Kimber Montana or Barrett Fieldcraft

[turley]

In the process of looking for a lightweight mountain rifle and have narrowed it to the Kimber Montana or Barrett Fieldcraft chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor.
They are in the same price point and weight and both feel good in the hand.
Anyone have any preference of one over the other (Pro's & Con's)?
Any information greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[hunting1]

No first hand with the Barrett but nothing but love for my Kimber's. Some have had bad luck but mine are awesome.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I love my Kimbers and have nothing but good things to say about them. The BArrett is cool but I like the 3 position safety of the Kimbers personally.

 

[264win]

I think your odds of getting moa accuracy is higher with the Barrett, and I think only the Barret is available with a threaded muzzle. but both are solid choices.

 

[VernAK]

I have 2-3 of each but I have much less experience with the Fieldcraft as they are much later on the market.
I use the Fieldcrafts for predators primarily or may use on caribou next year. One is rigged for a suppressor. Both were very accurate out of the box and function reliably. I do NOT like the open slot between bolt and ejection port as it's an open entry for snow and debris into the magazine box.

My favorite EDC big game rifle is the Kimber MA. It was very accurate out of the box and functions very reliably. Best of all.....it fits me like a light shotgun!. It has all the features that I prefer; no floor plate, 3 position safety, CRF etc.....and I have a slight preference for the Kimber stock vs. Fieldcraft stock.

 

[Silvereagle50]

I second VernAK's comment on the stocks. I haven't owned a Fieldcraft, but when I was in your shoes I went to a buddies and handled both. The forearm on the Fieldcraft is a little fatter or something and just felt a little off to me. As far as the safety, I'd prefer the FC since I'm a Rem 700 guy and therefore prefer that style safety.

 

[recurveman]

I have a kimber mountain assent rifle in .308. It is easily the biggest POS rifle I have every shot. Couldn't get it to shoot even close to MOA. My buddy also has one. Same thing. I've got 250 rounds total down the tube with these guns with an assortment of factory and reloaded ammo. I shot more groups over 2" than under 2" at 100 yards. I could bag on this gun for hours but will spare you the stories.

Went out and bought a Tikka T3 in the same caliber and it shoots 1/2 MOA all day and was done with load development in about 50-75 rounds. I hear good things about the field craft but don't over look the Tikka. If you hand load they are awesome because it is along action and you could long load the 6.5CM and get its full potential out of the cartridge if you wanted too.

 

[AK Troutbum]

Man that’s a tough one. I have owned a few of them but currently only have two Kimber’s (Montana & Mountain Ascent), and one Fieldcraft. They are, and have all been, great shooters and I can’t really say that I prefer one over the other. The FC’s are just a tad lighter (apples to apples), and have a smoother action when cycled, however, I am kind of partial to the 3 position safety and CRF of the Kimber’s. If you have the opportunity to handle them both and mess with them a bit, that would probably be your best bet for deciding IMO. Good luck.


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[Formidilosus]

Anyone have any preference of one over the other (Pro's & Con's)?
Any information greatly appreciated.
Thanks

You will get a bunch of replies. Most will say either one is great... “if you do your part”. That’s the rub.

Having experience with a couple dozen Montana’s/MA’s/Hunters/etc. and a dozen plus Fieldcrafts-

Kimbers: WAY more finicky to get shooting, and WAY higher chance of getting a lemon. In all that I’ve seen, only about a quarter were good out of the box. The rest landed somewhere between “do the 26 trick moves” to fix, all the way to barrel and stock replacement to get anything remotely decent. In factory form and NOT discounting shots you don’t like, your looking at a 2+ MOA rifle. Some are much worse.
The stock design is good, but have had about half that took serious work to get free floated, and relieve torque on the action as well.

When there is an issue, Kimber is all over the map about fixing them. They do seem better now, both in rifles and CS, than they were. Still extremely spotty.



Barrett: While they have had a couple issues with bedding, etc., you are unlikely to get one that needs anything. Only two that I’ve seen needed bedding compound removed from the rear action hole in the stock. The rest were good OOTB. Function, I.E.- Feeding, extraction, ejection, etc has been fine on all, except one that had weak ejection of a live round. It fed and ejected fired cases without issuse so the owner decided not to send it back.
Barrels are universally good. Stock is a good design, and is bedded correctly. Action, works correctly.

Precision has been vastly better than Kimbers. Haven’t seen one that was worse than 1.5 MOA for ten round groups. Most are between 1.2-1.5 MOA- or about like a Kimber after a barrel replacement and bedding.

If there is an issue, Barrett CS been prompt and dealt with it without a fuss.



