kimber mountain acsent

Wild787

Active Member
Messages
130
hello fellow members, i had been looking at these rifles for sometime and thought they would make an extremely friendly sheep hunting rifle. I purchased one in the 6.5 creedmoore and was expecting to have a quality shooting gun. Not so much, mounted the gun with a conquest 5 Zeiss and went to the range.
The bore sight had me on paper at 100yds, great i figure after the first shot.... Make a few adjustments to narrow the zero.. shoot and ok its in the ball park.. cleaning the gun after every shot with butches bore shine as to break in the barrel.. after 8-10 shots the gun isnt tightening up at all 4-5" and nothing grouping..

the trigger pull from the factory was horrible, felt like 10lbs... so i stop shooting the gun and blame the lack of accuracy on the trigger and i just cant hold it together.. take it home adjust trigger to a nice clean 2lb pull. Back to the range and no better results... now doubting myself and gun... went and bought a new scope thinking that something must be broken or loose inside... put a leupold on and back to the range... i have now shot 2bullets shy of 3 boxes through this pos gun and still shoots terrible...
Im shooting hornaday 129 sst

Is this common in this gun or did i just get a lemon??
 
I had a similar problem with a Kimber in 300WSM. Premium factory loads would group about 4-5 inches and MANY handloads with different bullets and powders weren't much better at 3 inches. I sent it back to Kimber and they said is was fine?? I got rid of the piece of S. and bought a Remington 700 in 300WSM that shot 1" out of the box and sub .5moa with 180 Accubonds. I've taken 5 rams, several elk, 1 Alaskan moose, many deer and antelope with that Remington. My brother had a similar problem with his Kimber in 30-06.
The Kimber rifles are very attractive, but it's like having a beautiful girlfriend, with no personality or soul.
I wouldn't have another Kimber if they were free.
 
I have 3 of them and they all shoot MOA. I did find that they were pretty fussy about bullets though. My go-to in all 3 is Barnes Vortex ammo with either TSX or TTSX bullets.
 
I have an older 338 Federal that will shoot very well--as small as 1/2moa if you keep the barrel from overheating, but only with certain reloads that it likes, and only after it was fully accurized. Used the rifle to harvest a ram in ID about 10 years ago.

I really like it (especially as an older guy) as total weight is 6 pounds--with scope & sling. But w/o the ability to reload it would probably be a 2-3 moa gun with the limited choices in factory ammo.

if you are going to "take a chance" on a Kimber, and you don't reload, I would recommend a more common caliber so you can try a bunch of different factory ammo so you can see what it likes. I would also recommend an accurizing package, similar to the one Elite Rifles in Nampa, ID offers...
 
I have the Montana .270 and get sub moa with it using Barnes TT SX.
It is my favorite firearm . I have a Leopold VS3 4.5-14 ? 44 mounted on it and use 130 grain bullets. I e dropped every animal cleanly with it.
 
update: Shipped the gun back to kimber and ofcourse they tell you nothing but when it returned it had a new barrel cause i had marked the first one to identify.. shoots sub moa now.. thanks kimber but i dont understand why you wont explain what repairs were made?? i guess they are ashamed to admit the first barrel was junk.
 
Out of all the guns Ive shot, from my expirience, Kimber is the most fussy. I like them to carry around, but getting them to shoot was alittle time consuming. Worked up loads for 4 differnt ones. 3 Montana's in 270 WSM, 300 WSM, 280 AI. Mountain Accent 308. Will say once I found a load each liked, they shot very well.
 
Bought one Hunter Pro Octane in 6.5 Creedmoor. Could not get Federal Fusion 140s to even chamber, much less close the bolt. Hornady 143 ELD- X and Remington Core Lokt 140 similar but not as bad. Barrel was not free floating? Returned to Kimber and the rifle was returned with note that it was within specifications. Not!
Many e-mails and calls to Kimber customer service and supervisor went nowhere from January to June. Went through another similar platform from Kimber. Thought first was a lemon. Same thing. Wrote a detailed letter to Kimber CEO in NY explaining these two defective platforms and never heard back.
Bottom line, stay away from Kimber!
 

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