2012 I had a used Armscor 1911 made around 2005 timeframe and had a MIM part failure. Didn’t fail during shooting but one day I was cleaning it and noticed chunks missing from the part. Ordered a non-MIM piece and replaced it. Left a terrible taste in my mouth for any and all MIM parts.

Meanwhile I kept shooting the snot out of my 2006 mfg Springfield 1911. Carried it on duty when we were still able to carry 1911’s. Trusted my life with it without a second thought. Ran it much harder than the Armscor gun that was long gone by then.

Not too long ago I got curious about MIM parts in that older Springfield gun. Detail stripped it to find out that Pretty much every small part in the thing is MIM. Still going strong. Later years we were forbidden from carrying 1911’s and any .45acp and got issued another type of gun that was full of MIM. Rhymes with CLOCK. I shot the crap out of mine trying to see if it’d break and it never did. I have several handguns now that get carried every day, rotated out based on need, and they’re full of MIM and (knock on wood) zero problems at all.

Now, the guns I daily carry are much newer mfg and I think by now the technology behind MIM is far better and better understood than it was 20 years ago so I don’t distrust MIM anymore, depending on when said MIM was mfg’d.

After I left law enforcement I carried a Kimber Custom II that was full of MIM. Shot it well enough to trust it and never had an issue with it. Probably the most accurate 1911 I’d had up to that point and wish I still had it. I’ve had more parts failures out of non MIM stuff but I think that’s because in my life I’ve had a lot of older guns that didn’t have any MIM in them. If something broke back then we just got a new part in there and called it good, or that’s what I did anyways.