Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Full length bedding a Kimber Montana

Has anyone seen any dramatic improvements by full length bedding a Kimber Montana? My 7mm-08 is shooting right at MOA since I bedded it. I stopped at the end of the barrel shank though and I was considering trying a full length bed.
Is this hard to get right? Is it more complicated than a good tape and release agent job with a squared up piece of clay at the end of the stock to act as a dam?

On one hand I might need to leave well enough alone. On the other hand I want to see if it helps and don't see why I couldn't easily get rid of it if it is worse.

I would be using Pro Bed 2000 that I have on hand.

I experimented with shooting my 7-08 Montana out of box, FL bedding and free floating with area under chamber both bedded and free-floating as well as free floating with varying amounts of tip pressure. I got the most consistent results from FL bedding from the action face forward. FL bedding proved to be an improvement over the factory job, taking 5 shot groups down to 1 to 1-1/4". The rifle was sensitive to barrel heating and allowing barrel to cool between shots improved performance ... not a real practical real-life option if you are prone to flinging lots of lead in a hurry. 140 Accubonds over Big Game turned in the best accuracy / velocity combo that I tried.

The rifle went down the road in favor of a .270 Forbes which is far more accurate right out of the box - particularly with regards to cold barrel / first shot consistency. As far as real world practicality goes, either rifle would be hard to beat in its role as a high country muley rifle.

I'm in nearly the same boat.I have also fallen in love with an early Forbes 270. Working up loads for it last week it shot two loads into 5 shot groups of .546 and .658 with the largest 5 shot groups of the day being 1.299 and 1.079. I was running out of time and only fired 3 shots into one target for a 3 shot 100 yard group of .146 All groups were at 100 yards.

The Kimber routinely produces groups like it did that day of 3 shots of 1.258 and 1.175 with an occasional 3 shot group much better. It also gets much worse after about 5 in a row. The Forbes does not seem to suffer at all as the barrel heats up,though I don't just see how many I can put through it before it does.

I had a friend who has having a ton of trouble getting a 338 lapua to shoot so he needed the whole barrel and floated the action and it went from 1.5 MOA to about .75 MOA. But that was a full bull 32” tube with a much bigger cartridge/ monster laminated boyd’s stock with a 3 or 4” forend.


IMO—� MOA is good for a hunting rifle that weighs as little as a montana, I’ve gotten accuracy improvements by cutting Montana’s down also, taking it to 18-20” makes the barrel stiffer, if I were looking for better accuracy and its already needed I would start there. But it’s your rifle/money/time.

You floated the action???

Yes... full length bedded the barrel (full bull) and floated the action from about a 1/2” in front of the lug on back...

It was a big heavy goofy setup, it might not work with something more reasonable.

No World I have functioned in gives this a green light... what am I missing?

That the barrel was 32” long and 1.25” in diameter and had about 20” of full 180 degrees of bedded contact with the stock. We might have bedded the lug I don’t remember... it was a wild recommendation the owner got on a long range forum and he was only looking to shoot at 1200+ yards and nothing else we had done worked to that point. It was set up as a single shot so no mag box to worry about. You have to allow a system to flex somewhere. Flexing at the reciever worked better then flexing at the barrel for this rifle.

edited to add:

take these sources for what they are worth, but it is not a wild idea, published multiple times:

http://www.rifleshootermag.com/gunsmithing/gunsmithing_bedding_0304/

http://benchrest.com/showthread.php?73628-Floating-action-and-barrel-block-bedding

http://benchrest.com/showthread.php?61700-Free-floating-action

http://www.6mmbr.com/gunweek075.html

I have heard of this but assumed they used the recoil lug. Thank you.

All that being said... I wouldn’t do it in a Montana... all that acraglass would make it weigh as much as a tikka!!!!

I’ll call up my buddy who owned it. I’ll see if he still has it (probably built 3-7 guns on that action by now) or if he remembers the specifics about the lug on it.

I would leave it alone. Minute of angle is fine accuracy. You don't need more. I have a pet Remington Model Seven with 18-1/2" barrel I bought new in 1991. It shoots very well with the barrel free floated. Once I thought it might shoot better with a fully bedded barrel, so I did that. It shot worse, so I had to hog out all that Acraglas with my Dremel tool. Don't mess with success. I know that NULA rifles shoot well with fully bedded barrels. I have shot one. Yours seems to like the way it is. Leave it alone.

I think it works well on a fairly stiff stock like the Forbs/NULA but the Montana may not be as stiff. For light barrels in a not so stiff stock conventional bedding and free floating has usually been best and the POI shift is less than FL bedding or pressure point bedding but light barrels do respond well to PP bedding frequently so I would test it first to see what happens.

Floating the action: This is routine for 10/22s on up to 50 BMG especially when a bedding block is used. The targets prove it works.