Wow. Doesn't say much for Kimber quality control !

Kimbers are junk. They are known for their poor groups.

Call Kimber and I assume they will make it right. Stuff happens.

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“You shoulda bought a Tikka” in 3, 2, .....

Yeah, maybe. Last year I bought a Tikka T3x Lite in .300 Win Mag, stainless. Started shooting mostly handloads but some factory and just couldn't get it to shoot. After about 350 rounds I gave up and put a new barrel on it ( NZ made True Flite ). That sorted it. It shoots now, very well.

My previous new purchase was a Tikka T3 Lite stainless in 30.06 Right from the first shot that rifle has been delightfully accurate.

It's really bad luck Ted Thorn got such a poor Kimber but my Tikka experience perhaps shows any mass produced brand can sometimes be less than perfect.

Should have tried to bed see if there was contact between the barrel and stock on your Tikka.


Yours is one of maybe 4 I have heard about in 15 years on hunting forums.

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Should have tried to bed see if there was contact between the barrel and stock on your Tikka.

Yep, this was checked. I did so myself and found no issue. Then sent the rifle to True Flite, the barrel makers, for them to check. They also comfirmed no barrel / stock contact. They have the gear to properly externally & internally check the barrel and bore and said the barrel looked pretty decent. According to them not all Tikka barrels were as good. The only possible flaw they found was some inconsistency in the size of the chamber...?? Maybe the chamber was cut a little too large or long as cases sized for the Tikka chamber had to be resized smaller to fit the Tikka chamber. I can say the Tikka throat was very long as my bullets had about a 6mm jump to the lands. The True Flite throat is shorter by about 2 mm. Anyway, True Flite could not strongly indicate anything causing the accuracy problem. At the end of the day maybe it was simply a bad barrel that was never going to shoot.
But I agree that you don't hear many stories of bad Tikkas. There are a lot sold here, mainly due I guess to being lightweight stainless / plastic and the right price point and most guys seem quite happy with out of the box performance.

I got some new Hornady brass that does the same thing in my mauser in 30X57.
the rims are undersize on the brass by almost 10 thousands.
out of the 50 cases about 10 of them will extract.

As Si would say, "Piece of junk."

First, does the Kimber in the video do the same thing with full length cartridges?
A CRF is not a push-feed and is not designed to pop over the case rim without significant resistance.
With "Mauser" actions one always punches the cartridge down into the magazine before running the bolt. If the CRF is truly not operating, then SEP is right, "Call Kimber ."

I think that you are correct. There appears to be a problem with the extractor claw. If the claw was not popping over the rim, you couldn't or shouldn't be able to close the bolt. (Is it a 30-06 chamber for a 308 action?!@#!)

Aside: occasionally, a CRF claw will need a little beveling in order to 'push-feed' a round and pop over the rim as the bolt locks in place. Even that is not a fault, since it is not always designed to do that, but you can tune a CRF to be either way.

Then, the second question is 'How does the rifle shoot?'

I'm thinking about getting one of these for my grandkids and cutting the stock butt back about 1.2". The Kimber are super light and the Hunter model price point is a good investment for the next generation.

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Originally posted by sep:
Call Kimber and I assume they will make it right. Stuff happens.

That assumption would be “wrong” in my case. I sent a poor grouping 270wsm in their Montana model. It came back to me unaltered and still the same poor shooter. It went down the road so someone else can experience their quality and customer service.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by sep:
Call Kimber and I assume they will make it right. Stuff happens.


That assumption would be “wrong” in my case. I sent a poor grouping 270wsm in their Montana model. It came back to me unaltered and still the same poor shooter. It went down the road so someone else can experience their quality and customer service.

Same thing with my .257 Roberts. Customer service was very polite, but my rifle was returned unaltered with a single three shot group 'proving' it was consistent.

Save time, money, and heartache by skipping to the end, and just sell it.

Kimber is the main reason I left American gun manufactures behind...after 5 or 6 Kimbers at $1500 a pop I ended up with one that would shoot ok and that was after multiple guns being sent back for all kinds of ridiculous issues. Some 3 times....I wasted what seemed like years of my life at the range banging my head on the bench in frustration. Blaser solved that headache...

Not to mention various Remchesters that weren't much better...

Kimbers must have inconsistent barrels.