammer dingus in the right place for everything to snap back together. The only truly useful video I've found for the thing features a young girl... which is both emasculating and offers hope when you're struggling for fifteen minutes.
There's also the Beretta / Stoeger Cougar, where you have to hold it upside down and offer a short prayer to the gun gods that the barrel doesn't rotate the wrong way and the cam block stays in the right position and hold your finger on the end of the barrel. Which brings to mind the three seashells of an S&W CS9, where the ejector and couple other random gizmos will never let the slide back on if you hold it upside down.
@A M huh
I made the mistake of dissembling a Ruger Mk I....it took a lot of CZcams videos to figure how to put it back together....mistakes were made....
'Magazine looks flimsy, but hey, it's not like the gun's going to last...'
Sassy Gunjesus is sassy.
The magazine will outlive the gun (or possibly the shooter)
Not like .30 Carbine mags were exactly long-lived, apparently.
So sad because it’s a pretty sweet caliber. Probably too slow a burn for pistols however but there are many powders, so short barrel options are available. Timing matters more then engineering sometimes. Clearly this was a dead end and deserves to be so.
THE PISTOL BROKE BEFORE THE MAGAZINE DID
I had annular ring once, but some suppositories soon sorted it.
Sir no
Nicely written
Was blowback the major problem?
@@therugburnz I find that blowOUT is typically the cause of my annular ring malfunctions.
Looks like they could have used a "dream killer" on the design team
That dude that does the math and has to give everyone the bad news
Reliability Engineer: Job is to call other people's baby "Ugly" in quantitative way.
@@DonMeaker wait....I could be getting paid to do this shit?!
@@fablesguykol3025 Yes, if you can show convincingly how a design is bad. I've done this a few times, and good engineering companies do not get cross with employees about it.
@@johndallman2692 I meant this as a joke of "I can be an asshole to people and get paid for it" but that actually seems kinda cool.
So, in theory, it'd flare out the case and then reform it. This sounds like a reloaders nightmare.
There was so much cheap .30 cal ammo during the 50s & 60s that would have not been an issue. It would have been like reloading 7.62 x 39 AK ammo during the glory days of the mid-90s. As a kid I can remember going into gun shops and they had wooden barrels of odd surplus ammo, thirty ought six for example, and you could get a bag of ammo like peanuts. This is from over 50 years past. Those days are long gone.
OTOH as a reloader you can probably shoot these guns and make them last a lot longer by using a smaller powder charge.
Smaller charges would be more suitable for these short barrels too...
Bill H oh man that sounds amazing.. like the mosin, and 7.62x54r. I remember mid 2000s when you could get them for under 100 bucks. I wasn't old enough at the time though. I wish prices would drop again. My dad got a whole case of 7.62x54r for dirt cheap back then.. But nothing's cheap in the fire arms world now a days.
Saibot Saibot a smaller powder charge could lead to less pressure and the case mouth would not bend enough into the ring to delay the action safely 😲
I have had the chance to fire one of these.
It was "snappy". To be kind.
All in all the piece felt very much like someone scaled up a Colt Huntsman, but left out the "quality". Yes, the magazine felt like they said "Oh, right, we need to have a mag fit in here." after the chips had been made.
Of note, the one disassembled in the vid is a later production version, with the shallow "fluting" in the chamber behind the "ring", an attempt to further delay the opening of the breech, added after problems were noted with the earlier versions.
If one ever needed a good example of "Afterthought Engineering", the Kimball would suffice.
How did the cases look like after shooting? Did they show signs of overpressure or was the "locking mechanism" enough?
@@RandomGuy9 Never saw signs of overpressure, but it was not kind to the cases (it's ejection could be termed "energetic") As .30 Carbine is a very stout case, this may have helped the design somewhat. Occasionally a split near the case mouth, but this could be attributed to the handloads it was being fed.
That must be a real flame thrower. I have a Ruger revolver in .30 carbine with a long barrel but because of the slower burning rifle powder used in the cartridge there's a lot of unburnt powder
coming out of the muzzle forming a fireball.
