Kimber Mountain Ascent

LUCKYDOG

LUCKYDOG

Active member
I'm thinking about one of these in a 300 WSM or maybe a 6.5 Creedmoor. It will be my all around big game rifle if I get it so it will probably be the 300 WSM. I was just wondering if any one here had any experience with owning or shooting one. I have zero experience with Kimber. I just fell in love with it when I held it at Murdoch's.
 
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I own one, it's a 280 Ackley Improved caliber. I had some trouble with it at first. I could have sent it back to Kimber and without a doubt they would have taken care of the issue. There was a galled spot in the chamber and it caused the bolt to click and it also was a little sticky on opening {after being fired}. I have a lathe, so I just shouldered it back 1/4" and did a rechamber.
Kimber used to use Douglas barrels, but all the Mountain Ascents have their own manufactured barrels. It has cut rifling and they hone the bore with a Sunnen bore hone. Mine is very accurate for a #1 contour barrel. It will walk if I get it hot and keep on firing.
The trigger is good and I easily adjusted it down a little to suit me. The stock is kind of hard plastic, it could have been made out of a better material I think, but it seems to work okay. I glass bedded mine.
Lightweight mountain rifles kick, even in fairly mild calibers so you definitely have to mount the scope in a good set of heavy duty rings and bases. Initially I tried Leupold "Redfield" type with a pretty big heavy scope {which didn't help matters}. It didn't want to hold zero and the group jumped around. I changed to the dual dovetail rings and bases and a lighter weight scope and that solved the problem.
I guess the biggest thing for me was getting used to the fact that you cant shoot for group with a ultra lightweight rifle like you would with a heavy barreled gun...fire a shot and let it sit until it is completely cooled off, like 1/2 hour or so. Then fire another and so forth. When I did it like that I saw some pretty good 1/2"-3/4" groups at 100 yards {this was with good reloads}. Try to just sit down and shoot one after another and you will probably see 2 1/2"-3" groups like I did initially. I don't care for compensators, but they do give you a thread protector thing to do away with that muzzle comp.
Overall in general I like the rifle, it is a pure joy to carry and hunt with, but I can see how some guys would sour on it quickly if they don't test it correctly. I would buy another one.
 
You had to set the barrel back and rechamber on a NEW rifle? and you would still buy another one?

I had one kimber that would not ever shoot better than 1.5" at 100 yards, and the scope had to be way off center to zero. I sent it back, they sent it back to me with a clean bill of health, but since it met their accuracy requirement, I sold it.
But, I have had 2 243's and both of those have shot well.
 
I've got a Kimber 8400 Classic in .300 WSM that I love. If I had to choose one rifle for North American big game, this would likely be it. It's pretty light (weight and barreled), so I don't often shoot for groups, but it'll put three pretty fast shots into an inch or so. With my handloads, I'm sending 150 grain Barnes TTSXs downrange at 3280 FPS and they wreck anything they hit. I'd love to try a Mountain Ascent in .280 AI, but honestly, have no reason to with this Classic. It does what I need and then some.
 
I own a baker's half dozen Kimber rifles including Montanas, Classics, and a stainless Classic, and all are very good shooters from the box and a delight to carry. All of them will put three quick shots well inside of 1", and as stated earlier, will do far better than that for 3 or 5 spaced out shots. They are designed to be light weight hunting rifles and not target rifles with their light carry weight and light barrels, so group shooting is not a big item to expect them to thrive on.

In addition, some people don't shoot light weight rifles very well when they try to bench group them simply because they do not hold the fore end down, not touching the barrel, and as a result the rifle doesn't always recoil the same without fore arm support. And the rifle generally gets blames for the resulting inaccuracy.

No experience with the Mountain Ascent Model, but for me a Kimber rifle is a good investment. There's a good thread on tuning a Kimber rifle on 24 HC.
 
I spent a lot of time and money trying to find something that 300wsm I had would like. Bullets, powders, primers, everything I could. It went back to kimber, their accuracy standard is 1.5" at 100 yards for 5 shots. Not good enough in my book, especially for what it cost about 13 years ago. I was told by the kimber guys that the "problem" was likely me, that I couldn't shoot a rifle with recoil well. I asked if that applied to the 50 bmg that I regularly shot and could group 1 moa at a mile.
I sold that 84 or 84m whatever it was, and bought a cz model 3 in 300wsm to replace it. Pretty much the same weight rifle, not quite as nice of wood. I had 7 rounds of test ammo left over from the kimber, all different. The cz shot those 7 different rounds into a smaller group than the kimber would shoot any single load.
I don't shoot groups for speed, leaving a half hour between shots takes a long time to get anywhere, but I had tried that too.
The kimber was a nice looking rifle, but for $1100 back in 2004 or 2005, I expect better accuracy than 1.5 moa.
 
Well there is one in the classifieds here on PM. I told him I would take it. I'm still waiting to hear if I was first. I hope so. I'll let you guys know how it goes if I get it. Thanks for the input.
 
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