Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Kimber Montana Safety Issue Question

Odd occurrence; My pack hung up on my safety and moved it to the middle position and raised up the bolt. When I reached for it I knocked the safety forward and the gun fired (deer stand now has a .264” hole in the roof and I was nearly in need of new underwear).

Safety works as designed when bolt is down. If you snap the safety forward with the bolt up it drops the firing pin every time. Trigger has been adjusted to break between 2-3 lbs and checked by normal drop test with no problems so sear adjustment appears to be ok.

Never seen this issue on my other 3 position safety rifles.

Can someone duplicate the condition described on their Kimber and report results?

Thanks

I just checked my Adirondack and it doesn't do that.

Edit to add: With the safety in the middle and the bolt slightly raised the rifle doesn't fire but the safety will go forward. If it's raised too much the safety won't go forward.

Ill check an 84L classic tonight, bolt completely unlocked or partially raised?

Trying to picture this. If your bolt was fully up, the bolt was unlocked and out of battery, the case held by the extractor. I would think if it went off in that condition you'd have more than just a hole in the roof?? Not that I've ever had a rifle fire in that condition, but I would think the results would be more than just firing.

(To add, if the bolt is fully open, I'm pretty sure it is physically holding back the FP, that shouldn't be released until the bolt is closed, regardless of what the safety is doing. What you described seems pretty much physically impossible...(??) )

Scary stuff, hoping others can with in. Interested to hear what others have to say.

One time I reassembled my 84m and ran into this. What I found was that the mag box wasn’t seated into the receiver correctly. This created a binding of the action and did exactly what you ran into. Mine wasn’t loaded but coming off safe to fire would let the pin go every time.

Upon inspection, was able to see my error. Long way of saying u could check to see if your mag box isn’t binding or twisting the action. Pull the bolt back and stick your fingers in the magwell. Should be a little bit of wiggle room. If she’s tight, it’s likely contorting the action as u tightened the action screws. Just something to look at.

Pabucktail- thanks for checking yours and proving feedback

TM7554- I checked the magazine box and it does not move. Next move is to get it assembled with a non binding magazine box.

Thegman- In the current condition I am not seeing the firing pin assembly dropping as far/deep as when I dry fire it, so I’m not sure if it is capable of firing a round. I would also think if the round went off and the lug was not engaged there would be some additional excitement reported.

If I’m still seeing the same condition after clearing the magazine I may cycle some primed cases to see if it will ignite a primer.

The only other thing I’m second guessing is whether one of the pack straps was tangled and when the round went off I jumped so much it yanked it out without me seeing it. I do know my fingers were not in the trigger guard.

Thanks to all for your contributions

My Oregon made 84 will fire when moved from 1/2 safe to fire if the trigger is pulled on 1/2 safe.

I have not shot it for decades.

I suppose some day I will straighten it out.

Threads like this are the reason I am never hot unless I am ready to kill.

That's the thing......I'm ready to kill at all times!

Not a gunsmith, just a Joe... but, I have noticed a correlation between certain trigger designs being lightened and this "failure mode". From what I can tell, if your design affects the sear stability in order to achieve lighter trigger pull, paired with what I would describe as a "hysteresis" effect (behaves one way going forward, differently in reverse) that creeps toward break. I watched a video about the Winchester XPRs "failure" and, apparently if you cocked it and flicked the safety a couple dozen times back and forth the sear would break. Now... I think that is reasonable but where they messed up was not accounting for Bubba to lighten the trigger beyond instruction and... thus the recall.

Or maybe you touched the hair trigger or it wasn't so stable, it wouldn't be the first time someone set up their rig in error. Per forum, it often happens with Leupold scopes of certain model series... corroborated with instructional videos and real-life testimony.

Just take the barreled action out of the stock and reinstall in the stock without the magbox. Now check safety again. Quick way to see if thats the culprit.

Took the action out, no change but did verify when the safety is snapped forward and bolt is up that the firing pin is not being fully released to strike the primer. I tried everything I knew of (even pulling the trigger while in middle position before going to fire position) to get it to malfunction but it did not.

I’m going to chalk this up to the pack strap tab must have been snagged on the trigger when I hit the safety and bumped it forward, and when the gun discharged I jumped enough to clear the pack strap tab without me ever seeing it. This would also mean the bolt was not fully raised and the lugs were engaged.

For me going forward, I won’t sling this gun loaded with my pack on (note I’m left handed and this is a right hand gun) so that pack strap snagging doesn’t create a safety issue.


Once again, thanks to all that contributed to this post.

Glad you figured it out, for what its worth at this point I tried and could not recreate this on a 84L Classic .30-06.

I don’t chamber a round unless I’m in an ambush position and have a stable spot to set the loaded rifle, or, target is about to be engaged, in which case I chamber a round on the way to my shoulder.

That's how this sentence should read if you're concerned about safety.

If it’s not in my hands, I won’t have one in the chamber. I had an M70 in 338 WM do the same thing Burns described, if I am reading it right. Touched off a 225 at full tilt. I was disappointed.

I have a Model 70 and when hunting out of a box blind I have a formed a habit of placing 3 rounds in the magazine and not placing one in the barrel….closing the bolt THEN only raising the bolt but not not feeding a round into barrel so I am not able to shoot until I pull bolt rearward to feed a round into barrel…. make sense? By doing this I do not have to be concerned with the safety position because no round is in the barrel. Only when I see a deer that I would want to shoot then I pull bolt rearward, picking up a round and forward with bolt to place round barrel. I trust that 3 position safety but I do not trust myself when sitting there for hours on end with a round in the barrel….that bolt is lifted and I only have to pull rearward to feed a round. Good post and we all can learn and apply to our situations.

After dealing with the clownshow that is Kimber CS in the gunsmithing end of things all I can say is good luck. When a provided chamber cast was totally ignored on three attempts, no option available to speak to anyone with the first clue about the definition of "headspace," and repeated obvious lies about the work done, Kimber can go pound sand.

If anyone can expound on the virtues of "adjustable firing pin protrusion" beyond YGBFKM, please have at it.

Hopefully it was Brown Pants Day!