I was asked about a comparison to the Kimber Montana.
I love the Barrett so far. Now, understand I never fired it with the factory stock. I felt the factory stock had a longer than desired LOP for me, but it has a nice grip, not unlike a Bansner. My preference is for relatively closed grips. It’s been very easy to load for so far. I did a tiny bit of work to get the lugs engaging more evenly, otherwise haven’t done a thing. Pretty sure I’ll be able to get every bullet I’ve tried to roughly .5” or better 3-shot groups. Hard to argue with that. Mag box is a legitimate 3”. My 147 ELDs are loaded to 2.925 (-.020) and run smoothly.
Comparing to the Montana, I prefer the location of the safety, the grip, and the mag box on the Fieldcraft. Both point exceptionally well. I don’t find the 3-position safety a big deal in my normal use so the 2-position on the Barrett is fine. I like the idea of controlled round feed of the 84M, but I haven’t found it to actually function any better. I’ll be loading up some dummy rounds and dry firing a lot cycling the bolt and feeding rounds. We’ll see how it goes. Both are great rifles. Overall the feel of the 84M is maybe a tiny bit better, almost entirely due to LOP. For handloading the Fieldcraft wins hands down. With my custom stock the Fieldcraft fits like a glove. Substantially better fit and feel than 84M or factory Fieldcraft.
