Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles JB - Kimber Experience

I do not recall reading much from you regarding Kimber rifles new or old, Montanas, Sub-Alpines, Mountain Ascents and the various wood stocked versions. Thoughts/experience?

Now that you mention it…

I’ve never seen it either.

Well, I know of one short article that Mr. Barsness wrote about, "The Ultimate Bob".

I remeber it well, as it cost me a bunch of money over the years as I now have Kimber rifles in many chamberings.

The article was in the October 2008 No. 240 issue of Rifle magazine.

Was thinking of getting a 257 Roberts of some sort and that little article on page 102 convinced me to try a Kimber and about 7 rifles later I think I've got all I need.

I don't know JB's overall view of Kimber rifles, but he sure liked the little Bob and so do I.

I would ask the question in the "Ask the Gunwriters" section.

JB tested a Kimber in 338 Federal and wrote about the subject.

I like my kimbers but my Adirondack in 300 bo would never feed right from the mag box. I tried every trick I know with bending the spring and sanding and smoothing and reshaping the follower and nothing worked. I finally put an old 223 follower and spring from a rem 700 and now it works.

It also had light primer strikes. I let the pin protrusion out and it still wasn't reliable. I had better luck with handloads on the second firing leaving the shoulder out longer. Seems to have a bit longer headspace. I finally put a wolf spring in and now it goes bang everytime even with nato primers.

It took some work but now the kids and I love it. It's under 5 pounds with a 16" barrel and shoots 120g tac TX bullets at 2250 fps and moa. I let my kid elk hunt with it last fall but he didn't shoot one.

My favorite kimbers are the 8400 shortmag Montana. I don't think there's a better factory action for short mags. I regret selling my 300 wsm and am one the lookout for another. I'll keep my 7 wsm forever.

Kimber was willing to work over my Adirondack but they were going to charge me over $100 to put a new trigger in it because I had adjusted mine. Sucks they advertised an adjustable trigger then ding you if you adjust it. It was easier to fix everything myself because it would have probably taken a few trips back to them before they got it right. The rem spring an follower are much better.

Bb

My one and only Kimber is a SuperAmerica originally in 308. Like Burleyboy above it needed a Rem mag spring and a new firing pin spring but was always a 2MOA rifle at best with any handload and worse still with factory fodder. When I got a Teslong bore scope I found that the bore was horribly pitted. It is now a 6.5 Creed with a Brux barrel and shoots like it should. For what I have into it I could have easily bought something like a Christianson but what would be the fun in that?

I have a number of Kimber rifles with no issues but everyone’s experience is different.

I've had a few that were good to go right from the factory too. My 280 ai montana was good but a friend talked me out of it. He needed a light weight elk rifle for his disabled kid who had balance issues.

I also had a 308 montana I bought new that shot really well but a fire.member talked me out of it. He wanted one with the newer grippier paint it had but not a threaded muzzle and that's what mine was. I also had a 300 wsm I mentioned that was great but a friend I used to hunt with wanted it and he helped me a few times while building my new house so I gave it to him.

I still regret not picking a montana up in 223.

Bb

I have only had one... A montana... dang thing would not even feed factory ammo out of the box... had to send it back... got it back from them and it would feed the ammo... but would not keep three shots within 7-8 inches.... frustrated with it and sold it...

I have a Montana 223, great little rifle, but my friend shoots it mostly and has his eyes on it. I keep a look out for another one but this is the only one I have ever seen in Australia!

Fortunately I have a few others!

I’m down to one after having several. The one I have now is a Montana 308 that shot great straight out of the box. I’ve worked up my own loads for it but I remember when I got it, I had some red box federal bullets with 180g partitions and it stacked 5 of them into a ragged hole.

I had a 300wm mountain ascent that had some seriously bad problems, bedding it helped but it would still throw shots 3 feet wide at 300yds, that gun ahead issues and I sold it to a guy who just wanted an action.

