Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Another pc. of crap Kimber

K imber number 7, 257 R Classic Select. Great pc. of wood.
It took a ton of load combos to get it under 1/2". HUH took all of 9 combos WOW what a bummer! 2 powders 2 bullets a few seating depth changes. This was about in the middle of the number of combos of the other 6 centerfires that I have owned. All 6 shot at least 3/4" or less with tweeking a few loads. I guess that I'm really lucky. I have had a couple that took considerably more experimenting. Some my fault, not listening to the groups. My Coopers have taken less but they should for at least twice the money. Also have 7 NY 22's the 6 that I have shot all will shoot less than 1" 5 shot groups with match ammo, not every group but 5 out of ten. The only issues I have had. Lighten the trigger pull, I've had to sand a few barrel channels.
I really like the Kimbers.

Congrats!

Nothing but good results with my (multiple) Kimbers too.

Just the simple fit, feel and finish of my Mod 84s and one Mod 82 (Clackamas) make these keepers to pass down from generation to generation. I agree with the Coopers too. A couple of good brand names.

O ne of the cheap 3.5x10x40 Leupolds Should do well on it. My other hunting rifles wear straight 6's

Dude, we need pictures.

I hear ya man, I recently got a Montana in 6.5 CM and I really don’t know why I’m even trying to reload for the thing. New scope mounted , 3 shots of factory 143 ELDX’s yesterday.

I am reloading for it because I had a bunch of new brass bullets and dies. If I was starting over for deer and elk I would just buy factory ammo. But it is a disease.

So, a strange thing happend and I wound up with a new Kimber MT 280AI which was purchased as a gift for me by my wonderful wife and son. As some of you know, I’ve had to sell a bunch of stuff (including two rifles I said I’d never sell and a few of my large rods and reels) to fund the restoration of my beloved 21 Mako. I guess my family took pity on me and found a killer Black Friday deal for a nib Montana right at $1K with free shipping.

I picked up the rifle on Monday and proceeded to do the pre-flight checklist on it. Now this is about my 8th Montana, but the first new one in a while, and currently the only one I own, so I have a pretty decent amount of experience with them. This particular rifle had the action bedding spot on, but the barrel channel hit the barrel in a few different spots and had to be addressed with a bit of sanding to free float it back to the shank. I thought for a second that I would just full length bed it to see if that worked on a Montana like it works on the Fieldcrafts, but wound up just sanding enought to get decent barrel clearance and left the shank and action bedding as is as it was tight and flat. I took a tiny bit off the bottom of the mag box, but probably didn’t really need to. I checked the action and scope mount screws to make sure they were not bearing on the barrel shank, locktited and retourqued everything, so it was ready to rock n roll.

I spent quite a lot of time worrying whether this one would shoot straight, or if it would need more serious work as itprobably would not have done well with the barrel channel like that. Unfortunately I did not shoot it before working on it to test my theory, but I’m pretty sure that the stock bearing on the barrel would have caused an issue. I worried about this rifle needlessly...

Thursday I took it to the range. I only cleaned it thoroughly, And did not do any specific break in, as I never have seen any difference between break in and no break in, at least not with Kimber barrels. I also had three types of factory ammo, as I currently have very little time to reload.

First up was Nosler Trophy Grade ammo with 140 gr NAB.I fired three shots to get the scope centered, and this is what shots 4, 5 &6 looked like with a variable 15 mph full value wind...


Not too bad... Next up was the Hornady Precision Hunter with the 162 ELDX bullet. Shots 7, 8 & 9...



Great for factory ammo with limited shots through the rife and with a fairly good wind.

Next, Nosler BT ammo with 140 NBT bullets...shots 10, 11 & 12...


Awesome! Now we seem to be getting somewhere...

Last up, right before it started raining, I shot one more group with the Nosler Trophy Grade/140 AB combo...shots 13, 14 & 15...


Well, that’ll do! Kimber roulette winner...again. I’ love this rifle!

That last group is excellent!...i just got a new Subalpine in .280 AI that I hope shoots as good as yours, I have loaded some 160gr TSX bullets over some H4831sc in charge weights of 54gr, 55, 56, 56.5 and 57grain along with a box of factory Nosler 140 BT's for My little break-in procedure I will get to the range as soon as this damn rain quits......Hb

This is boatammo's Kimber. He needs to let me break it in for him...........say for about 25yrs.
Nice looking rifle boatammo, very nice.

I've had good results/ experience with Kimbers too. My 84M Montana .308 really likes the 150gr TTSx over Varget and 8400 Montana .30-06 165gr NAB over IMR4350.



You're one lucky man Capt. Craig

Got two crappy Kimber AAA French.The Robert's (middle) like's 100gr TTSX's , the 308 150gr Federal $11.97 blue box

That Roberts is beautiful.

Brad, you got a dandy as well!

Hey Sam Thanks. Really likes ttsx's. Gonna try a few 100 gr. partitions.
What a winter were having so far. Hope it's good for the ranch.

What powder are you loading?


Couple short lived cold snaps earlier but this has been a nice December for sure....

Chinookin' here, +40F and wind, snow is really going away fast out in the hills.


The critters are lovin' it.



You know how it goes, always seems to get cold and snowy again about Christmas time.....

RL 16 is what I'm using. Was 51 for a high today. So far were getting by easy. Way better than last year. Lots of wind last couple of days.

10-4, I haven't made any 257 Roberts lately but have a stash of 117 SGK's loaded up with H4530.

I used H4350 in my Cooper but don't have any at the moment so decided to try RL 19 and Rl 16 and the 16 worked better.

what's the software or app you are using?