Help me spend my money! Kimber vs Christensen

[quiksilverhill]

Sounds like you've made up your mind but I'll give a +1 to Seekins or Tikka. I've got 4 PH2's and an Element and I'd grab them 100x over my Ridgelines. Every Tikka I've ever owned was Sub MOA out of the box.

 

[Shallowpockets]

I would go Christensen for sure

 

[bigbassfish]

Wow does time fly...wanting to get more active on here and figured this would be a great place to start with an update. I ended up going with the Ridgeline in 308 as i was able to get it out the door right at 1k so hard to pass up. For glass, I scoped it with a Razor HD LHT 3-15x50 Mil, and it has been a pretty sweet shooting setup. I had some concerns with the action bedding as it looks like the barrel sits a little crooked in the stock channel, but the handful of times I was able to shoot distance, I was hitting a 10in plate at 500 no problem. Considering the terrain I hunt, I'd be lucky to get a clear shot much past 60 yards so I try not to worry about it.

Deer season of '22 I was fortunate enough to harvest my first deer unassisted, (only other big game hunt was a doe with my buddy off his feeder back in Kansas) , and it was a nice 8pt buck on public land, 15 yards away 30 minutes after shooting light on opening day.

Boiled the head for a Euro mount which turned out phenomenal, and processed the meat with my girlfriend. To stubborn/stupid/cheap to stop once we started, we ended up doing all of the grinding with my great grandmother's table clamp hand grinder. That was miserable. Probably took 6 hours of bending over slightly because the table was too low, stopping every 5 minutes to clear out silver skin, and the frequent beer break, lessons were learned that weekend.


Hunting season of '23 went nothing like I imagined. Following the luck I found in 2022, I decided i was going to get serious about one of my bucket list hunts, a Public land bear in Arkansas, specifically with a bow. As many of you may know, there is no baiting allowed on public land in Arkansas so this was going to be a monumental undertaking for someone who hadn't touched a bow in 10 years. This story probably deserves a post of its own, so without dragging this out, i was amazingly lucky to harvest a 4 year old male bear, in the last hours of the last day of my 7 days I had taken off of work. Something like 50 miles I had hiked that week, 12 of which were on the last day. Scouting every weekend from May to season opener. Shooting my bow every other day. Man that is a hunt i will never forget. In fact, my rug will hopefully be done in the next week.

After all the work put into bear season, i was a little burnt out so I didn't put much effort into deer, but i did manage to take a decent wild boar.




As for what's next? Planning a trip to Montana for spring bear '25, this rifle will be the one I take. I would love to get a Seekins Element in either a 6.5PRC or a 7, but that's not really in the budget for this year considering the rest of the western hunting gear I need to accumulate between the girlfriend and I. I've also been eyeballing a TBAC Ultra 7 pretty hard, and would likely pick this up before getting a new rifle.

I will eventually end up with a Nightforce, but everytime i get close to pulling the trigger, I get cold feet between the NXS 2.5-10 and NX8 2.5-20. Really not a fan of the G4i BDC reticle in my Razor LHT, but in actual use its been fine I guess.

 

[LightFoot]

Wow does time fly...wanting to get more active on here and figured this would be a great place to start with an update. I ended up going with the Ridgeline in 308 as i was able to get it out the door right at 1k so hard to pass up. For glass, I scoped it with a Razor HD LHT 3-15x50 Mil, and it has been a pretty sweet shooting setup. I had some concerns with the action bedding as it looks like the barrel sits a little crooked in the stock channel, but the handful of times I was able to shoot distance, I was hitting a 10in plate at 500 no problem. Considering the terrain I hunt, I'd be lucky to get a clear shot much past 60 yards so I try not to worry about it.

