I'd avoid the Montana like a rat dipped in aids.
That is unless you knve the dirty dope on a gunsmith who you can get to work cheap or you are retired and have multiple hours to spend trimming screws, bedding, crowning...blah blah blah...
Laffin'
Everyone likes a challenge now and then.
I took a new 7/08 to the range yesterday.Only had factory 140 Fusions(no one had any brass so have to make some). Mounted a scope and started wanging away.
Things started well;scope tracked to rough zero and the rifle followed. Three groups showed the rifle strung horizontally off firm sand bags so I folded a gun sock for a softer front rest. That dropped POI about an inch and two shots were in about 1/2".....then it started stringing vertical. Heat? I let it cool. Didn't matter.
I pulled it apart. Have to say I was a bit impressed...it really looked lovely down there. Bedding "looked" sharp, machine work on the metal looked very nice;trigger is great and function perfect so far and very crisp with snappy feeding,firing pin indentation was spot on. Can't recall a nicer synthetic stock on a factory rig.Barrel perfectly floated.
But bedding seemed "loose" as the rifle just fell out of the stock;without screws I could detect no rocking and the action seemed to sit flat with no tension.I began to wonder if the front screw was bottoming out before the action was tight in the stock...it was behaving like something like that was going on.
You could see where the mag box had scraped paint in the bottom of the stock.
I tried to get to 300 yards but it was occupied so will get back after it tomorrow.I'm going to start the tweaks. 20 rounds isn't even a warm up,and too soon to quit on it.It's easy to shoot, comfy,and handles like a light grouse gun. I think the things are so light and rigid that any little inconsistency shows up.But other Montanas have shot lights out for me so I know the thing will shoot after some work.
I ain't skeered.....
There were a bunch of Forbes rifles on sale where I bought this Kimber....they seem to not be moving off the shelves as the same ones have been there for months.
