Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Kimber Montana HELP!

OK, picked up a previously owned Kimber Montana 300 wsm and cant get any better than 2.5" groups, average is over 3".
I've tried 150gr hornady sst, 168gr ttsx, and 180gr sst with little to no avail. The rifle shoots them all consistently poor.
All loads are meticulous handloads of different powder weights and C.O.A.L.S. using RL17. My rest has been shooting bags in the front and back. I have tried a folded towel under the front, made sure the stock is resting about half way between the trigger guard and front sling stud. I can grab my remington 700 mountain rifle and shoot clover. Switch back to the kimber and have 3" groups so I'm fairly certain its not all shooter error. Rifle is circa 2007. Scope is a VX-3 in burris Z rings and kimber bases. Shots are not stringing any particular direction. I know there are kimber gurus lurking in the campfire shadows... WHERE DO I START?

This will get interesting. Good luck!

i'd try spot bedding the recoil lug first off. look at the crown closely with a magnifying glass too.

Well, this is probably a stretch, but you never know. Have you taken the barreled action out of the stock? I bought my son a used Montana for Christmas. I removed the barreled action from the stock to give it a good once over, and when I tried putting it back together, I could tell it wasn't right. For one thing the barrel was no longer centered in the stock like it was before I took it apart.

After trying my luck several times, I realized that I did not have the bolt in the rifle. Once I put the bolt back in and tried again, everything went right back into place.

I'm no gunsmith, and maybe having the bolt in place is important before reassembly in all rifles, but I never noticed this much of a difference with other rifles.

A tip I learned on the 'Fire from one of Mule Deer's posts is to tighten the action screws enough to grab, hold the rifle in a vertical position so that the recoil lug rests tightly in the mortise, and then torque the front screw pretty darn tight, and then tighten the rear screw less snug than the front. (I hope I remembered that correctly. )

I like to trace a very slight pencil mark on the tube of a newly mounted scope directly behind the rear ring. If the scope moves forward under recoil, in theory, the pencil line will move under the ring and then you'll know that the scope is not secured in the rings properly.

Pretty amateur stuff (except for MD's tip), but it's all I got. Others with much more knowledge will be along shortly.

While my popcorn is in the microwave, I'll suggest trying a different powder first. I had good luck with H4350 and 165gr ballistic tips.

I'd also check the scope bases. I had a Classic 308 and it went from respectable to horrible. One of the rear base screws had cracked. I've heard of this happening more than once with Kimber bases.

Great advice fellas, keep it coming!

CoalCracker, I tried the loostening and tightening of the action screws to check for action torque or however you may want to say that. Nothing, not even a hint of movement.

I have a set of talleys I'm going to throw on and try.I know the scope holds zero as I previously had it on a 7mm rem mag.

Toad- to spot bed the recoil lug; I am assuming you just put a dab of bedding compound in the lug space and put the rifle back together? Please elaborate as I have yet to dabble with bedding work on my own.

One more note. I checked the float on the barrel. I can get post it note down cleanly, but a business card wont make it past the half way point. Do I need to float the barrel more? It seems the first shot out of my groups is usually in the same place with the others flying amiss.Could the barrel be heating enough after my first shot to cause it to touch the stock?

Thanks again!

Trusted scope, properly mounted, and tight action screws are the typical first steps and you have them covered.

After you have trying a new powder, which is a smart and easy thing to check next.

After that? To me the barrel would be next. First a recrown whether I thought it was needed or not. Simple, cheap, quick and something that could cure a bad shooter. If that didn't cure it I'd make sure the action was true and rebarrel if it was.

Not saying this is the best process but it is what I'd do.

My 7-08 Montana gave me fits when I bought it. With my preferred bullet, 139 Interbond, it was appallingly bad. Unbelievably bad. Actually hit the target beside the one I was shooting at once bad.

Time I chased it down here is what I found:

The scope had north of 4 inches of parallax. Probably closer to 5" or 6" than 4" tbh. I sent it back, it was reset, and returned with 2 or 3 inches. That is as good as it got. Quality scope with crystal clear sight picture but loads of parallax.

I had a wicked bad batch of primers. This alone was responsible for making every bullet I tried a wild shooter. Never heard of it before or since but a simple change of primers tightened up the groups considerably.

Lastly the gun just didn't like Interbonds or H4350. At last I gave in and tried R15 and life became good again. I switched to 139 Interlocks and life became very good. Same for Accubonds and Prohunters.

Now IF I take my time, and IF I center my eyeball in the scope, and IF it is cool outside the rifle is a good shooter at 100 yards. It is better at 200 comparatively speaking.

Point is it can take some digging to unearth the problem and it may be more than one thing.

Will

Try R22 or R25. Just trying one powder is crazy!

As most have already mentioned, I would certainly check the action screws. Personally, I wouldn't deal with it. I'd take it to a gunsmith to bed and cut a new crown. What kind of crown is on the muzzle now? If it isn't already a recessed target style then cutting in a new crown is pretty straight forward and cheap. The smith I use will cut a new crown and fully bed the action for ~$60. His work is superb and reliable. Find a gunsmith and be done with it. Good luck.