Well, that is pretty disappointing guys, I was on the lookout for a good accurate 30-06 and don't much care for Tikka's looks so I was looking at Kimbers but now I'll look at something else.

I wouldn't write them off. While there have been quality problems over the years IMHO they are still worth trying if you value light weight. If buying used I would insist on shooting before the deal was closed. When they work, they work. If they don't, they can be fixed and it usually doesn't take a rebarrel as it did in my case.

Tried the Kimber route, had serious stock issues on rifle, no factory help. Stupid enough to try a pistol, had slide problem, ended up waiting for dealer to literally fight to get it replaced.

Went Tikka and Sako, happy with accurate shooters.

I’ve got a Classic .308 and Classic Selects in.257 Roberts (my favorite gun in the safe, of all my guns) and .30-06.

The only reason I don’t have more is I haven’t ran across the right combination of rifle/price/timing/wife not being around.

Edit to add, all 3 bought used, .308 here and other two in gunbroker. The .30-06 isn’t exceptional on accuracy, 1.5” 3 shot groups are typical, often smaller. The other 2 are expected under 1” for 3 shots when shooting.

Ed,

I've owned a number of Kimbers, going back to the Oregon models. They varied considerably, of course, due to being made by two different companies. The two biggest problems I've encountered with the Oregon Kimbers were wood that was apparently not allowed to dry enough before making the stocks. I used to do stock-work my beforewriting career really became steady, and two of my jobs were replacing Kimber of Oregon stocks that cracked.

Another problem was that not many of the people really knew much about building rifles. One of their employees was a retired auto mechanic who believed any "airspace" should be filled with heavy grease. The first Oregon Kimber I owned was a .223 sporter that grouped very well, but on an early May prairie dog shoot quit firing on a cool morning. Took the bolt apart (which was something of an adventure in itself) and found it was packed with grease. (Steve Timm, the now-retired gun writer who for a while was the test-fire guy for Kimber or Oregon, told me about why that occurred years later.)

When Kimber of New York started up the barrels varied considerably in quality. Eventually enough people starting complaining that they started using better ones. Have owned a few, including a .257 Roberts and .338 Federal, which grouped OK, but neither stuck.

The only "Kimber" in our house now started out as a New York "Montana" .243, which Eileen purchased used as the "donor rifle" for a custom .308 Winchester she had made by Serengeti Rifles in Kalispell. They not only rebarreled it (with a Lilja) but lightened the action even more, then fitted one of their laminated stocks that didn't look laminated, fitted to her dimensions by their stockmaker. It weighs 6 pounds 9 ounces with a 3.5-10x40 VX-III Leupold in Talley Lightweight mounts, and has been her "big" rifle since 2007, when she took it on safari in South Africa.

I would not write the Kimbers off either, especially in the 84L model which is what the 30-06 rifles are made in. Those guns came out around 2011-12 which was after most of the really bad Kimber QC problems.

A few years ago, I stumbled across a used as new Grey stocked 84L Montana 30-06 in a local N.Texas gunshop. It was $750 and looked nearly new. The action was smooth and slick . Everything about it seemed fine. Since I had been looking at a lightweight '06 for a while I was interested , but still needed to mull it over due to all the crap I had seen about Kimbers. I called Kimber CS to find out it was a 2014 rifle based on the serial number.

When I came back to buy it a few weeks later, it was gone. I figured "Well, somebody got a deal in a nice little gun- good for them"... It turned out my "significant other" had come in and bought it a few days after I told her about seeing it. It was under the Christmas tree a few weeks later. THAT was one of the better Christmas mornings in my life..:)

For the last three years , the gun has functioned flawlessly. It has been sub MOA accurate with several factory loads and it feeds ,fires and ejects more reliably than a mint condition 1963 Pre 64 Winchester m70 Featherweight 06 I once owned. The action on my Kimber is also about as slick as my 1949 m70 Sporter.

My Kimber is not for sale. It has been a good rifle.

Yep. Kimber has been a huge sponsor of the custom barrel manufacturing business in North America

No hesitation in buying a Kimber at this house.