A few weeks ago I ordered a Kimber 8400 Tactical - this was one of those buys that was hard to justify as I already own a perfectly good .308 target/sniper/tactical setup in my Remington R5 but, anyway, I wanted the whole Mauser/Mod 70 CRF and claw extractor thing and Kimber advertising got me - match barrel, triger, chamber etc plus I have long liked the MacMillan stock that this Kimber is mounted in. The rifle was priced below US MSRP so the deal was sealed.
The rifle arrived last week and here are my thoughts and comments:
Fit and finish - excellent. Faultless fit to stock and the metal work was perfect;
Trigger - I've always been impressed by the Savage Accutrigger and I still think that is the better system but this trigger is good - very clean, crisp break at the advertised 3.5 lbs. A much better trigger than the Remington X Mark Pro and superior ( by a little bit ) to the trigger on my old and now sold Tikka HB Varmint.
Stock - One negative: the colour is to my eyes totally hideous. A blend of greens and black - yuuuuk ! A respray will be in order.
Range report
First Day: Kimber recommend the Sinclair break in. I followed a modified regime. No problems at all and the rifle performed as it was supposed to. Very smooth operation of bolt and the trigger, as said, is very nice indeed. Initially I had mounted a Bushnell Elite 4200 6x24x50 but I switched over to a spare Falcon Menace 4.5x18x56 due to a paucity of internal adjustment in the Bushnell and the lack of built in MOA on the factory-installed rail. I used TPS 30mm Medium rings.. At the end of the day I shot some 3 round groups and the Kimber turned in respectable, but not stellar, .75 clusters.
Second Day: Using Federal Gold Medal Match 168 as a control sample and two handloads ( 175g SMK over 41.5 Varget and 175g SMK over 43 Varget ) I shot some groups. Three shot groupings with the 168 and 175 g loads were .335 .445 and .487. Using the two loads that shot best at 3 shots groupings, I switched to five shots but the spread that followed was .992 with the 168 and 1.007 with the 175 over 41.5. As a reference/check on my shooting, I then used my R5 and produced .75 five shot groups with both loads. So, on this limited experiment the Kimber failed to achieve the claimed .5 MOA accuracy and also came up short when compared to the R5. Now in defence of Kimber, I'm not sure that I can shoot .5 MOA anyway and the R5 is a rifle I am very familiar with so the test wasn't a totally fair one for the Kimber.
Conclusion: a very nice rifle that, other than the fuggin ugly colour stock, I am pleased with. The stock was sweet to use and reduced recoil to a level that made the .308 seem like my .243. The rifle operation was silky smooth and there were, of course, no feeding or extraction issues. More practice and some load development will be required to ascertain real accuracy results but overall a nice addition to the collection.
The rifle arrived last week and here are my thoughts and comments:
Fit and finish - excellent. Faultless fit to stock and the metal work was perfect;
Trigger - I've always been impressed by the Savage Accutrigger and I still think that is the better system but this trigger is good - very clean, crisp break at the advertised 3.5 lbs. A much better trigger than the Remington X Mark Pro and superior ( by a little bit ) to the trigger on my old and now sold Tikka HB Varmint.
Stock - One negative: the colour is to my eyes totally hideous. A blend of greens and black - yuuuuk ! A respray will be in order.
Range report
First Day: Kimber recommend the Sinclair break in. I followed a modified regime. No problems at all and the rifle performed as it was supposed to. Very smooth operation of bolt and the trigger, as said, is very nice indeed. Initially I had mounted a Bushnell Elite 4200 6x24x50 but I switched over to a spare Falcon Menace 4.5x18x56 due to a paucity of internal adjustment in the Bushnell and the lack of built in MOA on the factory-installed rail. I used TPS 30mm Medium rings.. At the end of the day I shot some 3 round groups and the Kimber turned in respectable, but not stellar, .75 clusters.
Second Day: Using Federal Gold Medal Match 168 as a control sample and two handloads ( 175g SMK over 41.5 Varget and 175g SMK over 43 Varget ) I shot some groups. Three shot groupings with the 168 and 175 g loads were .335 .445 and .487. Using the two loads that shot best at 3 shots groupings, I switched to five shots but the spread that followed was .992 with the 168 and 1.007 with the 175 over 41.5. As a reference/check on my shooting, I then used my R5 and produced .75 five shot groups with both loads. So, on this limited experiment the Kimber failed to achieve the claimed .5 MOA accuracy and also came up short when compared to the R5. Now in defence of Kimber, I'm not sure that I can shoot .5 MOA anyway and the R5 is a rifle I am very familiar with so the test wasn't a totally fair one for the Kimber.
Conclusion: a very nice rifle that, other than the fuggin ugly colour stock, I am pleased with. The stock was sweet to use and reduced recoil to a level that made the .308 seem like my .243. The rifle operation was silky smooth and there were, of course, no feeding or extraction issues. More practice and some load development will be required to ascertain real accuracy results but overall a nice addition to the collection.
