Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles kimber rifle lost favor on the fire?

Lost favor? while Kimber does have some very vocal fans on the fire many more (including Me) have had bad experiences with Kimber rifles and were never fans, I think the vast majority here see Kimber rifles as over priced for the iffy you might get a good one or maybe not quality.......They don't call buying a new Kimber rifle playing Kimber roulette for nothing....................Good luck................Hb

This would explain My buddies experience with a new Montana in 7mm.08, that thing wouldn't shoot for chit so he sent it back, after 3 months he got his rifle back and it still wouldn't shoot but also wouldn't feed reliably so he traded it a gun show.....................Hb

My Kimber accuracy thoughts from another thread...

The one's I have had have mostly shot well with "something". I don't know if the technique for shooting them is very mysterious.

I found that if I got loosey goosey grip with a Montana 257 Roberts at the bench, or didn't put something soft under the front of the receiver,it did not shoot as well... Just got a firm grip and follow through...it shot fine.

If that is true, I will be the first to congratulate that person. However, they didn't teach him how to shoot very light hunting rifles. That person knows how to shoot so adapting to a Montana should be easy breezy....

But I will say this, if you go all your life and shoot 8lb hunting rifles, then one day you own a Montana I will bet most people will have to modify their shooting technique. Have seen it, done it and won't be sold otherwise.

I don't want to insult good older aged folks on here however, some old folks have issues changing their underwear regularly so I can imagine the strain it would cause you to make a change in shooting technique....

As with any/every rifle I own including my Montana in 7-08 I have..

Bedded it
Adjusted the trigger (Kimber offers one of the best factory triggers...period)
Polished the rails
With my Montana I had Big Stick help out with a couple of other mods I chose to make....making the rifle better! (a very willing fellow BTW).

I'm not going to say you can't get a lemon. but I can also buy a lemon from Winny, Remmie, yada, yada...

Unless you order up a custom to your specs, ALL factory rigs are made for tweaking by those who are inclined. No factory can simply bang out thousands of units and simply expect all shooters to fall in line... And when your tweaks are done right (emphasis on done RIGHT), performance of the rifle will enhanced and then the only limiting factor is YOU and if you load, YOUR ability to cook up some good, straight loads for it.

Love my 84M in 7-08. In fact it still has the 2 position safety. Got it in AK for $675 and no tax. Has a Leupold 3.5-10 on it.

Man that's a crazy good price. When did they stop making the two position safety? Does that safety lock your bolt?

I will say I really like the 3 pos safety with the ADL stock. Much safer to take out the cartridges.

I've two and am quite fond of them.

Although I have some experience with wood stocked 84's, most of my experience comes from dealing with Montana's.

The four biggest culprits I've witnessed on multiple Montana's:

1. The mag box binds the action. The box is a tad long. When the screws are torqued, the action bottoms out on the mag box instead of the bedding. That causes the action to flex and move around in the stock....which brings up #2.

2. The action flexes upon recoil. The actions are small and there is very little metal in the rails under the action. The lack of tight bedding aides this...which brings up #3.

3. The slave bedding sucks, especially in the lug area. There is way too much space there. Every Montana I've handled needs some bedding in the lug. By allowing the lug to move, this prohibits consistency.

4. The front action screw bottoms out. Combine this with everything above and you have a real cluster.

Take a Dremel to the protrusions on the mag box and the front screw, bed the lug tight and you're going to improve things immensely. Adjust the trigger to perfect and make sure your front ring screw isn't contacting the threads....then find "the" load.

It's pretty simple stuff really. When you get one right, it's hard to leave it in the safe very long....

Bone support, muscular relaxation, natural point-of-aim. I get paid to teach that [bleep] to people. I have a Steyr Scout(under 7#) that'll shoot bugholes off its integral bipod. I can put three into an inch, prone with a Ching Sling. It ain't me. A rifle is a damn rifle, a light one is less forgiving of form/positioning etc, but it is still a damn rifle, and the position fundamentals above and the steady hold factors apply the same.

Yep, if'n you know what to look for, it sounds pretty simple, all that plus a recrown. What is truly sad is, when you mail the POS back to Kimber, with all that [bleep] wrong with the rifle, they box it right up and mail it back to you.

Thanks, will be several months before I will be able. Friend has to buy a gun from me first.

Very nice write up.

What get's me is the anti Kimber guys will do most of what you stated to other rifles and not complain. But when you do the extra work to a Kimber, it's a POS!

Maybe not everything is spot on every time...but simple to tweak. After all, it is still a factory rig.

The platform is simply to good to not own and make a few tweaks....

TAK, honest question for you. Are you basing your negative views of kimber on owning one rifle?

Nope! Same old complainers complaining.

My negative view is about KIMBER USA, not just on one Montana I happened to own. How many times does someone need to sucker punch you before you decide to duck. Kimbers' "service" policy, is to do what benefits Kimber USA's bottom line. Caveat Emptor.

BTW, Kimber's 1911's suck balls as well. They are consistently inconsistent.

I dunno, maybe $600 vs $1100 might have something to do with it?

My Kimber experience is fairly limited compared to most of you guys. I still have a Kimber of Oregon 223 that I'll never part with, but understand this discussion is related to the current Yonkers rifles. Of those, I had an 8400 300 WM with a misaligned firing pin hole in the bolt face - after the first couple of rounds through it, I started getting misfires. Bolt disassembly revealed a bent firing pin and the shop I bought it from offered me a refund so I took them up on it rather then send it back to Kimber.

More recently, I found a used Classic in 325 WSM that I bought mainly because of the price which included a Leupy 4.5-14 I wanted for another rifle. For what I paid, I could have rebarreled to 7 WSM for not much more than the price of a new one which was where I was going with it. Of course I had to shoot it first - I couldn't get 200 Accubonds to shoot, but three different flat base bullets seem to do very well - consistently sub MOA. It's kind of growing on me as is...

No flies on your rifle...good shooting! Glad to see you "got a good one"...

It still kills me that Kimber is somehow expected to not be a factory rifle, even though it's a factory rifle.


I've hod some epic pieces of [bleep] from Remington too.