Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Thinking about getting a Kimber Hunter and chopping it to 18”

Mjduct beat me to it.

Nice thing about 35 is there are bullets with a wide range of frangibility ie those built for .35 Rem to .358 Norma so you can have varmint or big game performance if you like to play like that.

I’d look hard at 338 Fed as he suggested. Another place that’ll rebore is here:

https://cutrifle.com/reboring.html

Good luck; sounds like a great project!

Talked to Jes today, it’ll be on the way to him Wednesday. Pumped, thank you guys for the suggestion. I wanted a short, light brush/tracking rifle...this will be astoundingly perfect for the role.

Always fun spending someone else’s money man I Home you love it I’m excited to hear a report it’ll be a thumper!

I think you are gonna like that. A lot more than a featherweight short barrelled .243

The .338 fed Montana is my go to rifle. Nothing from 3 feet to 300 yards is safe.

I haven’t played with a 358 Winchester but you can load pistol bullets cast lead, elephant solids and all kinds of other cool stuff. Luke Moffett from Rokslide is on this forum as well, good guy same kind of looney as us just you and I are on the gulf on Mexico and he is up in Alaska! We’re trying to drop weight to not sweat ourselves to death, Luke is trying to carry less weight cause he has to wear 30# of clothes to not freeze half the time

Hornady .358 200 grain SP.

Hint....

Well well well

Had a package from JES today.

Threw the action into the stock at lunch, will put it all together tonight.

This is with a homemade sling, Spartan bipod/tripod adapter, shortened rear sling stud, titanium rear action screw, gel removed from stock and grip, fore-end shortened 3-1/8" and the remolded using JB plastic weld, granite paint, 16.5" barrel, TI Ascent bolt handle, Loopy 2.5x20 with Alumina obj cap in Talleys, and a mag full of 200gr Winchester soft points.

And yes my pool table/hunting season work bench is filthy.







Think I'll sew the straps on the sling so I can ditch the ladder locks.

Rifle looks great. Overall weight is impressive. You’ll have to let us know how it shoots.

You could replace the sling studs with filler screws and the sling with a QD stone glacier pack sling?

Thanks and will do. This will be carried without a full size pack for the most part, hence the sling. A lot of my whitetail hunting takes me through brush that can require both arms to navigate. If I am backpack hunting I do remove slings and use a Kifaru/Kuiu hybrid system on my pack that works wonderfully.

I want to know how the recoil is on a light 358 win

Your gonna love that man. Both mine are 20”, gonna be a handy buck hammer

Yep tough to top it for sure

Will report back after this weekend. I'm sure its not a mouse, but I bet its not too bad. But I've never been one to complain too much about one. Its not an ultra mag, its a short action with a really big hole in a very short barrel.

It may be managable but its got to thump in a rifle that light. I think you were extremely wise to choose a 308 or larger bore size on your project. At least your in the sweet spot for barrel length/bore diameter/real world performance. This is a cool project.

My ultralight .308 has some stout recoil shooting 180’s. Very manageable but a range session is noticed.
I’m sure the .358 will get your attention though like you said. It’s not an ultra mag.

Awesome rifle. Looks slick as can be. Congrats.

Very nice setup especially considering the $ and time involved in it when compared to a build from the action up.....saved a lot of time and $. Nice!

I've got a .358 win on a M7 action with 21" Douglas #3 in an Edge fill Mt Rifle stock. The recoil is noticeable but it's not brutal shooting 200 grain pills.....to me it's about like a 30-06.

Shootin groups with a 5.25 lb rifle and fixed 2.5 power scope is hard lol. But, managed to get a few rounds few it Sunday morning and the factory Winchester soft points managed 1.75" or so at 100. Which is plenty. Hunting with it this evening where longest shot might be 45 yards or so. Recoil is manageable too, after 5 shots I knew it was going off but I had no adverse comments on recoil.



Here it is next to a regular sized hunting rifle. 22" Savage 270, first rifle I ever bought.

I like the way that turned out!!!

Great build. With some ammo shopping I bet you can get it to MOA.

I know it's been a year this post, but are Kimber parts still available? Thanks. LHS