Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Kimber Hunter 6.5 troubles

It was assembled by someone with a good case of the schidts on a Monday morning.

I'd take it back to the shop and get my money back or demand a new rifle on the spot. Or buy a different rifle.

10 weeks; shove that up your arse!

^ that.

That would be my first try also. When I had a distribution business I wanted my customers to contact ME if they had any problem. A good store will handle it for you with the least amount of hassle. If they don't bend over backwards to help you, find a new store.

Send back to Kimber?? Ha Ha. My buddy sent one back that wouldn't feed '06 round nose ammo. They send it back to him, still had the same problem. He paid the dealers "restocking" fee to take it back.

Exactly. I have a forbes rifle that shoots anything I feed it and 1.5 inch groups are a real bad day for it. If a light rifle won't shoot good then the rifle isn't properly put together. I don't expect sub MOA with factory ammo but I didn't pay for a Kimber to get sub par performance.

Any decisions on what to do here? Did you send it back?

I feel your pain

I have owned 5 Yonkers NY made Kimbers

One out of the five was a shooter without extensive rework to the rifle

The Kimber customer service is the worst in the industry

Good luck

This whole thing is bogus. Everybody knows it's impossible for a controlled round feed action with claw extractor and fixed ejector to not extract and eject properly.

Yes I sent it back to Kimber. Hopefully they fix it. If not it will be sold.

Good luck. I bought a Kimber Hunter model 22 awhile back. Nothing but problems(it was a Yonkers gun). Wouldn't feed right and spent casings would get stuck in chamber. Sent it back twice. Both times had the same problems. Told me it was the ammo. I had tried several different makes and some worked better than others but in the end they would all get stuck! And the windage screw on one of the mounts broke. Traded it in. I will never buy any Kimber products again. Customer service was terrible.

Ok rifle came back from Kimber today. They replaced the extractor and mag. Feeds and ejects much better but repeated cycles of the bolt on occasion still drops a round before its ejected. But with the new extractor I was able to identify a issue. Shooting Nosler factory loads. If you pull the bolt out of the gun and insert a case onto the bolt it will either be held or dropped depending on how the brass is rotated. Simply rotating the brass by hand it goes from tight to loose on the extractor. That is why it fails to hold the round when ejecting on occasion. So it appears as if the Nosler brass is defective. Either the case head thickness varies or the head is out of round. I'm going to pick up some hornady ammo this weekend and hopefully it will work correctly.

You gonna re-title this to Nosler Brass Trouble? Hahaha.

I haven't used any Nosler brass, but I've shot a couple hundred rounds of Hornady, probably 100 factory loads and another 150 reloads from six different rifles. So, you might want to try Hornady brass or ammo and see how that works for you.

BTW, I've shot Federal, Hornady, and Winchester/Olin factory ammo through five of the six rifles and all have functioned flawlessly. Those three brands have all fed, fired, and ejected regardless if the rifle was made by Howa, Ruger, Weatherby, or if it was a Marlin/Savage parts gun that I put together.

The same Nosler brass that the Kimber Hunter bolt won't hold is held tightly in every other Mauser action I have. My Kimber classic grips them tight and my ruger grips them tight. There is a issue with the brass being out of square if you will. but the fact that the Kimber Hunter will only hold the brass when rotated to the right spot tells me there is a issue still with the gun. Picking up some hornady brass tomorrow to tryout. If the bolt will hold them properly then I will buy a bunch of hornady and start loading them. If not then I will just sell the gun.

Have you tried hand-tuning the extractor for proper tension?

At one time, Williams had online instructions for the novice. Thumbs are fulcrum, fingers/hands are lever. Middle bowed out, brings claw and tail inward, greater tension. Reverse, less tension.

I've only thrown away MIM units for steel, so not sure if that would be of issue. But, every good Mauser was fit with an extractor at some point, by hand. Even when NH Winchester dumped the old problematic MIM extractors, and switched to the Williams extractor, he had to give special instruction to their assembly employees, he may have even set them up with an idiot proof mandrel, because at first, they were tossing the extractors into the rifles with zero adjustments, and customers had complaints like yours.

I haven't tried to do anything myself being it's a new gun under warranty. If it were a old gun I would enjoy tweaking on it to get it right. But a new Kimber should need zero tweaking to make it function correctly.

Describing such thoughts as a pipe dream, would be harsh, as some do function correctly as factory assembled. But, being prepared to tweak the rifle, in a number of ways, may very well be needed, to ever get the rifle to reach its potential. In some ways, Kimber and project in a box, are synonymous.

There is a link in this thread, as well as other threads, such as Brad's, which walk through some of the assembly issues you may experience out of the box. All 100% fixable by the owner. But experience has shown, warranty fix on these issues can be spotty.

Keep us posted on your repairs.

Good Luck!

Gotta say for as many threads that are on here about trouble with these guns I can't believe they have such a following.

I agree its a wonder they keep selling like they do. But I bought a used Kimber select 30-06 and it vertical strung loads 3-4 inches. Pulled the stock and found the barrel was hitting the wood just forward of where the bedding ended. Little bit of sanding and now that rifle is simply stupid accurate. That's what convinced me to go with another Kimber hoping for the same.

I would send it back ( I sent 2 back, both came back the same).

If it comes back the same sell it buy a Tikka sako etc. I will never own a rifle with Kimber on it, only pistols