You're right about how loud it is. Louder than my S&W 44mag.
The .30 carbine black hawk is my favourite single action to shoot. Not really all that useful but damn fun.
I agree, I had a bolo Broomhandle. Flashbang!!
I have had the repeated experience of setting up at a pistol range with the Blackhawk 30carbine. I would be asked what I was shooting and after responding, watch people remove their hearing protection and kick back. After firing a round, I would witness a mad scramble to grab the protection while being called a liar. I have never thought it prudent to call someone names while that someone was holding a pistol. I did understand their inability to think clearly while that damn ringing was lingering. Out of a carbine, the sound is manageable. But from the pistol, oh my. I witnessed an individual, obviously suicidal, carrying a Blackhawk 30carbine cut down to 3 inches. He asked if I wished to try it. I started to answer him but realized he would never hear me.
I had that same Ruger and it was one of my favorite shooters loved it. Very accurate with that long barrel and cheap to shoot. Quite a light show shooting at night
It looks like a giant Colt Woodsman/Huntsman.
Even the disassembly is similar.
So lesson learned : don't take a simple .22LR pistol and upscale it to accommodate a Rifle cartridge.
*25ACP
@BW MadDog [retired] The Woodsman/Huntsman are my favorite .22 There was one in the Lincolin Lawyer with Matthew Mconahey
@@CiastoToKlamstwo .22 LR, they were designed for target shooting, not self defense.
True
I wonder what would have happened if Kimball was around long enough to succumb to the .50 Cal craze? That action on .50 BMG would be awesome.
Maybe. Much like politics many people get into it to change the world but unfortunately fall short. Timing is everything and if the Hudson H9 came out 5 years from now we’d all be singing it’s phrases. Iteration is nearly as important as engineering.
Thanks Forgotten Weapons.
I, sincerely hope that Forgotten Weapons will have a place on You tube.
Thanks Ian.
You`re doing a fantastic job.
Cheers!
Urban Wikström they are going after all the weapons channels, liberals are dominant in the Tech Industry.
It's been a while since I took apart a Ruger Mk I but I seem to recall that re-assembly required a unique orientation and a very specific set of swears.
The .30 carbine has the same case length as the .357 mag(1.290'') but a slightly higher max pressure. The .30 carbine is most often compared to the .357 in muzzle energy which is true but most .30 carbine data is collected from rifle length barrels and most .357 data is from a 4''-6'' barrel. When you compare apples to apples the .30 carbine is closer to the .327 Federal magnum.
Back when those guns were made there was TONS of surplus ball ammo but today that has all dried up forcing it's users to pay a premium or reload their own. Hornady now makes the .30 carbine in their Critical Defense line.
I too was remembering the Ruger MK 1 pistols......
Until the introduction of Ruger's MK IV series some found it difficult to reassemble them, the hammer strut must be in the right place. It's really not all that hard if you read the manual , gravity is your friend.
Yes, I got a used Ruger without paperwork, and it took me forever to get it back together!
lol Ian forgets disassembly procedure of the most popular .22lr in the united states ever.
FORMAN ASAP Locksmith .Los Angeles Well it's not forgotten by the masses, so Ian kinda forgot about it...
This pistol caused me not to buy a Universal M1 Carbine from Kmart back in the 70s. Why? In my state you had to be 18 to buy pistol ammo during the 1970s and I could buy the rifle and not the ammo. Why? The stores at the time had to keep track of the .30 caliber ammo sales. The clerk at the Kmart counter could not sell me the ammo for the rifle because it could be used in a pistol. Kmart would sell a 17 year old a rifle in 1976. 70s' logic.
Either the law has changed since then or the clerk was incorrect.
OTM, as a 16 year old kid I'd buy ammo for my 12 gauge. Nobody cared. I'd go into town to the local hardware store & they had a book full of all the .22, .38, and the rest of the pistol ammo sales. My state changed the laws for non-registration of pistol ammo sales in the early '80s.
