help with a kimber

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ian745

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ok, here it goes, i recently bought a kimber oregon in 300 winmag, , been having a hell of a time reloading for it as it doesnt seem to like anything ive tried, now before i go and start dipping into my hunting trip fund to build a load, does anyone have one of these that shoots factory ammo with any success?, i`d hate to miss out on some hunting time due to an overly picky rifle

ive tried some hornady full boar in 165 gr with groupings of about 4 inches at 100 yards, so thats out, i was reloading with Barnes TSX 180 gr over RL22 powder

any ideas as to which factory stuff to try?, not into tracking down unicorns, seem to be able to find winchester, some nosler, and fed blue box and fusions, and a few other oddballs like HSM and such

thanks in advance
 
Find something in 180 gr and give that a shot - and not Barnes...they can be tricky to get to shoot sometimes. Look for a good cup and core...Fusion if you're just shooting deer, Nosler Partitions if you're hunting moose or bears.. It's a 300WM, not a 308. No sense in running too light a bullet. The 300 was made for 180s.
 
Cheap Winchester 180 gr Power Points shoot moa or a bit more depending on how much coffee I drink that day in my Kimber Montana 300 win mag.
 
Cup and core flat based bullets tend to be less picky than boat tails about distance to lands, which with factory ammo and factory ammo is a real wild card. Ordinary blue box Federal is a good bet. Not my favorite brass, but fairly consistent accuracy in a factory ammo sort of way. I hate to say it, but TSXs tend to shoot; often in rifles that don't like much of anything else. They are quite forgiving of long jumps and it's a pretty safe bet that a factory load in a 300 Win is going to give it one. So are hand loads that fit in a standard mag box.

The first thing to try with a Kimber is to shoot it cold. Not lukewarm, not being able to keep your hand on the barrel for some magical time, but cold. Light barrels can be picky about heat and they don't get much lighter than a Kimber. Couple that with 80 grains of powder at a time and you go from cold to hot to branding iron in three shots. Some barrels can handle that, some can't.

A second thing to try is to grip it hard and hold the forend. Wispy weight rifles get a little lively when they go off, and one hand finger tip control, with crossed arms might not be the way to calm down a spirited little thing. Another thing to check is that the crosshairs are exactly level every shot. The round forend isn't going to do it for you, and contributes to torque which brings you back to the hard hold.

A quick shopping list of things to check are that the rifle is still free floated if it was built that way, and that none of the action screws bottom out in the action. The front base screw shouldn't bottom out on the barrel. Check that the mag box has a bit of free play and not be pinched between the floor plate and action. If none of these bring any relief try a pressure pad on the barrel.

Most of the check list applies to all bolt actions, but when you have a soda straw for a barrel you can't get away with much.
 
BigUglyMan said:
Find something in 180 gr and give that a shot - and not Barnes...they can be tricky to get to shoot sometimes. Look for a good cup and core...Fusion if you're just shooting deer, Nosler Partitions if you're hunting moose or bears.. It's a 300WM, not a 308. No sense in running too light a bullet. The 300 was made for 180s.
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thats what i was trying with handloads, the TSX in 180 gr, and for the life of me could not get it close to anything, i had one good group so made a bunch to sight it, and the next day, it was 6-10 inches at 100 yards, and nothing was different

so switching to factory and hoping for something better out of it that way, i`ll take a gander around at some local stores today and see what they have , i liked fusion in my 7mm and 338 so who knows, maybe she`ll punch good with the 300 aswell...
thanks for the tips and ideas!,
 
ian745 said:
thats what i was trying with handloads, the TSX in 180 gr, and for the life of me could not get it close to anything, i had one good group so made a bunch to sight it, and the next day, it was 6-10 inches at 100 yards, and nothing was different

so switching to factory and hoping for something better out of it that way, i`ll take a gander around at some local stores today and see what they have , i liked fusion in my 7mm and 338 so who knows, maybe she`ll punch good with the 300 aswell...
thanks for the tips and ideas!,
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Which scope and mounts are you using? It sounds like something could be loose.
 
Dogleg said:
Has the rifle ever shot anything for you? Kimber of Oregon would make it at least 25 years old, and you bought it used.

Gun problems can't usually be fixed with ammo.
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the gun it self was basically new when i got it, with maybe a few boxes down the barrel, it was a safe queen, , and this is the first attempt to get it shooting, well aside from the factory hornady, which i`m not sure why i bought since ive never been able to get factory hornady to shoot well in any of my rifles.lol
 
ian745 said:
the gun it self was basically new when i got it, with maybe a few boxes down the barrel, it was a safe queen, , and this is the first attempt to get it shooting, well aside from the factory hornady, which i`m not sure why i bought since ive never been able to get factory hornady to shoot well in any of my rifles.lol
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So it hasn't shot anything for you? How about the scope? Have you used it on something else? Sitting in a safe for 25 years doesn't clear the rifle of problems, it could just as easily have sat there because it had problems.
 
