Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles My Montana Project and results: A sick rifle

Any chance the front action screw or scope mount screw is hitting the bolt head? Color it with a sharpie. Hate to sound like BS, but you gotta nip mechanicals because the best ammo is schit otherwise. I went through the ringer with my 6x45. Using the same load all the way through the process and it went from 1" 2 in one out crap to nice 1/2" groups.

Bed it. Try a 55 grain.

I'm split between tinkering myself (my preference) vs sending off to Kimber.

The votes for trying a lighter grain bullet...no thanks. I bought the Kimber because it has the twist to shoot heavies. If I want to shoot 55s, I would have grabbed any 10 or 12 twist out there.

I�m not seeing a rifle in need of rebarreling. If more folks took their new rifles out and put several 10 round groups on target, a whole bunch of them wouldn�t be far off of this. Instead they shoot a couple three shot groups and blame the bad groups on �fliers� or �I pulled one�.

Your rifle will come around.

I would send the rifle back to Kimber, let them figure out
what is wrong.

I'd tinker.

In what order would you proceed?

1) Bed
2) shoot again
3) ?

It sounds like once I do #1, Kimber won't touch it. And if it needs a new barrel...I didn't sign up for a $1000 donor action.

If it makes you feel safer, send it to Kimber and complain about the barrel. They will either deny you or rebarrel it. When you get it back, it will shoot the same either way, because the problem is not the barrel.

It is not bedded properly yet. Did you read the thread above on ARAIG? It will help you understand a lot of what is probably going on. A heavier rifle masks most of these problems; a Kimber will not.

MORE READING

Love him or hate him, Stick knows his way around a Montana, as does Smoker. If you read through that thread you'll see he's running 75's. I've got a 270 WSM that I haven't run one round through yet. Both of those threads are book marked and I ain't worried.

I can understand hesitation with a new rig for sure. Mine was used so that ship sailed.

I suggest an emergency unbanning of Stick so this rig can get underway. Between the two I bet it'll sing.

gosh I like my pre 64 M70's. That said, kimber has surely put out some great shooters as seen by some folks, but that follower....thats the "wow" to me.

Yeah the handiwork on the follower spring is terrible. Trying to read Boxer's stuff and figure out how to mod the mag for longer bullets and to stop the follower hiccups.

Aren't these tips/suggestions , along with proper load development, the same ones you got last time you posted the same topic?????

After reading the 'Montana Project' thread, and having never tried factory ammo, I thought I'd combine the 10-shot group lessons learned with some tinkering - "proper load development".

Posted the results, and looking for some extra help. Having read the Montana tips info, I've followed all suggestions - leaving bedding for last. The question is - do the groups show a rifle that needs beddding?

Yes

Would said bedding make the rifle a shooter? Thats what I'm trying to determine vs sending off to Kimber or just ordering a new barrel and let a gunsmith put it together properly.

Try some 50's to figure out wtf if nothing else. If it shoots them good you know it's not digging the heavies. You're kinda backwards and being stubborn about it ain't gonna give you any clues as to what's up.

1-9" isn't a guarantee it will shoot 75's. My new Montana is 1-9.25" and won't in the cold foggy weather here. Did you check twist with a cleaning rod?

If you haven't bedded a rifle before I sure wouldn't wanna learn on one of these. Pretty sensitive little action. Mine was shooting pretty good but I bedded it and it's gotten worse. I did the best looking bedding job I've ever done too, but I screwed the pooch somewhere. Just my luck I guess.

Haven't bedding a rifle before, and don't plan to try on this one. Will hopefully find a smith willing to give it a go.

Or a 24HCF member who wants to help and willing to put their name on trying to make this rifle right.

It might not shoot 75s, but the Fusions were 62. I'll grab a box of 50 somethings to satisfy that question.

If it shoots only the 50s and nothing else, this rifle will be for sale. I doubt it, as others have the Kimber 223 shooting heavies.

Quite simply at the price of the Kimber you have expectations that it should perform better than that or that they should stand behind it and repair it. Even if it is a bedding issue you would be enabling them to continue producing a poor product if you fix it yourself. As long as folks continue fixing their screw-ups they have no incentive to be sure that they are right when they are shipped. There are so many things wrong with it that it should never have left the shop.

Why buy an $1100 Kimber to have to work on it, if you need a project rifle buy a Walmart $300 Rem 700.

drover

I've never bought an $1100 rifle I didn't have to work on...

but my two Kimbers just took a trigger tweak and done.

Clearly your problem is that you're shooting groups of too many shots. Seriously, there are aplenty pretty 3-shot groups on your targets. Folks should note that.