You could get the Ruger Blackhawk revolver, in 30 carbine, since the late 60's, so don't blame this gun.
These Kimballs will probably be "shelf queens", and never fired. Display them next to any "Kyber Pass", specials.
easy eight youre still harboring a grudge because if you had purchased an m1 carbine 50 years back it would have been slightly harder for you to procure ammo ? but just until '71?
Universal carbines kinda sucked...universilly.
I actually have quite a bit of experience with one of these. I believe it must be a later example than the one because it seems to have a different magazine release and and a beefier "toggle lock thingy" that retains the slide. My friends dad owned a gun shop and it sat unsold for years before he just decided "buy" it himself.
We loaded some mild 113gr Lee and 110gr Lyman cast loads and played with it for a while. Cool idea, but I can see why it didn't work out commercially. Even mild loads are fairly snappy if you load them powerful enough to cycle the pistol. The Lee boolits hang up pretty regularly out of the mag.
It was fun to shoot, but certainly not the most accurate autoloader in the world. I don't remember brass being too beat up, but a decent number of the reloads will split cases.
I could have sworn it was called a King...but there is no mistaking it was the same pistol as the example above. Had I known how few were made I might have tried to weasel it into my collection and preserve it.
I'll let my friend know about this video next time I see him. Thanks for this interesting upload!
my pops and I reloaded .30 carbine and one of the problems he warned me about was the tendency for the brass to sometimes not resize properly, not allowing it to fully go into battery, and the m1 carbine would still fire regardless. that happening in the Kimball would be a disaster. gives me shivers.
As a michigander, it's too bad this never took off! I'd love to own one of these.
Just gotta say I love this guy he is soooo awsome and I love watching him show how older guns work
Nice looking gun though. So what if you potentially take a slide to the face as long as your gun looks cool.
Axel Pingol woosh
"I may have a cracked skull, but I still also have most of a sweet-lookin' gun!"
It's called humor. There are some how-to videos here on youtube you can use.
Dsdcain So THIS is where Ubisoft got the idea for Far Cry 2...
You know it's bad when you have to bring a helmet when you go shooting! 😅
It's videos like this that I like the most. I had never heard of an annular ring delayed blow back until now. Interesting designs like this are the best. Reminds me of the Pancor Jackhammer video- another unique and interesting design.
Words "Slide to forehead" come to mind.
Taistelukalkkuna at arm's length i think you'd be o.k.
I shutter slightly, looks a lot like my Conn. High Standard Sport King. Almost got out the pistol to check and make sure it was still a HS, they look so much alike overall. Great vids, awesome work.
thank you for this posting,ian. someone tried to sell me one of these before. i showed him my own annular ring in response.
That's one of the coolest extractors I've seen.
Perfect description of the M1 carbine. This pistol looks like the Nambu.
Ian !!!! You ROCK THE GUNS!!!! Good job
Another great video, Ian! This gun SO reminds me of the original Ruger Standard Mk. 1 pistol. As you probably know, it requires one to hold the gun at a unique angle so that the hammer stirrup (what I call it) nests correctly in the scallop of the grip retaining clip (another made up word;). A real bugger with a long learning curve IMHO, as it allows the gun to be reassembled but not working if done incorrectly. My dollars worth-John in Texas
Awesome and informative as always glad i watch early
Slick lines... love them!! Cheers!
Wow! I've never heard Ian be so complimentary of the .30 carbine!
Unique little pistol, too bad they just didn't really work, I would love to have one to go with my carbine.
This is off topic, but you should update the Forgotten Weapons logo to a higher res version when you get the chance. It's lookin' a little pixel-y.
"do I look like I know what a jpeg is?"
RebSike you need a TIFF
Alistair Shaw, but all he wants is a picture of a gosh danged hot dog
mrb692 ahahaha. Then he will get a high res uncompressed hot dog
to be fair, your comments are almost always off topic
Thanks for this lm from Detroit (Dtown) never knew about this weapon.