Dogleg said:
So it hasn't shot anything for you? How about the scope? Have you used it on something else? Sitting in a safe for 25 years doesn't clear the rifle of problems, it could just as easily have sat there because it had problems.
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no, hasnt shot anything for me, i just got it, and then went a got a new scope, and started load building and testing, i`m gonna take the scope off and put it on my 270 and try that later this week

its a non free floated design with hinged floor plate, so thinking if i get it free floated and bedded it might help aswell, gonna try a box of factory stuff today or tomorrow and see if that will shoot before i yank it all apart and spend a bunch of money on it
 
I had to go down to 110 ttsx in my adirondack to make it shoot. But now, it shoots. I tried 150 partitions, 150 hornady flat base, 150 federal fusion factory, 165 ttsx reloads, and I think a couple more I don't remember off hand. In .308 win. So even though it's twisted to make heavier bullets a possibility, is really seems to like the light ones.
 
Just had to put a pressure pad on my Montana .260 Rem. Couldn't get her to group under 3", sometime a lot worst. Down to 1" to 1.5" now with a random load. Should be able to get a consistent 1 moa now with a taylored load.
 
bcsteve said:
Just had to put a pressure pad on my Montana .260 Rem. Couldn't get her to group under 3", sometime a lot worst. Down to 1" to 1.5" now with a random load. Should be able to get a consistent 1 moa now with a taylored load.
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i picked up a couple different boxes of federal premium stuff, was gonna hit the range but started posting reloading junk for sale and lost track of time, gonna take it out tomorrow if i get a chance to see what it shoots like with that stuff
 
hey question for you guys, has anyone done much testing with Clean and Dirty bores on the Kimbers? notice anything worth noting?

my Montana during load development became pretty evident of a Tight chamber, starting at Min, I was able to go up 1gr with erradic POI , flattish primers and by 2gr I had sticky bolt and Flat primers, totally erradic poi.

the min load works around 1-1.5 inch and is tame on the brass.

I don't think I've cleaned the barrel in a while but it doesn't 'look' dirty, not real interested in wasting my precious Woodleighs and is consistently killing the critters and being generally a 250m round im confident it'll be alright until the next batch of woodleighs.

I know for a Fact my T3 really did not like a dirty barrel after 25-30 shots.

just curious as of your experiences Gurus

WL
 
The only thing that can tell you when a bore needs cleaning is the barrel, and the weatherman. From what I've seen of hunting near oceans I'd be cleaning constantly if I lived near one, but since I don't practically never is a better plan. I'm bound to get rained on before it quits shooting for being dirty.

Back to kimbers, 3 of my 5 have forend pressure pads. Two because they were determined to shoot better that way and one because it was alresdy touching so I tried it that way first. It shot well enough that I gave it a little dab of Devcon to make it look like it was planned that way. That particular 7 Rem was one of those oddities that shot better if it was meticulously clean and startied opening up after s very few groups. Took a little while to figure that one out, and about that time Crazy Davey told me about ULtra bore coat. Fixed that right up and it is in the ever clean pile now.

All my Kimbers have smallish chambers, which is likely what they mean when they say match grade in their promotion material. As near as I can tell brass seems to want to last forever. It does seem to affect powder charges or at least something is. My 22/250 cavorted load is minimum by Hodgdons data and maximum by Noslers. Either way it has zero pressure signs and is faster than both. The 338 Win matches book speeds with lighter charges and calmly out runs the book with listed max charges. The .270 WSM will take listed charges and dish up screamer speeds. The 300WSM wants a load 1 grain above minimum but delivers the velocitiies of the Max loads. I wouldn't want to load it any hotter. The 7mm seems to deliver book speeds with book loads, depending on the book. I've learned to never try to out guess a Rem mag.

Not a slow barrel in the bunch.
 
You are putting the cart before the horse here....

Start at the start. Pull it apart, look for rub spots in the mag box are, and check to see if the mag box is binding. Check to see if the front screw on the talley is binding against the barrel. You'll be able to tell as the barrel threads will look mashed down. Talley has had some runs of screws where they were a touch too long in the kimbers.

Check your action screws and see if they are bottomed out as well. Same thing can happen there. Look for rub spots on the stock where something is touching hard.


I'd bet on it being the front mount screw or the mag box incorrectly installed to start with though myself. Use some tape to keep the spring and mag tension correct when you put it in.


And check out Short Action Smoker's thread on the 'Fire about Kimber tinkering. Probably 90% plus of supposed kimbers that "don't shoot" are due to incorrect installation of some sort.
 
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