Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Slick bullets to fit Kimber Montana

I can get a kiss with the Berger 168 gr Classic Hunter and they are very accurate.

I will definitely give the Classic hunters a chance in the 280ai.
What kind of speeds are you getting?

I picked up a box of Hornady 75gr hpbt yesterday to try in the 223.
Looks like I should be able to get around 2800fps.

Give the 70 grain VLDs a look. They can be run at mag length, and have the potential for 3000 fps.

I looked for them yesterday, there was not even a space on the shelf for them at Sportsmans or Bobby Wards.
3000fps sounds fast for 70gr in a 22inch

Third Gen and Graf & Sons have them. 3000 is certainly doable in a 22� barrel; check out Ramshot�s data.

Looks like 2950 in a 24in barrel for a 68gr horn in vanilla .223
at 54,000

Will the Montanan withstand the .556 loads at 62,350 psi?
Seems you could really get the heavies moving at those pressures

I�ll just say that I�ve shot the 70s at 3000 fps in a 22� barrel and felt pressure was fine. Though a hundred feet per second isn�t going to change much, so if a guy stopped at 2900 he really wouldn�t lose anything. If I had several rifles I was interchanging ammo between, stopping around that 2900 fps mark could be a prudent move.

As for the 5.56 pressure levels in the Kimber; plenty of folks are rechambering their Kimber 223s to 223 AI and they seem to be working fine. The velocities increases seen in the AI over the standard 223 is primarily due to increased pressure, since the case capacity increase is quite small. Some of the 223 AI data is rather brisk, to put it nicely, and the Kimbers seem to be surviving nicely. At least I have not heard of any issues. So I suspect that many of the 223 AIs out there are running at 5.56 or higher pressure levels.

mine does. it is one of the AI'd ones, and I feed it nothing but 5.56 pressure loads.

I had a Kimber Montana 223 AI for a bit. It was fed loads with pressures estimated to be in the 5.56 range, and worked fine. Nice little rifle.

The 150 ABLR might work nice in the 280 AI !

I am hoping to use 168 class bullets, but the extra speed and shorter OAL would be nice...
I will try the 168 Classic hunter and the 168 ABLR
Both are supposed to work well at SAMMI length

I'm running the 168 ABLR in my 280 Ackley with Ramshot Magnum...getting about 2960 fps in a 26 inch barrel...they are lethal on elk !

I get around 2920 with 7828.