It is a beauty, I love that shape and design.
Perfect example of 'bad designs go away..." Thanks Ian :)
This is literally a High Standard B in .30 cal. I'm surprised Kimball got away with this without raising their attention.
At least High Standard provided an external lever to raise/lower that slide stop. Mucho better.
It was so poorly made and disappeared from the market so quick, HS, probably figured why bother. It will implode on it's own.
And the High Standard B was just a copy of the first series Colt Woodsman after the patents expired
High Standard lawyers: let's sue. High Standard gunsmith: I've looked at it. Don't bother....
Disassembly gives me flashbacks of learning how to disassemble/ reassemble the Ruger Mk series rimfire pistols.
“…a lot more conducive to questionable delaying mechanisms …”. Hahah - Ian has a way with words
Cheers, I've been wondering about these!
It looks like a simplified high standard, sans the lever actuated block. It also eliminates the primary malfunction issue with the high standard.
The view of the barrel with the flashlight is really nice; maybe try to do it more often, if if here it was useful to point out the (theoretically-)delaying ring, it's also cool to just be able to see the rifling so nicely... but the lighting strategy only works out nicely with short barreled firearms I presume...
The Seecamp has a similar delaying mechanism in its operation, too; it's ring, however, is near the back of the chamber.
Wow. Long ago, I made the mistake of beginning reloading with 9mm instead of a .38 revolver. I learned a lot. I recall the differences in factory brass, both in hardness and in thickness. This gun scares me just a bit.
Thanks for another nice find Ian. The slide on this one, especially the button on top locking the recoil sporing in its compressed position, is a copy of the 22LR High Standard Model B. In the model B however the rotating slide stop is controlled by a small rotating lever on the right of the frame. The firing pin, recoil spring (the Model B has only one) hammer and trigger are all copied from the Model B. The slide stop is indeed the weakest part of the design, the reason why high velocity 22 ammo cannot be fired in the Hi Standard model B without damaging the gun. No wonder the 30 cal Kimball failed.
I'm thinking that muzzle blast and flash with that would be borderline awesome
paused at 6:27... the ruger 22/45 mark 3 i know for sure has to be tilted to reassemble it, just putin that out there, love your videos man.
"I'm gonna make a .30 carbine pistol!"
"Oh...neat, I guess. I think...."
"And it'll be a delayed blowback!"
"What? N-no, why would you....what?"
"And it'll work by sealing the case and then bending it back into position!"
"STOP!"
Fien You deserve much more likes.
@@0neDoomedSpaceMarine The G3 goes back to the "Sturmgewehr 45" and the Cetme Modelo A so 1944 and 56 respectively... with the first H&K made G3 arriving at the hands of the Bundeswehr in 59... the MP5 started development in 64 inspired largely by the G3 being so well liked. If anything was scaled the MP5 is scaled down from the G3 not the other way around.
That is sooo cool ! They should have cut multiple annular rings, a trial and error engineering, until it worked. I'm thinking three of them would have done it. Rumpled case spitting out.
How could any designer look at this and say that's a Good idea??? Great video.
Cool disassembly mechanic, it looks like he was headed towards a further design and tried to produce an incomplete development. If the rear slide hooks were on a pivot against a very strong spring to accept the impact the gun would probably have been workable. If it had a gas blowback delay it would likely have lasted several decades.
Y'know, for a less powerful cartridge that disassembly mechanism is actually pretty slick to be an original design.
The .30 Carbine cartridge in a handgun, may it Pistol or Revolver, is - cool.
Do an amt!!! They had a 30 carbine auto pistol
Cool idea and a fantastic cartridge BUT ...... but .... but .... no.
The '21 Mann pistol video brought me here - blessed are the followers of GJ
It’s like one of those puzzle boxes, you gotta hold it just right and shake it to get it open
Not really a military firearm but another interesting Detroit firearm was the Mauser-Bauer over under shotgun. Made in Italy for Mauser, imported by Bauer...pretty guns. Would love to see a video on this!
