Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Kimber Open Country

Anyone have any first hand experience with this newer Kimber rifle? Range reports?

No haters comments please, just real experience

I have one in the safe, got some glass on it yesterday. Gonna try to make it to the range this week. Work sucks!!!!

What is the barrel diamiter at the tip?

.860. And it has a bull profile, no concave forward of the shank, very deep flutes. Mine weighed 6lbs 15.4 oz. with bolt in and the thread protector on it a touch heavier than advertised but the total package with nightforce 1 piece base, Warner low qd rings and a leupold mark 4 6.5-20 scope with caps it weighs in at 8 lbs 12 oz. pretty good for a 26" bull barrel rifle. Can't wait to put it on some coyotes before deer season!!!

Sounds interesting

hope to see some groups soon

Looking like I'll be able to get out of the hell-hole on Friday or Saturday afternoon. It should be a nice pleasant 103 degrees outside either way

Oh I hear ya, I've got some Berger Elite Hunters loaded up to test but its just too hot. need to take three rifles to rotate while cooling.

Well funny you say that, I have a .338 federal I have some new loads for, and a 30-06 kimber montana that I was gonna shoot as a donor before getting it rebarrelled to 35 whlen. Seems like I have my 3.

There is a new range across town with 4 indoor spots on a 100 yard range, I might call them and see what it costs/ if I can reserve one. (4 aint alot, and I'd hate to make the trip to come up empty)

I'm gonna try out the Hornady factory 143 ELD-X loads, if they are less than satisfcatory I'll start trying to reload for it. I have some 260 dies I need to trade for some creedmores and a shiiiiteload of scenars....

In mid July I shot 32 5-shot groups at 100 yards with a Kimber Open Country using four different types of Hornady ammunition. I shot the loads in the order shown in the table below starting with the 120gr and ending with 147gr and no suppressor. The rifle started out NIB, I cleaned the barrel between the different loads using a foaming bore cleaner followed by alchohol soaked patches followed by a dry patch. I saw no significant difference to the POA/POI with a cold, clean bore or a hot, fouled bore. The rifle weighs under 7lb without a scope.

I would like to have five or six shots back from the 160 rounds fired but overall the results were decent with only 5 groups of 32 over 1 moa with the worst being 1.262 moa. The Open Country would really shine with a handload using Lapua brass, H4350 and a 140gr ELD-X bullet. Maybe bedding the recoil lug would help too but I've never found a stock Kimber that I couldn't get to shoot in the sub 0.7 moa range with handloads (5-shot groups) so it's not something I'd do on principle.

I have photos of all of the test targets and can post if necessary.

I'd grab a Adirondack if'n I was gonna put a can on it......

Not if I were expecting to put a bunch of rounds through the rifle hunting prairie dogs or coyotes, or if I were over in central MT on an antelope hunt. The Open Country makes for a good all-around deer, antelope, coyote and prairie dog rifle ... it does to me anyway.

Very nice!

I put a few boxes of the 147 ELD-X through mine a few weeks back, it was damn hot... my results were closer to the 1-1.25" range with that round. I'm working on some other loads right now to see if it likes another bullet weight better.

Too bad, that ELD-X looks to be about the best thing on game at all ranges with good ballistics (at least on paper it looks that way, but if I can't get it under 1/2" I'm gonna throw it on the classifieds, I've got too many MOA Montanas and Adirondacks to waste energy hauling a heavy gun that shoots the same)

147gr ELD-X? Do you mean 143gr ELD-X or 147gr ELD Match?

I shot 6 rounds this morning through another Open Country that belongs to a coworker. I had to get to work so didn't mess about too much after I mounted a Nightforce scope for him. I shot one round to bore sight (about 7" low) and then shot a 5-round group using Hornady 140gr ELD Match ammunition. The first three shots were touching and the 4th and 5th shots at bottom right opened up the group a bit but these were literally the first six rounds through a brand new barrel so decent results as far as I'm concerned. I shot the group in a little over a minute and have no doubt that this rifle will do a whole lot better with handloads. I'll be installing a KEYMOUNT brake from Dead Air this weekend so that he can use his SANDMAN-L once the Form 4 gets back. I'm curious to see if the KEYMOUNT opens up the groups a bit. It's sized for .30 cal and I noticed groups opened up with my Accuracy International. I shot without the brake (tiny groups), with the brake (groups opened up by maybe 50%) and then with SANDMAN-L and -S suppressors (tiny groups again).

Here's the group.