Kimber Mini-Me Pistols

Kimber is expanding its lineup of subcompact 9mm and .380ACP offerings for 2018 by offering a host of upscale models based on their full-size specialty guns, and while we were in the Kimber booth we got our fingerprints all over a bunch of them. We also grabbed some photos of a few of the new catalog items.

The header photo of this post is the Micro 9 Eclipse. Like its bigger brethren, the Micro 9 version of the Eclipse features tritium 3-dot night sights, checkering on the front strap and mainspring housing, a single-sided thumb safety, and gray and black G10 grip panels. This is all complemented by a stainless slide with a dark gray Kimpro II finish set off by the bright burnished stainless of the side flats.

Similarly, the Micro 9 CDP (DN) offers the same features as its full-size namesake: Checkering on the mainspring housing and front strap, ambidextrous thumb safeties, and the TruGlo TFX Pro Day/Night tritium fiber optic sights that are signified by the “DN” suffix.

The stainless slide has had all its edges and corners softened with an aggressive “carry melt” treatment, and the gun has wraparound soft rubber grips with two molded-in finger grooves.

Finally, we have the Micro TLE, which is a .380 Mini-Me of Kimber’s TLE (which stands for Tactical Law Enforcement) model. The original TLE is a copy of the pistols Kimber made for LAPD SWAT in the early 2000’s, and this .380 version is a faithful, albeit miniaturized, copy of those.

It has a black KimPro II finish accented by heavily textured green-and-black G10 grip panels, checkering on the front strap, three-dot tritium night sights, and a single-sided thumb safety.

With other offerings fleshing out the Micro and Micro 9 lineups, if you have a full-size Kimber pistol, it probably now has a Micro clone to accompany it.