Both rifles are virtually the same weight. One is known as being “hard to shoot” and that you “gotta really pay attention” to shoot it decent, and the other is known to be virtually trouble free.

I have a kimber Mountain ascent. Couldn't get it to shoot even close to MOA. My buddy also has one. Same thing. I've got 250 rounds total down the tube with these guns with an assortment of factory and reloaded ammo. I shot more groups over 2" than under 2" at 100 yards.

My experience is that when you do not allow people to make excuses for shots that they don’t like, your experience is the norm. There is a active thread about kimbers rife with “if I do my part”, 3 round groups that do not impact the target in the same location, and pictures where the users “called” a bad shot (why is it that 100% of oopsies, are always the one shot that they don’t like?). Yet every time someone does a barrel replacement and a bed job, all of a sudden the gun is no longer so hard to shoot well and doesn’t require 13 trick moves to group.

 

[dreamingWest]

except one that had weak ejection of a live round. It fed and ejected fired cases without issuse so the owner decided not to send it back.

Ha. Mine 30-06 Fieldcraft does this. At first it was bothersome, now it's almost a bonus feature. I don't have to catch or pick up the live rounds.

To the OP. After owning a Winchester Model 70 for a few years, I've decided I prefer a 2-position safety and have no issues with a push feed. Likely because I grew up shooting Remington's and Browning's. The Barrett Fieldcraft has been a fuss free hunting rifle.

 

[AK Troutbum]

You will get a bunch of replies. Most will say either one is great... “if you do your part”. That’s the rub.

Having experience with a couple dozen Montana’s/MA’s/Hunters/etc. and a dozen plus Fieldcrafts-

Kimbers: WAY more finicky to get shooting, and WAY higher chance of getting a lemon. In all that I’ve seen, only about a quarter were good out of the box. The rest landed somewhere between “do the 26 trick moves” to fix, all the way to barrel and stock replacement to get anything remotely decent. In factory form and NOT discounting shots you don’t like, your looking at a 2+ MOA rifle. Some are much worse.
The stock design is good, but have had about half that took serious work to get free floated, and relieve torque on the action as well.

When there is an issue, Kimber is all over the map about fixing them. They do seem better now, both in rifles and CS, than they were. Still extremely spotty.



Barrett: While they have had a couple issues with bedding, etc., you are unlikely to get one that needs anything. Only two that I’ve seen needed bedding compound removed from the rear action hole in the stock. The rest were good OOTB. Function, I.E.- Feeding, extraction, ejection, etc has been fine on all, except one that had weak ejection of a live round. It fed and ejected fired cases without issuse so the owner decided not to send it back.
Barrels are universally good. Stock is a good design, and is bedded correctly. Action, works correctly.

Precision has been vastly better than Kimbers. Haven’t seen one that was worse than 1.5 MOA for ten round groups. Most are between 1.2-1.5 MOA- or about like a Kimber after a barrel replacement and bedding.

If there is an issue, Barrett CS been prompt and dealt with it without a fuss.



Both rifles are virtually the same weight. One is known as being “hard to shoot” and that you “gotta really pay attention” to shoot it decent, and the other is known to be virtually trouble free.







My experience is that when you do not allow people to make excuses for shots that they don’t like, your experience is the norm. There is a active thread about kimbers rife with “if I do my part”, 3 round groups that do not impact the target in the same location, and pictures where the users “called” a bad shot (why is it that 100% of oopsies, are always the one shot that they don’t like?). Yet every time someone does a barrel replacement and a bed job, all of a sudden the gun is no longer so hard to shoot well and doesn’t require 13 trick moves to group.

You definitely have more experience with Kimber rifles than I do, and I guess I should consider myself super lucky because, of the 4 that I’ve owned and the two other ones that friends own and I’ve shot, they’ve all been easily sub MOA. The two that I still own are my first one, a .300wsm Montana purchased new in 2005, and my most recent, a .270 MA, also purchased new in 2017. So I guess, in my limited experience, I haven’t shot one that wasn’t accurate, I only wish my luck was as good with drawing tags, although, I really can’t complain about that either.


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[Formidilosus]

You definitely have more experience with Kimber rifles than I do, and I guess I should consider myself super lucky because, of the 4 that I’ve owned and the two other ones that friends own and I’ve shot, they’ve all been easily sub MOA. The two that I still own are my first one, a .300wsm Montana purchased new in 2005, and my most recent, a .270 MA, also purchased new in 2017. I only wish my luck was as good with drawing tags, although, I guess I really can’t complain about that either.


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You should put in for sheep draws! Haha. Kidding.

So when you say “easily sub MOA”, how exactly are you determining that?

I think a lot of this is what definition of “sub MOA” one is using (not necessarily your rifles).

