Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Kimber 1" accuracy gaurantee

Can you imagine how many 22-250 Montana's they would have sold if they hadn't screwed up the twist? Hell, I pre-sold 50 in less than 24 hours before they flip flopped. Thank God I didn't take any money up front!

A 1 in 8" 22-250 would eat up a big chunk of their rifle production capacity.

I'm kicking myself for not buying it!

Go back and read it again. Where did you see the word "guarantee"?? It ain't there!! Its an accuracy standard.

Do any of the executives at these gun companies shoot. Why is it so hard to get s barrel twisted faster, a recoil pad that doesn't feel like a truck tire, a decent trigger, a mag box long enough to seat bullets out in and a chamber throated accordingly. Or a barrel centered and floated in the channel of a stock that's at least stiff enough to keep it there.

And if you want to cut costs by only making rifles out of one kind of steel make them out of stainless and cerekote them black for the guys that want that color. Don't do like howa and go the other way and then try to claim that silver colored cerekote is as good as stainless. Some of us like corrosion resistance inside the bore. I know stainless would cost them a little more but so does lost sales.

If I ran a rifle company they'd all be stainless, faster twists, floated barrels in stiff stocks, even the plastic ones, effective recoil pads that don't stick to the bottom of your safe, trigger pulls that are lighter than the rifles they come on, and mag boxes with some room. Many mag boxes could have more room and then they block them out to make them too short. Seriously, do any of these guys shoot. I'm sick of 10 twist 243's and 14 twist 22-250's.

Bb

I don't know, my Kimber's pad is cushy, the trigger light and crisp, mag feeds match bullets into the lands, is twisted fast... Oh, about the bound-up magbox and cross-threaded takedown screw - nevermind...

I should have clarified that I wasn't just talking about kimbers they really are one of the best rifle kits going. A good collection of nice parts that usually don't take too much work to finish. It just amazes me how many factory rifles there are out there and how many don't get the basics right. In fairness some are getting closer which is frustrating to. I keep finding myself thinking if they would have just done a few more things they would have had something.

You must have one of the new creedmoors. Just guessing because you said it was twisted right and had enough room in the box. Can you load vlds to the lands and use the mag box. The creedmoor Montana has got to be the closest thing to right any factory is doing. Almost makes it hard to want to go custom.

Bb

1:8 243's would be nice. Seems that the Creed is about perfect though.





Glad you showed restraint!

Thanks for the chuckle this morning!

"Guarantees" remind me of the boy and his father sitting through a Sunday morning sermon. The preacher is nearing the end of his homily and proclaims "in conclusion." The boy tugs his fathers sleeve and asks; "Daddy, what does 'in conclusion' mean?" His father looks the boy steadily in the eye and says; "absolutely nothing."

Really? Can you name them for me?




Dave

BB, Yes on the Creedmoor. Agreed, a pretty good kit. Nosler 140 CC kissed with a bit of room to spare. Don't know how that'll compare to others. Agreed all around on the failures of the industry to get things spec'd right - not optimized. Some of the solutions would be caveman simple, like the 8 twist 22-250 and 243. And why can't we ditch the Weaver slot in favor of Picatinny? The design engineers really should consult this forum.

Probably never owned a Montana.

Can you imagine how dead other cartridges would become if all the manufacturers twisted the 22-250 correctly?






Dave

I totally agree. I bring this up at every show I attend and every meeting I have with manufacturers. They all look at me as if I'm a mentally challenged alien. Then I get the SAAMI speech, then the engineers tell me why it won't work and then I give them examples. Someday, somebody will get it all right and they'll own the market.

How damn hard would it be to increase the usable space in a mag box by 1/4 of an inch?

True story...

Last year at SHOT I had a meeting with a rifle manufacturer that we both like and is known for accuracy. They were showing me their new rifle that was soon to be released and they asked for suggestions and opinions on the product.

I suggested the mag box thing and brought up twist -- specifically the 243 and 22-250. One of their top foreign engineers -- with a bad haircut -- looked me straight in the eye and said, "Can't happen. Bullets will shred in midair!!". (In his foreign accent) I laughed and asked him if he was f*****g kidding me. He left the room. I guess I insulted his intelligence?

Major firearms manufacturers tend to be even more conservative than major automobile manufacturers. They often wait until new trends are OBVIOUSLY taking hold before making any changes. This is partly because tooling up for newer stuff, whether cartridges, barrels or whatever, costs a lot of money, and they want to be sure they make their investment back.

