Not long ago I picked up another Montana, this one BNIB in 7-08. When the package arrived from the dealer, I did the usual- give in to my OCD tendencies, and tear rifle apart to inspect it. Inside the mag well of the stock the date was written in sharpie. November of 2014. Good stuff, a new production rifle. Should have all the kinks worked out. Well it did. The action screws were properly clearanced, mag box had plenty of play in the assembled rifle, bedding looked pretty good, the barrel was nicely and evenly floated (more on this later), and the crown looked good. Of course I couldn't help myself, and before even shooting the rifle I had to skim bed the action, bed the Talley LW's (the screws were free of interference), coat the bore in DBC and put DGS on all remaining metal, adjust the trigger down to 1.5 lbs, and polish the crown. I got an FX3 6x42 with LRD and M1 ele out of the safe and mounted it up, and was all set for the initial shooting session.

Well the results over the next several sessions were not overly encouraging as I tried different powders, bullets, seating depths, different ways to hold the rifle, and I even tried switching up the colour of my socks. Nothing seemed to help. Some groups were okay, like 1.5" for 5 shots, and others continued to range from bad to dismal. Like this one.



And this one.




So I thought I'd try a couple more tweaks before ordering a new tube. I took the rifle home and checked the barrel float. The barrel was still floating nice and evenly on both sides...all the way to the barrel shank, where it was contacting the stock. I decided to float the barrel shank all the way back to the receiver. The next session went like this:









[img]http://i1272.photobucket.com/albums...D-4CD3-A11B-15FE8DC34EF6_zpsnxxce7z9.png[/img]


At the end of the day, after all the items on the regular list checked out okay, floating the barrel shank back to the receiver seemed to do the trick. So if any of you are struggling to get the accuracy that you expect, don't forget to add barrel bedding/floating tweaks to your arsenal.

A few days after getting some loads selected, this showed up from chris84 here on the campfire:

[img]http://i1272.photobucket.com/albums...F-486F-AE17-4CB2EA1F9527_zpsqqshpjt5.jpg[/img]

I have a funny feeling this rig will see some time on the sheep mountains this fall...

[img]http://i1272.photobucket.com/albums...4-42E7-9255-372D46BD1323_zpsjqhdsqma.jpg[/img]

Good looking rifle. I will watch for it listed on the EE next week.

Jordan,

The most accurate Montana I've ever owned was floated all the way back to the receiver. Rifles are interesting...

My 708 is floated to the receiver and gets good accuracy with everything I've tried so far; especially the 120 TTSX with RL15.

Going to the range this morning with my Montana .260 Rem which shot like your original target last time. The front scope ring screw was touching and has now been shortened. Got a couple different handload a to try. If that doesn't work, next step is bedding.

Jordan, thank you for posting this information as I have a Montana 223 that I am just starting to reload for and shoot. It would be a big help if you could take a picture of the barrel shank area with the barreled action out of the stock to get a visual of what exactly it looks like now.

Again great work and i am glad that you have your rifle shooting well now. Best of luck with it!

Sure, will do as soon as I get a minute. Hopefully tonight.

awesome thanks I really appreciate it

You've basically got 2 options- you can sand down the stock under the barrel shank, and you can bed the action and build it up a bit. Most likely a combination of the two will be most effective. Just be careful not to build up the bedding too much or you'll have to replace the action screws with longer ones.

Seems like you should just be able to purchase a rifle (especially a $1100 rifle)
and have it shoot fine right out of the box..... Like my m77's

Everytime I get the itch to buy a Kimber, I read something like this.

I've had to do the same work to M77's. I've also had Kimbers that shot lights out without any work. You just have to take each rifle as it comes and make sure it's mechanically sound.

Thanks Jordan

Nice looking rifle

Thank you Jordan. That was very kind of you to take the time to take pictures and post them.

@ Jordan, did you put any layers of tape on the bottom of the lug when you bedded it and if not, did you dremel out the bedding in the bottom of the lug after you were finished so it wouldn't have the possibility of bottoming out?

No, sir. I like to bed my lugs tight. The lug can't bottom out if the bedding compound dries as a perfect mould of the receiver and lug, since that geometric relationship never changes unless you screw the barrel out of the receiver.

If a Montana was 3 lbs heavier, it would bughole!

I just tore down my 223 Montana that was shooting 1.5 to 2 inches at 100 with most everything, usually 2 touching, one out.

Skim bedded with a tight lug, made sure the barrel floated, reassembled, and got into sub inch territory. Disassembled it again to tweak the trigger, and its back to 1.5 to 2 again. Went back to the start and found I had somehow managed to bind the follower spring under the mag box. I expect it will be back to the sweet spot now. Well worth the effort.

I bought this rifle after finding a 7/08 Montana that behaved itself from the start.