Highlighting why some firearms are really, really, really, best forgotten.
Ian, two things. 1st, please do an AMT Automag III. I have one, love it and it throws an awesome fireball. 2nd, AMT Automag II uses dimpleing in the chamber to delay blowback of the .22 WMR to make it cycle right. Similar to the annular ring in this gun except the Automag functions flawlessly every time.
Am I the only one that thinks the disassembly is pretty slick?
Haha, another example of a pistol that involves geometric position for disassembly and/or reassembly is the Ruger 22/45 Mk II. I always need to reread the manual when I'm working on that one!
Upon rewatching, I empathize with the Kimball pistol. I, too, have some interesting engineering features that don't work quite the way they're supposed to.
Jiggle the parts into place is a phrase I doubt you hear in engineering school very often.
Angle matters on the Ruger Mk.1-3 for sure. The hammer has to be manually pushed up into the fired position and the hammer spur has to be forward (done by putting the pistol barrel down) but not resting above the pin running through the grip frame for the hammer spring assembly/backstrap/takedown pin and lever piece to go in properly. You also may have trouble removing the bolt if the barrel isn't up, as the hammer spur will catch behind said pin and not allow the hammer to fall backwards.
Takes a properly set jaw and and holding the pistol at the right angle.
I bet someone could design a replacement recoil spring set that would slow the slide down sufficiently to alleviate the issue of it battering the back end to destruction. Widening and/or deepening the annular ring might help too.
AMT made a .30 semi-auto pistol too. Built like a 1911. Worked fine, was very loud and had a lot of flame. Just fun at the range! :D not so good for anything else.
Assembly / disassembly reminds me a little of my Ruger 22/45 (m2)... Some telekinesis required.
I suppose if someone really wanted to shoot one of those, they could experiment with lighter powder loads, get it down to something a light blowback pistol could handle.
Something people who design guns like these never get is that you need a much faster powder for a .30 carbine going out of a 6" barrel than for going out of a 16" barrel. So even if they can delay the recoil enough, the cartridge is still woefully inefficient in the shorter barrel.
This is one of those firearms that actually would have benefited in it's design with use of a weaker cartridge, but that destroys the purpose of this model.
I was literally reading about these last night before bed.
I'd like to see a fired case. I remember one of these floating around the gun shows, "back in the day". IIRC steel case ammo was problematic in them.
It looks like a 1911 with the slide locked back
Rusk Gaming yeah, that's why they seemed familiar looking
yeah kinda
Rusk Gaming are you a member of the media?
what?
Rusk Gaming, this gun and the 1911 share the same passing resemblance that all long guns used in a shooting share with the murderous Ar15. Well, to members of the media, they are all the same.
I guess shooting .30 Carbine from that small Combat variant wasn't the most pleasant experience...
Anyone masochistic enough to own a S&W Model 629 snubbie, probably wouldn't be put off by the Kimball Combat.
That cartridge is just a little more powerful than a .357 pistol load. ATM makes The Automag chambered in .30 carbine. Not a terrible round to shoot. It might not be fun from this pistol in this video, however.
+keith moore AMT is still very much defunct, but Excell Arms has started a company called Auto Mag Ltd. Corp. to produce a high quality model of the AutoMag chambered in .44 AMP. There doesn't seem to be any plans to bring back the .30 Carbine AutoMag III version.
Speaking of 30. cal, hoping a Knight's Armament Revolver Rifle, if indeed one still exists out there, pops up on one of these auctions one day so Ian can do a video on it.
That slide disassembly button works a bit like the Colt Woodsman in that it disables the spring
That grip angle looks like a feed angle nightmare for 30 carbine
Can you do a vid on the Remington model 51, with the hesitation locked breech?
That looks like a nightmare if the spring lock button gets released while the slide is off the frame
The Ruger Standard series (until the new mkiv I think.) require you to use gravity on reassembly, but not on disassembly for that you just need cussing and threatening looks.
