I have a Winchester Featherweight in 257 Roberts, and the floorplate on it is the worst design I've seen. The trigger guard is one piece, the floorplate that hinges the magazine plate is another. The magazine box meets the magazine plate, and there is no bottom metal between the front and trigger guard. On the Kimber, the bottom metal is at least one pice front to back, but the trigger guard screws onto it. Weird, but I think preferable to the Winchester design.
Neither compare to the Mauser, which has a one piece trigger guard, bottom plate and magazine box milled from solid stock. As I understand it, Mauser had something like 27 different versions of bottom metal, designed to feed each caliber smoothly.
The Kimber at least has the three position safety, CRF and the claw extractor. I don't mind the bottom of the action being round, as I'm not sure it makes any difference. It really seems to be a 70/700 hybrid to me. They don't undercut the front of the groove for the extractor as Mauser does, and I'm not sure why not. Doing so pulls the extractor tightly against the bolt body during primary extraction, so it can't slide off the rim of a stuck case. That's just one of the things that makes the M98 so good and sets it apart from the others.
Last edited by Paddler; 04/11/10.
