Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Kimber sporterized 6.5x55?

The 6.5x55 stable keeps growing, snagged this Kimber sporterized M96 yesterday. Looks to be in decent shape, with a bright bore...only issue, it was missing the front scope base. Turns out, a standard Remington 700 front base fit perfectly.

Congrats? Please follow up with an range report....

Very nice. For a little more custom touch, they make 98 style shrouds and firing pins for the bolt, and a Timney with side safety works well. At least, it has on my 95 Chilean.

I've had one of these since Kimber first put them in the market. The package came with a Tasco scope and a cheap hard gun case. Over the years I upgraded the scope, glass bedded it, and put a Timney sportsman trigger in it. I personally like the safety that came with it. It has been a wonderful hunting rifle. Light weight, light recoil, and very effective on game. It has been used allot by kids starting out and they pretty much all have preferred it over our .243 as it has less muzzle blast. The recoil pad that came with it is a good one so that helps as well. I hope you enjoy yours as much as my family and extended family has enjoyed mine. Mine shoots just about any 140 grain bullet well and also does really well with the 125 Partition and the 129 Hornady. I have pretty much settled on the 129 Horn and it has proven itself on a large number of deer and hogs. My nieces argue over who gets to hunt with mine.

I saw one of those sporterized Kimber 6.5x55's in a gun shop in Bozeman years ago and wish I would have bought it. It was under $300 as I recall...

Great snag
GreggH

Whenever these come up I want to reminisce about setting up the facility where we sporterized these. All the work benches, wiring, compressor, airlines, bluing tanks, ventilation system.... Working along Jack Warne on what needed done and how to do it. Christmas 1994, Greg was so pleased how it came together, he gave me a raise and a Kimber of America 82... The work kicked off early 1995. We received shipping container loads of them, from unissued to beat to hell. Employee price unmodified was $56. Those Ramline stocks were highly frowned upon by us coming from the old Kimber of Oregon woodshop. They were $6. Back to 2020...

So, you actually worked on a lot of these rifles?

Holy [bleep]. I would have bought as many as i could carry at 56 bucks lol

I think I need a Swede.

I built and helped build a bunch of the chit the others used to work on them specifically. I did handyman stuff and worked on sporter stocks at KoA, mods 82s and 84s in Clackamas and Colton Oregon. I was outa there by March 1995. It was a bunch of local folks (Colton) that got hired to work on the Swedes. Just trained to do one task, like cut bolt handles, abrasive blast, degrease, blue, chop barrels, etc not smiths by any means. Them Swedes made good barrels back in the day... To this day the kimberamerica domain is used although the company is now Kimber Manufacturing...


mj, bunch of folks making $7/hr don't have many $56s left after paying the bills, even back then. I bought one and foolishly sold it a couple years later.

The Military swedes were $99 on the open market back then.

Jerry

In 1980 when I still had an FFL, I bought (6) Model 96's from Century Arms from an add on Shotgun News as it was called back then. They had three levels or grades - Grade III being best. The ones I got had never been issued, still in grease with test papers, certificates,etc. I remember thinking long and hard if I want to pay $180, $240, or $300 for six non-98 Mausers.

I snagged one in 1995 and it's still here. Put on a 3.5-10x Leupold and an aftermarket trigger and it was sweet. Few years ago the accuracy fell off and it turned out to be that cheap Ram-Line stock they used on them. Cracked down by the recoil lug. That thing should have had a good bedding job. Put it into a Bell & Carlson stock with the aluminum bedding block and it's the best thing I ever did for that gun. I've owned two other Mod. 96 Swedes in their original configuration and in my experience any Swede with a good barrel is a good shooter. Mohawk mentioned the 129 gr. Hornady favorably and I will too. The 129 gr. Spire point and IMR-4831 is the only thing I have put in it for years now. I guess Kimber did the basic sporterization and from there they just need finishing touches, like a decent, properly bedded stock, and a decent trigger, etc. That's really all that I did.

Kimber put a pretty good spin on the surplus Swedes coming in, but the standard ones that were available were pretty dang good rifles. Had a couple, a standard 96 and a 38 carbine. Odd birch perhaps beech stocks but they would shoot. Especially with the heavier bullets that they were designed for.

I have an original 1900 Carl Gustaf M96 Swedish Mauser that is all original, it was the first 6.5x55 I bought. Neat thing about this one, it was one of around 77k that were sent to Finland during the WWII to fight the Russians.

I have an SA stamped as well... the Finn Contract rifle.

I had one, should have never let it go, that shot the 160gr Hornady round nose right around an inch. It was a 1906 Gustav. try long bullets first and let us know how it goes.
Patrick

It would surprise you how well a plain old Hornady round nose 160 shoots in these but remember alot of them have quicker twists than 8, as best as I can determine mine is 7.6 or 7.7 twist

Bought the first one I saw in central Missouri back then. Liked it so much I bought Mod. 70 FW, push feed in 6.5 X 55. The Kimber would shoot right with the Win. if fed 160 gr. RN. It shot 140's ok, good enough to hunt with. The Mod 70 shined with 140's and was about 150 fps faster with the same load...if I'm remembering right. Gave the Kimber to my son for his wife and, like a complete idiot, sold the Mod. 70. These days my 6.5 is a 1903 Mannlicher/Schoenauer. I'm keeping it!!.

Friend of mine picked up a Kimber 98 in 280 REM a few years ago. Only one I have ever seen

I had heard that these Kimber Sporters had heat treated actions too?

The very gun that set me on the 6.5 caliber hunting rifle trend I follow to this very day.

Chopped up a Swede, and the 114 year old military barrel is one of the most accurate in the safe. Those folks obviously knew how to produce good firearms.

Kimber did not heat treat the actions. But the Swedes did when they were made..

Kimber didn’t need to; the Swedes did an awesome job during initial production to say nothing of the quality of the steel itself.

Yes, the Swedes had the advantages of native sources of very good iron ore, coupled with the early adoption of the Siemens-Martin process for producing steel which, when compared to the Bessemer process, allowed much better control of steel composition, so they had a very good steel to work with in making those rifles.

The Timney arrived today, now I just need to get it installed and head to the range...

Cool, keep us updated!

I actually have Herstal receive and a short chambered 6.5 Swede barrel sitting on a shelf in the shop. Looks I will have plenty of free time to try to get it cobbled together. Still have half a box of the 160rn but I think I may try out some of the new super slippery bullets out there to choose from.
PATRICK

My daughter has been shooting this setup since she was 12yrs old and MANY of animals have fallen to that combo....she’s 19yrs old now.


jrg