I bought this Kimber Montana a few years ago from a buddies in-law for a hell of a deal. He sent me with a 3 shot bughole group on a target, the recipe, and 50 rounds. Long story short I could never repeat that. At the time I didn't have the greatest fundamentals, but I knew I could shoot better than the 1.25"-ish I was getting. So I threw it in the safe thinking someday I'll do my own load work and revisit that rifle. Fast forward to present, I'm finally having my custom built and decided to send my wife's Tikka off for a makeover as well. It's time to bust out the Kimber.
The original target. After reading about Montana's and the love/hatred for them, I decided to start from square one and crack it open.
He told me he couldn't get it to shoot clovers until he took it apart and sanded out the pressure point in the barrel channel. I could definitely see it had been sanded on, but holy crap did that skim/slave bed job (or whatever) look terrible. It was flaky and looked like it probably caused more issues than it would help. So I got some fresh JB, and went to town with the dremel. The stock isn't in the greatest shape so I figure if it shoots and I fall in love with it, I'll prep it and give it a makeover. For now, down and dirty. Not a single piece of masking tape used (until paint), not even around the recoil lug. Kiwi clear shoe polish buffed on every surface, and smeared in every crack and crevasse that I didn't want JB in or stuck to. As soon as I dropped the action in and got the screws barely snugged, I immediately cleaned up the ooze out with alcohol soaked paper towels and Q-tips. I read that WD-40 works great also, I just forgot to grab some at the hardware store when I picked up components. *Insert not being a man and having WD-40 joke, but I just finished construction/moving in and was packed very light through the process* The household isopropyl alcohol actually worked quite well for immediate clean up. Then that stressful waiting period..
Post op, sucker popped right out! Pretty dang impressed for a rogue job. A bubble and a high spot or two, but for the most part the recoil lug and tang area got 100% contact. Outside the mag well just chipped up with ease. It can definitely be done a lot cleaner, but nobody will ever see that unless I let em. And I've seen some of the posts about bedding by gunsmiths.. Hence why I feel ok posting this lol.
Final product. Filed the high spots and edges down a little bit, cleaned out the pillars, sanded a little more out of the channel to make for an easy 4 paper thickness clearance all the way up to the bedding for the taper, and a little semi gloss paint to seal up the CF.
All in all I'm pretty happy. This is only my 3rd attempt at a bed job, and I feel like it was the easiest and best one I've done so far. Next step is to fire the rest of the rounds I have to finish off that lot, and start fresh load work with properly prepped and annealed brass. Which I'll probably do a load workup thread in the reloading forum. Unless I can't get it to shoot, then I'll just continue lurking like I'm too busy to post anymore
The original target. After reading about Montana's and the love/hatred for them, I decided to start from square one and crack it open.
He told me he couldn't get it to shoot clovers until he took it apart and sanded out the pressure point in the barrel channel. I could definitely see it had been sanded on, but holy crap did that skim/slave bed job (or whatever) look terrible. It was flaky and looked like it probably caused more issues than it would help. So I got some fresh JB, and went to town with the dremel. The stock isn't in the greatest shape so I figure if it shoots and I fall in love with it, I'll prep it and give it a makeover. For now, down and dirty. Not a single piece of masking tape used (until paint), not even around the recoil lug. Kiwi clear shoe polish buffed on every surface, and smeared in every crack and crevasse that I didn't want JB in or stuck to. As soon as I dropped the action in and got the screws barely snugged, I immediately cleaned up the ooze out with alcohol soaked paper towels and Q-tips. I read that WD-40 works great also, I just forgot to grab some at the hardware store when I picked up components. *Insert not being a man and having WD-40 joke, but I just finished construction/moving in and was packed very light through the process* The household isopropyl alcohol actually worked quite well for immediate clean up. Then that stressful waiting period..
Post op, sucker popped right out! Pretty dang impressed for a rogue job. A bubble and a high spot or two, but for the most part the recoil lug and tang area got 100% contact. Outside the mag well just chipped up with ease. It can definitely be done a lot cleaner, but nobody will ever see that unless I let em. And I've seen some of the posts about bedding by gunsmiths.. Hence why I feel ok posting this lol.
Final product. Filed the high spots and edges down a little bit, cleaned out the pillars, sanded a little more out of the channel to make for an easy 4 paper thickness clearance all the way up to the bedding for the taper, and a little semi gloss paint to seal up the CF.
All in all I'm pretty happy. This is only my 3rd attempt at a bed job, and I feel like it was the easiest and best one I've done so far. Next step is to fire the rest of the rounds I have to finish off that lot, and start fresh load work with properly prepped and annealed brass. Which I'll probably do a load workup thread in the reloading forum. Unless I can't get it to shoot, then I'll just continue lurking like I'm too busy to post anymore
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