At the gun store the other day and saw my first Kimber. It was a 84M light weight with carlo wood and I must say, It's very appealing to the eyes. Looked at the web site and saw a .308 with a fluted 24' barrel that I also thought might serve some sort of purpose in the gun safe oneday. Anybody have any experinces with Kimber? good or bad? Would you buy one? Thanks and Merry Christmas, Terry

TC1:

I cannot give you any information based on hands on experience. However, I purchased a Kimber 84M varmint rifle, stripped the stock and barrel off it and am using it as the basis for a light mountain deer/sheep rifle. I had an experienced metalsmith and mauser man [guild member] look over the action and he was quite impressed. Kimber uses a very tough steel in order to get the exterior dimensions so small. The tolerances seem tight. The trigger is nice. It is a really nice looking action. I have only one complaint: the height of the action [distance between bottom of the floorplate and top of receiver] is too great relative to the action's small diameter. The proportions are not right, IMHO. I had my metalsmith shave some steel off the bottom of the magazine and so some other machining so that the action is shorter. It still holds four rounds but it is about .200" shorter overall [from top of action to bottom of trigger guard].

I will be sending the rifle to Greg Tannel soon to be chambered in .257 DGR. This is Duane Spooner's well conceived wildcat based on the .260 Rem case, necked down to .25 and improved.

My .02 worth.

Jordan

Thanks Jordan, That sounds like one nice rifle your building. I would love to see some pics of it when finished.

I looked at one a couple weeks ago and in general it wasn't a bad rifle if it cost the same as a Win M70. It doesn't cost the same as a winchester though so it becomes less impressive. It's hard to think much of a plastic magazine follower although I'm sure it works fine.
The stock finish was dismal and the checkering could be most kindly described as utilitarian. I didn't take the action out of the stock but what I could see of the action did look pretty good.
I also find the stock depth to be excessive but that's just personal preference. Regards, Bill.

I also have no hands-on experience, but the atricle that I read made it sound really good until you started looking at the groups. With the 308, the best they could do was a 2" average at 100 yards. If a 308 won't do better than that, then I have no use for it. I have old Mausers that do much better that that and they weren't $900. Save your money.

Ive had two Kimbers. One was a 270 that was not accurate at all. It was an Oregon early model. I got rid of it.

The second is a 22 hornet - early Oregon that only shoots a little less than an inch at 100 yds. Good enough to keep but not all that impressive.

I would'nt buy another one even though I still like the looks and feel of them.