Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Kimber 84 / 84m / 84L: forged / milled or cast action?

I’m with ya on this one. A 280ai would be titty (that’s a good thing!!😉)!!!

I agree !

The Hunter in .223 with 7” twist would sell like aspirin on New Years Day!
That could be their best seller in the entire Kimber rifle line up......

Thanks a lot for that information MCMXI. I really like Kimber rifles.

Would lose me completely if they changed the action.

Great read.

Yeah, I can't see how that combo wouldn't be a slam dunk, too bad they don't seem interested in ever producing it.

Or the 35 Whelen mentioned earlier.
And while they're at it, a .284 Win would be the tits.

Those are really small markets.

They are small, but Ruger seems to be affective at making small runs of calibers that sell. Maybe Kimber could too.

Aren't those runs often big distributors running the risk instead of Ruger?

I'm not sure if I posted these images but here's the .223 Rem Hunter magazine concept that I came up with. The parts were printed using an older .010" resolution 3D printer so a bit rough. The idea was to use the standard 84M receiver and not the .223 Rem/.204 Ruger receiver. The magazine would have required a glass filled nylon 6,6 insert and follower for the current 84M Hunter magazine and would have held 5 rounds comfortably with enough interior length to load 80gr bullets out very long. The A-MAX shown is an 80gr and the other round is a 55gr. If I were designing this today I'd probably add an internal shoulder on the insert much like the Sako S20 magazines to prevent the cartridges from moving forwards and backwards inside the magazine. I couldn't have done that easily with the stainless 84M tube but it would have been easy with the injection molded insert.

The frustrating part was that the molds for the magazine would have been relatively cheap, a .223 extractor was already in existence, and a new barrel would have been trivial.

But that's ok. You don't have to make money on every product, and producing small runs of rifles chambered for cool cartridges pays off in other ways that aren't always easy to quantify but it shows customers that the company "gets it". For example, I bought a CZ Bren 2s recently of which CZ only imported 300 or so to the US. The low import numbers of the excellent 2s, which led to higher prices on GB and similar, generated interest in the Bren 2 Ms which is available in much higher quantities at lower cost and most likely offers CZ higher margins.

Ruger is a company that "gets it". They're ok with spending R&D money on concepts in anticipation of possible changes in availability and demand and that's not something I read.

If I bought a Hunter 7mm/08 could I get a classic select stock and bottom metal from Kimber to make it a classic select? Would that work? I don't want threaded and prefer a 22 barrel. I like the idea of a drop box.

What's up with Kimber and rifles? Are they going all hand guns?

Good points about a company that "get's it." And, while I am a big fan of the Kimber Montana, i.e., lightweight and CRF, I don't think Kimber "get's it." Remember how long Kimber let stupid-simple and easily remedied design flaws exist, which led to their reputation for "Kimber roulette," before they finally fixed them. Kimber needlessly hurt their reputation and lost a lot of sales due to their own monumental stupidity/incompetence and shocking indifference/dumbassness.

I’m not sure if Kimber gets it or not but I’ve been looking at the Montana model but some of the chamberings I’m interested in are offered in the Hunter model but not the Montana. It seems strange to offer more available chamberings in the lower priced model than the higher priced ones.

If Kimber will sell you a stock or if you can find a takeoff stock online it's an easy swap.

I agree 110%. As is often the way, a company's entire direction can be down to one person despite plenty of experience and knowledge within a company. Kimber is owned by one man who gave all control to an individual who's a despicable, narcissistic, ignorant bully who promotes those with similar traits. If Kimber had a board of directors or was publicly traded with shareholders it would have to change.

It's been over a year since I left Kimber so all NDAs are now null and void. Kimber rifles aren't perfect but I liked them before I went to Kimber and like them still. The new rifle engineer came from Savage and he's not a Kimber fan.

I really enjoyed working at Kimber and have few regrets that I left since I went to a better company with a much better work environment and attitude and am making a lot more money. I do regret not being able to make the rifles as good as I could by incorporating many of the changes suggested by very knowledgeable folks on this forum. In theory it's an easy job for a rifle engineer at Kimber. Spend a few days on this forum reading as many Kimber related threads as possible, send out some PMs, rank the suggestions by priority and cost, then work through them. That's not how things work at Kimber though.

This is so depressing to read. I grew up wanting a proper rifle from reading and re reading Jim Carmichael in the 70's. My first rifle was a Ruger 77 round top .270 ( I special ordered ) and about a month after getting it at age 15 I read an article he wrote claiming Jack O'Conner admitting the ,280 was a better round than the .270. I topped mine with a Leupy 2.5 x 8 in Redfield rings ca, 1977 and loved the gun and killed my first deer with it in a raging snowstorm. I've been hooked on classic rifles ever sense. Even at 15 and working the counter in a great gunshop I hated Monte Carlo stocks even back then. I did have my hands on a Colt Sauer ca. 1978 I sold a guy that was perfection although not my taste. Weatherby was a dirty word to me.

Over time I came to like quality "plastic" stocks but still think a first rifle should be walnut. I still want a .280 but know the deer will never know the difference. I'd like a .243 or 7mm/08 as I've come to realize over time it takes very little to kill even a big whitetail. I've been spending a lot of time looking for a gently used rifle for my son or a new Kimber and it's about impossible around here. Everything is junk Creedmoor's new and used I've even tried looking for a nice Ruger No 1 and half the gun shops I go in don't even know what that is.

I'm not sure why it is [bleep] with zero knowledge always end up running and ruining great companies but it sure seems to be par for the course.

I have 5 Kimbers.
I wouldn't change anything. Love the Montana.

+1