Bedding the lug is straightforward, though less so if you address the float that way rather than with sandpaper. Sanding fiberglass stocks gives me the willies...

Scope and mounts are always suspects. That scope could even be good on the other rifle but not this one due to different erector positioning to zero it... different location of the rings... but ultimatly a 3.5-10 Leup on a WSM Montana is a known quantity. Especially in Talleys. Probably worth swapping to the Talleys.

How does the crown look? Do you have the trigger set nice and light?

DO NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT spend a lot of time and/or money on a POS (aka on the board as a Kimber). I've BTDT. I fought my brand new Kimber, .270 WSM for about 4 years & spent the equivalent of the cost of the rifle getting it worked on. Oh, it was a consistant performer alright - consistantly inconsistant. One time, it literally shot a 5 shot group with all of the impacts touching. "A-ha", says I, "I've got 'er now", methinks. Well, loading the exact same load with bullets seated exactly to the same depth as measured to the ogive, no way would that load repeat nor come near it's initial performance accuracywise. Thru all of this crap, it went to Hill Country (no luck there), and to a well known gunsmith in Montana. All he could think of was a new barrel. Too bad, so sad. New Lilja barrel, no goody. That EFFING rifle still wouldn't perform. My advice is to immediately sell that POS, take your loss ( hopefully not much) and get a brand new Win. Extreme Weather. I shoulda done that at the first indication of trouble with the POS I bought but sometimes, my learning is thru the "school of hard knocks".
Wish you the best tho.
Bear in Fairbanks

The crown looks smooth and uniform as near as I can tell. Trigger is set at approximately 3.5 lbs. I do not have a gauge, I am merely guessing against my triggers of known weight.

The weirdest and most perplexing factor to me...it almost always puts the first shot in the same place. Does this sound like a barrel float problem to anyone?

I hemmed and hawed for months before deciding to play the kimber roulette as they say, looks like my chamber may be the loaded one. Part of me wants to ditch it, however, I dont like passing on my problems to others.

Tonight I will switch to talleys, load some RL22 in lieu of RL17, switch primers, and see what happens.

Am I correct on the recoil bedding? Just a dab? Jeff O- why does it give you the willies sanding the stock? What are my possible negative affects?

When I first aquired my 84m Montana its accuracy was erratic to say the least. A hawkeye borescope showed a very rough barrel. I ran a box of factory loaded Tubbs final finish through it, something I previously had thought to be snake oil. The system gave the bore a polished finish. It now shoots consistent sub moa groups with a variety of 95 and 100gr factory loads. I will also note it took a little time for me to learn how to shoot a sub 6lb rifle effectively also.

After floating and bedding, I'd toss the Rl17 in favor of 4831 or 4350 and go from there.

Use sand paper on the channel as it's really easy to do so. You are not removing enough material to even be concerned.

Careful stock prep as per usual combined with Devcon 10110 and Hornady one shot spray lube for a smooth release and you could very well be in business...

ndhunterman,

If you sand too deeply into a glass stock you can get through the skin and into the fill... and it doesn't take much.

After I got mine rebarreled (it shot fine with the factory barrel, I just wanted a different caliber), my barrel wasn't floated well anymore. Since bringing the barrel "up" enough to get the float (via bedding the lug) also, of course, changes the angle of the action in the stock I opted to also bed the tang and rest of the action and shank...

I suspect your floating/bedding is your problem. I'd re-bed it from the first inch or so of the shank, the lug and action bottom, to the tang, with two business cards worth of float under the barrel. That kills two birds with one stone.

Here's mine being bedded. You can see the business cards. Two cards gave me perfect float. Or, just pay a pro.

I think Jeff is right here, and this would be the very first thing I would do....

Trying different loads is also a good idea,but searching for a good load from a rifle that is mechanically ill is a fools errand...

Ok, first thing is going to be opening up the barrel channel to accomodate two business cards followed by the talley rings. Then I will load some more of the previous rounds of RL17, switch a few to RL22 and a different primer and hope that produces a winner. If I see a noticible improvement or at least some repetition, I may try some of that tubbs final finish. I read a few posts on bedding the recoil lug only and from my understanding, only the rear of the lug should be touching the bedding. Is that correct?

Thanks for all the help!

I stole Jeff's pic to illustrate where to bed. If you want to bed the entire action go ahead, but it's not necessary.


1. Skim bed the rear tang, entire receiver and barrel up through the barrel shank.
2. Then relieve the barrel channel. You want .020 to .025 clearance. A piece of electrical tape is .05 for reference.
3. Bed the recoil lug "tight". Don't add tape front, sides, back or bottom of the recoil lug.
4. Check the action alignment to make sure the action screws are centered over the pillars. Do not add bedding and then tighten with the action screws. All you will be doing is copying the current condition. Trust me on this-the likelyhood of the barreled action being straight and stress free when torqued down (as it currently sits) is about as likely as me voting for the lawn jockey.
5. You do not want to see any metal from the pillars exposed and bearing against the action.
6. Use Hornady One shot as a release agent.
7. Acraglas or MarineTex both work very well.