 

[duchntr]

As much as I like the aesthetics of the Kimbers (stock and 3 pos safety) I have to say my 6.5 fieldcraft was and is the easiest rifle I've ever setup and shot to date. Slapped a 3-9 swfa on it and it flat out shoots. I cannot say the same for the 3 kimbers Ive handled, they all needed something, wether it be a mag box too long, action screws too long or the barrel scrubbing one side of the stock. So pretty small sample size for me but Id go fieldcraft again happily especially, in the short action variety

 

[brsnow]

My kimbers shoot really good for me. I just don’t like blind magazines, I wish a 5lbish higher end rifle with detachable or hinge magazine existed.

 

[Reburn]

Form brings up some great points.

I have no experience with kimber except an old first gen one that wouldn't group better then 3" that I sold shortly after getting it circa 2007 or something.

I struggled with my fieldcraft to get it to shoot well at the start. It has been my first true light weight rifle. My "rub" is I wasn't nearly as good as a shooter as I thought I was. This was very hard for me to accept but that is the truth. Going from 9lb+ weapons to a Fieldcraft nxs 2.5-10 combo that weighs 6.86 lbs was quite a shock. After trigger follow through was my biggest problem as well as grip torque and consistent cheek weld pressure. There are tons of articles on how to shoot a lightweight rifle. Lots of bs in them and lots of good info.

If you honestly know how to handle a lightweight then maybe the kimber is for you. If you don't know or haven't fired 100s of rounds with lightweight guns why not go ahead and get a fieldcraft or tikka and know if the group is bad its YOU and not the gun. I'm around 140 rounds down with the 6.5 fieldcraft and I finally have it figured out.

If your a bad enough shooter that you need to put a frown face next to 1 shot if each 5 shot group you shoot you should get some help, training or practice and fix whatever your problem is. Other wise that is simply what you and your gun can group. No excuses.

5 shot group prone of a pack. No bipod. 10 round groups are better but I was fatiguing after 50 rounds shot with another rifle so I stopped at 5. The gun will reliably do 1.3" 5 to 10 shot groups this is my best group to date with the rifle and factory ammo.

 

[brsnow]

I shoot most groups sitting at the bench free hand or using one bag up front. I am by no means an experienced shooter, that probably helps as I have an archery background. I hunt so being able to hit what I am aiming at in an array of settings is important to me. Kimbers seem to do that fine. I wish the 21” barrel was threaded on the FC as I would try one. I like the brake for seeing where I hit.

 

[turley]

Thank you all for taking the time and responding providing your good and not so good experiences (though the not so good seems to be more so with Kimber than Barrett). I was initially leaning towards the Fieldcraft and now am even more so. After searching an reviewing numerous posts the Tikka T3x Lite and Superlite seem to be an outstanding bang for dollar.
Cheers and Thanks again,
Turley

 

[Runningwater]

I've another one in the group of struggling with a kimber. Mines a 300WSM select with the wood stock, early 2000's vintage. Shoots about 2.5-3 moa at best with any factory ammo we've tried. Have a friend who does a lot of reloading in the same caliber for his .5moa tikka (seems to be a theme) he spent about 4 months with my rifle and after a couple hundred dollars of components found a combination with shoots an inch. We've also tried most of the tricks from the fix kimber issues along the way, making sure the box isn't binding, action screw torques, action or base mounts bottoming out, etc. Its frustrating but I'm just glad it can shoot acceptable now. FWIW I've heard the newer ones have much fewer issues.
Right now I'm hoping Barrett gets the 280ai out and I'll have myself a Christmas present!

 

[oenanthe]

...The FC’s are just a tad lighter (apples to apples)

You own both so are more qualified than most to answer, but could you please clarify? My impression was that the Kimber Montana is about the same weight as a Fieldcraft, and the Mountain Ascent (which is about the same price as a Fieldcraft) is somewhat lighter.

It's always hard to tell from published weights. I read one article that said the Fieldcraft 7mm-08 had a stock weighing 20 oz. Meanwhile my Montana 7mm-08 stock weighs 25 oz., and my Subalpine .30-06 stock weighs 25.5. Are the Fieldcraft stocks really that light?

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I’ve been lucky with my kimbers. Right now I have a Montana 308 and a mountain ascent 300wsm, both with nightforce shv 3-10 scopes and talley lightweight rings. I don’t have much of a problem shooting MOA with them, in fact I shot a few 1.9-2” 200 yard groups with my 308 last Saturday. I haven’t had any of the fit and finish horror stories with these rifles.

I know the fieldcraft is a great rifle as well but I’ve got no reason to move on from my kimbers.