Well sheeeet....

[Biggern'yurs]

Well I've been prepping my Kimber Montana all summer, new scope, suppressor, load development... It was off at range today so I figured I'd strip her down and remount everything. Found this hairline crack in stock when I got home. One week until my mule deer trip. I'm guessing this isn't fixable right?

 

[lintond]

Duct tape fixes everything


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[Wyo_hntr]

I see two cracks. That's a bummer man.

Don't feel bad or alone. I too played the kimber roulette and lost.

 

[*zap*]

plastic weld it.

 

[Firestone]

How did it shoot when you were at the range?

 

[SloppyJ]

Maybe the bottom metal has a bit of interference on the stock and when it gets cranked down it split. I'd put some JB weld on the dude and roll. Does it shoot well? If the answer is yes, send it.

 

[Marbles]

On a hunt that I had planned for all summer, I would worry about that breaking in the field.

You could sand, overlay with a few layers of fiberglass on the outside, then use it. I bet Kimber refuses to warranty it if you do that though.

Other option is go get a new rifle as Kimber will not have you a stock soon enough, and even if they did it might need to be bedded. Either way, you need to decide now if you want to be hunting in a week.

 

[Thegman]

Take a look at my posts on this thread. Epoxy alone probably won't work. Start with my post a couple up from this.

Paint Cracking on Kimber Montana

Background This spring I bought a new Kimber Montana 6.5 CM from eurooptic, having never handled one before. I discovered that I hated the sandpapery finish of the stock - every touch left a mark, and the gritty finish would catch on the tiny corners of skin next to my nails. I couldn't deal...

rokslide.com

 

[EastHumboldt]

Hopefully you have another rifle you were using prior to this one. I would not depend on that in the woods. Well… I would depend on it to break…..

 

[Kyguy]

If it's just the paint, don't worry about it. Pull the action out and see if it's cracked on the inside?

 

[TaperPin]

Fiberglass/carbon fiber stocks are pretty strong - has the rifle had rough treatment? If the stock has pressure applied, do the cracks move? If not, my assumption would be the cracks are from shrinkage of the outer coat of filler and or epoxy/polyester and aren’t structural. Polyester shrinks much more than epoxy and cheap polyester filler can be hard and brittle.

 

[TomJoad]

I design product out of carbon for a living. In some cases, there are cosmetic cracks that can develop in the finish only or in bondo/puddy and paint. In these cases the resin and carbon are more flexible than the bondo/paint and the cracks will be non-structural, completely surface. It’s not often but this shows up in testing occasionally for us, structurally fine, finish is not.

My reco would be to gently sand the finish off, clean well with alcohol and see if the cracks extend into the carbon composite. If not, carry and shoot with confidence. If the cracks are under the finish, scrap that stock.

 

[Marbles]

I design product out of carbon for a living. In some cases, there are cosmetic cracks that can develop in the finish only or in bondo/puddy and paint. In these cases the resin and carbon are more flexible than the bondo/paint and the cracks will be non-structural, completely surface. It’s not often but this shows up in testing occasionally for us, structurally fine, finish is not.

My reco would be to gently sand the finish off, clean well with alcohol and see if the cracks extend into the carbon composite. If not, carry and shoot with confidence. If the cracks are under the finish, scrap that stock.

Kimber has a lot of bondo/filler on their stocks. So that is very possible.

 

[Pharmseller]

Where you at?

 

[Biggern'yurs]

I'm in the Portland Oregon area. No the rifle hasn't made mistreated. I pretty much baby this thing. But it did have to be rebedded after my guns mith really screwed up the bedding. I don't think I ran anything too deep though. It's been through maybe 100 rounds since. The cracks do open up when I put pressure on it. It effectively went from a 3/4" gun to an 1-1/2" inch gun. I do have another 270 but I was really dialed up on this one to hunt suppressed.

 

[*zap*]

Goodluck

 

[Biggern'yurs]

I might crack chase it and then JB Weld it up and see if it holds. Won't chance it on the hunt though.

 

[ozyclint]

I design product out of carbon for a living. In some cases, there are cosmetic cracks that can develop in the finish only or in bondo/puddy and paint. In these cases the resin and carbon are more flexible than the bondo/paint and the cracks will be non-structural, completely surface. It’s not often but this shows up in testing occasionally for us, structurally fine, finish is not.

My reco would be to gently sand the finish off, clean well with alcohol and see if the cracks extend into the carbon composite. If not, carry and shoot with confidence. If the cracks are under the finish, scrap that stock.

You didn't build the Titan sub by any chance?

 

[TaperPin]

I'm in the Portland Oregon area. No the rifle hasn't made mistreated. I pretty much baby this thing. But it did have to be rebedded after my guns mith really screwed up the bedding. I don't think I ran anything too deep though. It's been through maybe 100 rounds since. The cracks do open up when I put pressure on it. It effectively went from a 3/4" gun to an 1-1/2" inch gun. I do have another 270 but I was really dialed up on this one to hunt suppressed.

That’s a huge bummer.

I have seen guys repair similar cracks by gutting the fill on the inside of the stock shell and carefully sanding down to carbon fiber, then adding a few layers of new carbon fiber overlapping the crack by a few inches on each side, and replacing the fill and rebedding the action. A long frustrating weekend at best, and definitely not worth the effort unless you’re quite detail oriented and a glutton for punishment.

I’ve seen stocks with a few carefully vacuum bagged layers over a crack (on the outside) that was feathered out and professionally finished, and it still looked like a crappy repair.

What a bummer.

 

[Biggern'yurs]

Yeah I'm going to dig into it a bit tonight and see how dep they go. Just for funzies I called Kimber to see about getting a new stock. They lived up to the hype. No Montana stocks available or coming available but they would be happy to sell me a MA Caza stock for $930.... WTF.....