Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Crappy shooting Montana (for real)!

"Pure fact from MY experience."

I laughed.

How did you get on with the rifle BCSteve?

I would be shocked if your Copper does not shoot lights out, unlike Kimber rifles I have never seen a Cooper that didnt shoot at least MOA right out of the box.....No gunsmithing required..........Good luck ....Hb

Went back to the range this morning, a balmy 30* Celcius.

I was curious to see if shortening that scope mount screw that was bottoming would make a difference. I also had a couple new loads to try.

First up was the factory Federal 120gr Fusion


Some 140gr Hornady SST that I had put together to seasoned the barrel when I applied DBC to the barrel. No idea what the load is and don't care with those results.



Some 140gr Hornady IL with an unknown load. Some left over of something. About 1.5" for three, not that bad.



140gr A-Max with 42gr of H4350. Again, 4 in about 1.5", not great but better than before.



139gr Scenars, 42gr H4350. 4 in almost 1".



Not too sure what to make of today's results. Some of the groups were just as bad as last time yet some show some potential. Next step is going to be bedding.

Don't return it to Kimber. Their CS is about as bad as it gets.

And you may well be on the road to fixing your rifle yourself.

Good luck,

Steve

Float the barrel all the way to the recoil lug

If that fails then full bed all the way to the tip or try 15 lbs of tip pressure as many thin barrels like to be dampened

As a last ditch effort and I mean last ditch.....send it back to Kimber

BTW.....be for warned.....Kimber customer service manager "Allen" is a lying POS and I hope you dont have to deal with that bastid sob

Also......Kimber gives no accuracy guarantee

Those last two loads have potential. Try those again but try experimenting with LOA, i.e. Bullet seating depth. Make sure that the crosshairs are in the same place (vertical) each time.

I think an example of why Kimber dropped the .260Rem..

Really.........well I dang near cried being duped by Kimber. Learned my lesson.

Same here.

I've yet to see a "bad" Montucky,but have seen a few that folks thought were "bad". Hint.

Start at the fhuqking start.

Re-hint.

Funny how things so glaring,reliably stump the masses...and I mean fhuqking FUNNY.

Wow............

My bad experience with Kimber wasn't with a Montana. It was a model 84L. After having dealt with Kimbers CS dept and seeing the low quality of these guns and the piss poor repair work done by them there is no need for me to ever buy another.

Agreed but unfortunately, neither of those loads use what I would consider hunting bullets (flame suit on) . Although, push come to shove, I'm sure either of those two would work.

First of all, with all due apologies to Larry, AKA, Big Stick, if you are having trouble getting that Kimber to shoot, here is a trouble free solution- Sell it, and go buy a Tikka. I have never ever shot a Kimber in my life, but apparently there is a certain amount of tinkering that often comes with the package. Even me, who has little interest in Kimbers could find that tinkering recipe quite quickly on here, and if you don't have that much interest, you probably would be happier with a Tikka. Or one of those new Rugers, whatever they are called.
And, Larry, by way of spilling my guts about photo equipment, I am at the point where dollars spent finding animals to photo pays bigger dividends than a new camera body. Looking for a good place to photo caribou, maybe the Toquin Valley in Jasper.

Royce

WTF!?! What makes you think I don't have interest in tinkering and making my rifle shoot? Weird post....

Because if the first thing you do after shooting groups that are more like patterns is to post them on the internet, I would suspect that you aren't too interested in tinkering with a rifle. If I come home from the range after shooting groups like that, my first inclination is to find out what the f is wrong, not post pictures of a train wreck on the 'Fire.
Next question?

Ha, I love those teaser groups from crazy guns. You think you are finally making progress, then your next trip to the range it starts spraying again.

Steve,

I have one Montana... 7mm-08. Biggest improvement on mine came when I replaced the Talleys and FX-3 with steel bases, steel rings, and 4-9x SuperBird. The heavier scope and hardware has completely changed the recoil characteristics of the "system".

I had considerable "hop" with the lighter FX-3. To the point where I think the whole-body recoil of the system was difficult to get repeatable results with. In other words... the rifle motion under recoil was not "repeatable"... for me. It would hop varying degrees depending on rest, shooting angle, etc. I tried controlling muzzle jump different ways and I had numerous tight 3-5 shot groups with different loads, and good results out to 500 yards. But the "system" was not very forgiving and took decent skill to shoot well (and ability to build a good field rest). Now, keep that in perspective as it would still shoot 10-shots into 1.5" which is still dang good for such a light rifle in my book.

With the heavier SuperBird and steel hardware... its a completely different animal. Not one bit finicky to shoot. Its boringly reliable out to 500+ yards. Nothing changed... other than the scope and hardware. I did trim 2 screws but that wasn't even necessary. My Kimber was made a couple years ago. No mag issues, and you can turn the rifle upside down without action screws and the action won't fall out (i.e. tight).

I suspect that many problems with Montanas are due to inconsistent/non-repeatable rifle motion under recoil to the point where some have trouble shooting such a light rifle. I know many of us have speculated this, but I've now seen it firsthand and the affect of adding slightly more weight.

I'm not saying that everyone needs to add steel hardware and heavy scopes to their Montanas but this rifle should make one consider the possibility that, if all else is OK, maybe 10-shots under 1" is not realistic for such a light rifle with light scope and mounts. Or the fact that many of us do not have the skill Anyway, something to ponder.

First pic was right after the scope switch, and getting familiar with it (not controlling muzzle jump!). Its only gotten better since.

I am convinced a better shooter could stack 10-shots in one neat hole with this rifle.

Jason

...or your leupold was a dog.