But partly it's because the majority of shooters, who buy most rifles, aren't really interested in new stuff either. If you suggest to somebody who just bought a new .22-250 with a 1-14 twist that it's not the right choice, because heavier, high-BC bullets only work in a faster twist, most will look at you like you have two heads. This is because the .22-250 became hugely popular with a 1-14 twist, and most factory ammo is made to work in a 1-14 twist. Their father and maybe their grandfather shot .22-250's with 1-14 twists and killed a pile of animals, so they cannot comprehend why it might not work.

And that's why rifle manufacturers sell a pile of 14-twist .22-250's every year. They might sell 10% more if 1-8 twist .22-250's were offered, but they might not sell that many. Real rifle loonies, like those who inhabit the Campfire, aren't nearly as common as many of us might think, mostly because we also tend to hang out with other rifle loonies. As we're doing here.

So manufacturers wait until sure things come along. The .300 WSM was one--plenty of interest in similar wildcats had built up to the point where smaller companies were offering rifles and ammo. And the .300 WSM outsold all their predictions; about 8 times as many rifles were sold in the first year than Winchester's marketing people had projected. The .270 and 7mm also did well, and the market was also primed and ready for a .338 WSM.

But then they tried to ride the trend into territory where few real rifles loonies had gone. Instead of the .338 WSM, they tried to sell the .325 as the same thing--when it was really essentially a .300 WSM. Then they tried even harder and brought out the WSSM's, and got their butts kicked, partly because they refused to go far enough with rifling twist, using a 1-10 in the .223 rather than a 1-8--which is what rifle loonies were using in .224/6mm's, essentially the same thing as the .223 WSSM in a longer cartridge. But real rifle loonies already had .224/6mm's, and the WSSM's required new super-short actions that couldn't be rebarreled to anything other than WSSM's--which rifle loonies didn't like because they're always rebarreling rifles. So Winchester lost a pile of money, maybe not as much as they made on the .300 WSM, but a lot, which made them more conservative again.

Those and other instances are exactly why manufacturers aren't leaping all over each other to make rifles like the ones WE all know they should: They mostly sell rifles to customers who don't really care about rifle-loony stuff, and keep buying the old stuff. And when major manufacturers try to invent stuff they think rifle loonies will buy, they miss it in one way or another--maybe because older guys are in charge, who aren't into newer stuff, and may not shoot as much as rifle loonies, partly because they're too busy.

Bill Ruger may have been the last head of a major rifle company to risk new stuff and be successful at selling it, but he actually made and marketed a mixture of new and old stuff. Winchester had a big hit with the "reintroduction" of a new version of the pre-'64 Model 70, but the really new stuff that's been successful more recently is cheaper rifles shooting that for the most part, shoot the same old ammunition accurately. None of this history actually encourages major rifle manufacturers to make trendy rifles. Instead it encourages them to make rifles for the same old cartridges with the same old twists, because they've been selling them for decades.

Tough to insult something a guy doesn't have.




Dave

Here's the catch though John...

The guys that don't know rifles ask their buddies that think they know rifles what to buy. Most of the guys that think they know rifles only know what they've been told by a guy that really knows rifles. The guy that really knows rifles doesn't take the time to tell his buddy why to buy brand "x", he just tells him to do it. It's the trickle down effect...I see it every day on the retail floor.

The first manufacturer that gets it all right will win big. Once it trickles down far enough, it'll take years for the others to catch up. Some may never.

It won't be the same old guaranteed sales for the next few years. Manufacturers need some innovation to maintain strong numbers. Why not take some chances and start appealing to rifle loonies? I bet their overall numbers increase if they get it right. Loonies won't be the only ones buying. They'll tell their buddies...

And maybe Kimber will actually produce a rifle someday that's sub MOA out of the box? Couldn't resist <grin>

I wish Kimber would just cut to the chase, in connection with Hornady, and introduce the 22 and 6 Creedmoor.

Make them 8 twist, though I would prefer 7.5 or even 7 (bullets ain't getting shorter ever), and with good brass.

Then they don't have to worry about old SAAMI specs for anything. And they could market them so easily--"as good as a 22-250, only better." "As good as a 243, only better." Buyers would snatch them up quickly.

After the success of the Creedmoor, we are set up pretty good for stuff to start moving in the right direction. I still have zero faith in the manufacturers to get anything right however.

Patience, it's going to happen. The LR boys are being heard. Or you can just re-barrel to what you want now and not wait.