Kimber Tactical Entry II: The Frame

Yet another month of hiatus for me and this blog. Once again, this post should've made it to this blog sooner but then again...no excuses.

This post will cover the step by step process of how I built the Kimber Tactical Entry II. Basically, this is the same as the process I used in building my Custom Covert II so this will be in less detail. 

Now onto the build.

The first thing to do is to remove the mainspring housing pin of the Night Warrior.

Then the mainspring housing is removed. After that, the hammer spring and the plunger can be removed from the housing.

I used the Nova mainspring housing that I installed in the Custom Covert II. The original Night Warrior hammer spring and plunger was installed into it. I removed the grub screw that holds the lanyard loop to install the steel magwell that was included in the Hurricane conversion kit.

It took a lot of time to install the magwell into the Nova mainspring housing. At first I thought it wasn't a good match but after so many hammering it fit OK. When I helped my friend who did the same custom work on his Night Warrior, we also experienced the same difficulty installing the magwell into the Night Warrior original mainspring housing.

After dealing with the magwell, the grip safety and thumb safeties were removed from the frame.

Then the grip panels were taken out next and the plunger assembly was removed.

The main frame screw was then undone.

As well as the side screw of the frame.

The magazine release was taken out.

The magazine release screw and spring was transferred to the steel magazine release included in the conversion kit.

The three-finger spring was then removed from the frame.

Next removed were the frame pins.

With the pins and screws gone, the inner chassis can be removed easily. The trigger assembly was also taken out of the original frame.

By removing the cover on the chassis, the hammer and sear can be accessed.

The original sear was replaced by the steel sear that was included in the hammer set.

The original hammer assembly was taken apart and the original hammer strut was installed into the Kimber type hammer.

After assembling the hammer, it was installed into the chassis.

The aluminum trigger from the conversion kit replaced the original trigger.

The trigger assembly was then installed on the Tactical Entry frame.

The chassis came in next.

The plunger set was inserted into its slot in the frame.

The Kimber grip panels were screwed to keep the plunger into position. (They will be removed later when the mainspring housing is to be installed because they cover the hole where the mainspring housing pin goes in.)

The frame pins were put into place.

The side frame screw was placed back.

Then the chassis was completely held into the frame with the inner frame screw.

The mainspring housing, grip safety and thumb safeties (all Nova Kimber types) were then finally installed.

The Tactical Entry II slide was then installed into the frame. It actually took no filing at all to install the slide into the frame. The slide was tight fit into the frame but just a few slides and racks to lap the slide into the frame and the gun cycles smoothly (this is a complete opposite of what I experienced with the Covert). The only problem I had was that the magwell was positioned not very good into the magazine slot and it somehow hinders the magazine from being loaded into the pistol. I had to file a lot of metal to have the magazine seat into position. This was not the case with my friend when he installed the magwell into the original Night Warrior mainspring housing. I used a Nova.