The simplified mechanics of the safety allows it to move smoothly through its arc, locking positively in and out of position. There is still a bilateral safety lever at the rear of the frame, similar to those on ambidextrous M1911s, but the safety works as a true trigger safety, which does not lock the slide.
Still, close inspection of the Micro 9 revealed that several defining M1911 features have been changed: The grip safety has been deleted the plunger tube on the left side of the pistol is gone and the Micro 9’s manual safety works differently. (Those pistols start at $1,104 for black and $1,249 for two-tone with a stainless-steel slide over an aluminum-alloy frame.) Springfield Armory re-engineered the 1911 around the 9mm cartridge before announcing the Enhanced Micro Pistol (EMP) platform in 2007. Sure, some run great, but we’ve watched hundreds of micro-frame Model 1911’s come through an armory of a large department and they don’t compare well to modern pistols on the average. Officer-sized Model 1911s are generally picky with ammo, prone to malfunctions, uncomfortable to shoot, and gobble up recoil springs. Those advantages, however, don’t carry over to the subcompact realm. Also, the thumb safety blocks the trigger, but does not lock the slide. Though controls are familiar to M1911 users, there is no grip safety at the backstrap on the Micro 9. Controls include the checkered magazine-release button, a near-full-size slide stop lever and an ambidextrous manual thumb safety lever. In a full-size pistol, the grip size and angle to the bore’s centerline axis, as well as the reach to the trigger and controls, work to make a well-tuned 9mm M1911 a thing of beauty. There’s simply not much you can do to shrink a true-to-form M1911 smaller than an “Officer” size with a 3- to 3 1/2-inch barrel and a shortened frame capable of carrying a six-round magazine. Although they look like 1911-style pistols externally, they’re actually quite different. Originally introduced in 2017, the Micro 9 family of pistols has been a winner for Kimber.
Kimber’s newest entry in the Micro 9 series brings some functional enhancements along with aesthetics from the Model 1911 Rapide (Black Ice).