Deer season of '22 I was fortunate enough to harvest my first deer unassisted, (only other big game hunt was a doe with my buddy off his feeder back in Kansas) , and it was a nice 8pt buck on public land, 15 yards away 30 minutes after shooting light on opening day.View attachment 772408

Boiled the head for a Euro mount which turned out phenomenal, and processed the meat with my girlfriend. To stubborn/stupid/cheap to stop once we started, we ended up doing all of the grinding with my great grandmother's table clamp hand grinder. That was miserable. Probably took 6 hours of bending over slightly because the table was too low, stopping every 5 minutes to clear out silver skin, and the frequent beer break, lessons were learned that weekend.


Hunting season of '23 went nothing like I imagined. Following the luck I found in 2022, I decided i was going to get serious about one of my bucket list hunts, a Public land bear in Arkansas, specifically with a bow. As many of you may know, there is no baiting allowed on public land in Arkansas so this was going to be a monumental undertaking for someone who hadn't touched a bow in 10 years. This story probably deserves a post of its own, so without dragging this out, i was amazingly lucky to harvest a 4 year old male bear, in the last hours of the last day of my 7 days I had taken off of work. Something like 50 miles I had hiked that week, 12 of which were on the last day. Scouting every weekend from May to season opener. Shooting my bow every other day. Man that is a hunt i will never forget. In fact, my rug will hopefully be done in the next week.

After all the work put into bear season, i was a little burnt out so I didn't put much effort into deer, but i did manage to take a decent wild boar.
View attachment 772411



As for what's next? Planning a trip to Montana for spring bear '25, this rifle will be the one I take. I would love to get a Seekins Element in either a 6.5PRC or a 7, but that's not really in the budget for this year considering the rest of the western hunting gear I need to accumulate between the girlfriend and I. I've also been eyeballing a TBAC Ultra 7 pretty hard, and would likely pick this up before getting a new rifle.

I will eventually end up with a Nightforce, but everytime i get close to pulling the trigger, I get cold feet between the NXS 2.5-10 and NX8 2.5-20. Really not a fan of the G4i BDC reticle in my Razor LHT, but in actual use its been fine I guess.

Good write up. Congratulations and good job!

As far as between the NF NXS and NX8, it would be hard to go wrong with either. I went with the NX8 and I’m glad I did. There has been no need for 20x. Neither the 2.5, for that matter. The scope stays comfortably between 6 and 16. I like the capped windage on the NX8, otherwise the lighter NXS might have been my choice.

Good ballistic data and a NF optic (mil or MOA) will get you out further than your 308 has any business poking big game.

Again, I enjoyed reading your write up.


>>>——JAKE——>

 

[bigbassfish]

Thanks! One of these days I'll sit down and do a full write up of my bear hunt, literally couldn't have written it any better than how it went down. Initially when optic shopping i was fairly set on FFP but i actually don't mind the SFP, especially in the thick Arkansas timber. The eye box on the NX8 scares me a little, i've gotten to mess with one on a rifle and its not nearly as bad as when you're just trying to get a look through it in a store, but man it is definitely one of the smaller eyebox scopes i've looked through. The 4-32 is much better eyebox wise, but way over kill on magnification for 95% of where i hunt.

When started this thread, I was pretty dead set on the lightest setup i could get away with, with a little bit more long range practice under my belt, I think I'm more than happy to take an extra pound for better shootability.

 

[Thegman]

Nevermind...I didn’t notice this thread is 2 years old...I'll go back and find out what you ended up with. The suspense!

Personally, I think your first instinct was pretty darn good, probably in 6.5CM. That's a good basic do-everything rifle, which I think can drop another 1/2 pound or so with cleaning out the insides of the stock, if you want a really lightweight mountain rifle, around 5#.

Even though I haven't needed it for a couple of years, my old Montana (308) remains my favorite overall rifle despite having and liking a couple of Tikkas, which are great as well. I'd check both out and see which you prefer, but I'd go with either before a CA. Not that they're bad, I just prefer the Kimber and Tikka actions, triggers, and locking bolts.