Over-obturation delayed? Fascinating stuff.
Very very cool!
Seecamps use a similar delayed blowback action. Still in production.
5:57 - Don't the Ruger Mk II and Ruger Mk III depend on spatial orientation to disassemble? I recall something about having to hold them in the right orientation to disassemble.
Looks like an overgrown Hi-Standard .22... and to go by my HD Military at least, disassembly is done exactly the same way via button system.
Looks like the same internal design too, with just a token regard for much higher forces. Predictable result.
I think that the AMT auto mag II 22 MAG used a row of holes in the chamber in a similar Manor to this expansion ring. They also made a 30 carbine that I think worked.
I've had both in 22Mag and 30 Carbine. They worked fine, but the Automag III (30 Carbine) worked longer. The 22 version was very dirt/fouling sensitive. 5-8 magazines was the maximum I could do before disassembly and cleaning.
There was, if I recall correctly, a .22 Magnum auto-pistol that used a variation on the annular chamber ring. It was in the form of hemispherical pits in the chamber, designed for the very same purpose. Between the small area and the typical ,22's ability to foul things, they required scrupulous cleaning and rapidly achieved an unfavorable sort of reputation. I just wish I could remember it's name or that of it's maker.
What happens if, during assembly, you loose the recoil springs when the block at the back is in the downward position? I assume it would not function in this condition, but can you dissasemble it to fix the problem?
Also, what happens if mud/dust gets inside and the block gets stuck in the upwards position?
Even in a sensible calibre, I see too many ways to make this gun permanently inoperable...
It looks like that pivoting piece against the springs is the only thing holding it together. If it was down, and somehow the springs got knocked loose, the slide should still just come back off. It would probably be a pain to compress the springs again outside of the gun though.
I think you might be right actually. So it would only be 'unassemblable' if the piece got stuck.
Kimball must have been a fan on the FG-42 to come up with that delayed blowback system.
Yes, man's reach should always exceed his grasp. In other words, SOMEBODY had to try.
Is it possible to shoot .30 carbine in a "semiblowback" action like this it by reloading the ammo at very low pressure?
I suspect that long cartridges like this do not work well no matter the energy or the pressure of the cartridge.
Anyone else here exactly because of the video about the Mann 25acp pistol he mentions at minute 2:50?
What's the round thing under the barrel, at the front of the receiver?
What is the cylindrical shaped item under the barrel just forward of the trigger guard?
so what is the tubular appendix below the barrel? At first I was thinking it must be the recoil spring tube but upon disassembly I was proven wrong. I am left wondering as to what is the purpose of that... perhaps not finished development? I would have turned that into a gas delayed blowback a la HK P7
What purpose serves the cylindrical element mounted on the frame right in front of the trigger guard under the barrel?
It needed a 2nd annular ring behind the first, also a stiffer recoil spring set. :)
What's that short cylindrical piece projecting out forward of the trigger guard?
The Ruger mark 2 and 3 series at least have to be turned in the right direction at a couple times in order to be assembled/disassembled
Hey, Ian, what's the pin through the frame above the front of the trigger guard? And what's the cylindrical thing ticking out from the frame below the barrel?
Nice looking l8nes and looks friendly to us of huge hands. Would have been cool if (a) it worked (b) it took M1 mags
Looks very much to me like my high standard .22 HD Military, which I love.
Too bad they didn't rework it into something useable.
I wonder if we will ever get to the point where opposing magnet force will be used as dampening?
So. Physical position affecting dissasembly of the gun. I propose gen 1 ruger lc9. There is a dissasembly pin retained by a dropping gate. you drop the gate. Hold the pistol, left side down. Then giggle the slide to loosen the dissasembly pin and it drops out.
With modern metallurgy, it mite had been able to blend a steel alloy to be more durable slide stop.
What I would like know is what that cylinder under the barrel at the front of the frame is ?