Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Kimber Montana: Clean or Dirty Barrel

Just out of curiosity, how does your Montana
shoot best, clean or dirty barrel? If dirty, how
many shots to get it shooting again after cleaning?

The four montanas I’ve had liked the bore a little fouled. 3-5 shots after a complete cleaning started to tighten the groups right up. Unfortunately for me in S FL, its normally hot down here so the more shots fired, the more the barrel and action heats up, which takes forever to cool back down to ambient temps and affects group sizes on my rifles.

Mine shoot well clean or dirty. Don't see much difference between the first and 10th shot after cleaning. EXCEPT, for the 280AI and TTSX bullets. That rifle does require about 5 TTSX down the bore to settle in. The 84M in 308Win and the 8400 in 30-06 don't exhibit that tendency.

It depends....

But 90% of factory barrels will shoot better a little dirty, the copper smooths out the little imperfections in the bore

I've never owned a rifle that didn't shoot better dirty than clean and my Montana is no exception.




Travis

X2
I'm not a fanatic about cleaning them. I'll clean them after being in the rain or when they start being less accurate. When I do clean them I make sure to get all the fouling out.

I've owned plenty of rifles that shot better "dirty," but I suppose it's wise to qualify what "clean" vs. "dirty" is... "clean" to me is a barrel taken down to bare metal, with no more than 3 rounds through it. "Dirty" is a barrel with over 3 rounds through it.

They're all individuals, and there's no "brand specificity" as to whether a rifle shoots best cleaned after no more than 50 rounds down, or 500.

You have to let the rifle tell you...

About 150 CF rifles over 50+ years and I totally agree with Brad. So far, my KMA-.280AI, seems to settle down after about 5 shots and then does quite well.

I am trying to only clean when needed, my sts tubes anyway, but, decades of guncare tends to make me nervous about leaving a bore dirty and without rust preventative. BC is WET and rust never sleeps.......

Dirty barrels for me too with factory tubes, my hunting rifles. I normally run a lightly oiled patch through and another dry one after the rifle is zeroed. Then don't worry about it for the year. That would be the Kimber

Match rifles, I shoot moly and after a match just run 3-4 patches of Kroil/GM TEC 50/50 followed by 2 dry patches and rock on for the first 4000 rounds. These are of course custom tubes