Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters JB- Kimber Barrels

Would you know if Kimber rifle barrels are press fit?
I called Kimber and asked that question and was told they were. Getting told they are not from folks on this forum.
Thanks.

It would surprise the hell out of me if they were, My wife's custom .308 Winchester from Kilimanjaro Rifles is built on a Kimber action, and they screwed the new barrel onto the action, and I have two Kimbers, a .257 Roberts and a .338 Federal, and can plainly see the threads inside the front of the action.

I thought the 338Fed had gone the way of the dinosaur.

Thank you JB.

I haven't heard much of the 338 Federal lately; this is a shame. It's a great cartridge; just like the 338-06. Both of these plus the 358 Winchester deserve better.

JB - I remember your article on the 338 Fed and 358. So, you kept the 338 from that time? What load have you settled on for that rifle?

Jason

My Kimber MT is threaded.

Mine wasn't press fit. Dave at IT&D can validate that...

If they are press fit, then the threaded 257 Roberts barrel marked "Kimber" I just sold is a forgery.

Their bolt action 22's might have been "press fit", but I'm not sure.

I have one of those, and will check it out today--if I remember to!

The Gods are fickle about what cartridges thrive! If anyone can accurately predict which ones will, their life would be better spent predicting betting wins in Las Vegas

One thing I've noticed is wildcats that are already pretty popular make fairly sure bets as factory rounds. The cartridges the factories come up with themselves don't have nearly the same success rate.

Probably a good reason not to have accountants designing cartridges.

I'm not going to dispute that statement. Look no further than the 22-250 and 25-06. But what about the 260? Were the wildcatters who used the wildcat version of the 260 just target shooters who tend to build custom guns anyways? Ballistics not good enough to impress enough hunters? The old 264 curse?

Puzzled, because if I was starting over again, very likely could choose the 260 over the 25-06 for a light big game round with some varmint capabilities. But with 2 25-06 in the safe, what's the point. Would have bought my daughters youth rifles in 260, but it seems every manufacturer wants youth to use 243 (I know some chamber for 7-08 etc) which is what I ended up buying (243).

Valid point on the 260. Probably the most underrated cartridge out there. Took me a long learning curve, but I have migrated towards cartridges with sleeker bullets and less recoil.

Some of this may have to do with a crowded market. If the table were turned and the 260 would have been factory produced first, maybe guys would be asking "Why would I buy a 25-06, I already have two 260s?"

So you're saying the 30 TC probably isn't bound for glory, on a fast track to replace both the 308 and the 30-06 in sales?

Somehow I doubt it!

There are all sorts of what-ifs we could ponder about cartridge introductions. The first guy to neck the .308 case to 6.5mm and publicize it was Ken Waters, who called it the .263 Express, I believe. That was long before anybody dreamed of "long-range hunting" and shooting big game with super-high BC bullets. Ken was just looking for more bullet weight than the .243 offered (this was also a long time before Remington "introduced" the 7mm-08), with light recoil--a modern 6.5x55 for short actions.

Of course it worked but the .260 never became a factory round until Jim Carmichel helped push Remington into doing it. By then the trend toward smaller-bore, lighter-recoil target rounds had started, but the 7mm-08 had been introduced several years beforehand. Hunters buy far more factory rifles than target shooters do, and apparently the average hunter never saw any vast advantage for the .260 over the 7mm-08, despite the publicity.

Personally I don't either, and have owned and hunted with both, so guess I'm sort of an average hunter!

Plus, despite using a number of trendy cartridges over the years, I couldn't see any vast advantage for the .260 over the 6.5x55. Yeah, the .260 can fit in a short action--sort of, though it's kinda crowded with very long, high-BC bullets, which is exactly why so many slightly shorter 6.5's have appeared for target shooting. My 6.5x55 is on an FN Mauser commercial action, so there's plenty of room to seat any long bullet out to the lands, with a little space left over.

Of course, these are all rifle loony nitpicks. The average hunter simply didn't care at all. I also doubt most had ever heard of the .263 Express or whatever Carmichel called it, unlike other cartridges that already had considerable built-in demand like the .22-250, .25-06, 7mm Remington Magnum, .300 WSM, .338 Winchester Magnum, etc.

Or designing firearms