I return to this thread with my most humble and sincere apologies to Kimber
I don't think that this thread should just go away.
I don't either.
***Here's a tip, you do not need to go to a dealer or an FFL to return a rifle to the manufacturer for repair. You can send it yourself and have it returned directly to you***
It was a time thing and inconvenience. I was working long hours coupled with a 1 hour+ commute. I was going to sell it just to get rid of it but John convinced me to let him send it off. Why not? It was just collecting dust, anyway.
What's most interesting to me on this thread is how MCMXI acquired the Kimber RMA number of some random dude on the internet?
I believe he may be a Kimber Distributor/Stocking Dealer and I believe is referenced on Kimber's website.
Sales & Service
Kimber Mfg. Inc.
30 Lower Valley Road
Kalispell, MT 59901
(888) 243-4522 ext 4381
source:
http://www.kimberamerica.com/contact/
THE 84M .260 REMINGTON SAGA CONTINUES....(I apologize in advance for the length of this post)
There is good reason for the time lapse from my last post until this one.
First of all, I was not going to continue to argue a point when I was not in full possession of the facts of what had transpired. And there were other events that interfered, too. I apologize for the length of the post, but I think it is necessarily so for the explanation.
Several events added up to a rather extended time frame. Along came deer season, which I share with my brother a long ways out of state; 3,503 miles round trip this year, according to my spreadsheet. I also try to take the opportunity to visit my two kids that live about 250 miles or so from the area where we hunt. Hey, it’s in the neighborhood and I try to make it an annual thing, though this was my first trip in three years.
Then, on the return trip I (barely) out raced a winter storm but, totaled my NEW car when I drove through debris falling off an overpass in heavy rain in the mountains east of Albuquerque at about 12:30am. (That’s two cars totaled in 2015. It has not been a good year.)
I had to do the replacement car hunt, play ‘dilly-dally’ with the insurance company, yada, yada. Then came Thanksgiving, my wife’s appointments with Mayo Clinic’s Cancer Hospital and my appointments with the eye doctors, and all the other things that happen in day to day life. Time moves on whether we like it or not.
At every opportunity, I would pester John for precise details and timeline of the goings on with that Kimber 84M .260 Remington. Finally, I got the story pried out of him and it was quite different than what he had been telling me. He was quite reluctant to fess up and he was embarrassed, too. So, here is John’s story…
Upon receiving the rifle from me, John waited a week or so before shipping it to Kimber to a fellow he knew there (“Mark”). About 7 days later it arrived. “Mark” called John to inform him Kimber did not work on Rugers. John shipped my Kimber and his Ruger #1 within a couple days of each other. John had inadvertently put the Kimber shipping label on the Ruger box and the Ruger label on the Kimber box. John called Ruger and asked them to refuse acceptance of his (John’s) shipment. Ruger did so. Both rifles were returned to John.
John had a gunsmith (out of town) that owed him a new barrel for one that he ruined on John’s .222 Remington. He has “owed” John this work for quite some time. Because he knew I wanted the .260 Remington chambering, if I could get it, and that Kimber no longer offered the .260 Remington chambering, John decided to call in his IOU chip and have this fellow replace the .260 barrel on my Kimber with a new Shilen .260 Remington barrel. The fellow agreed to do the work, so John shipped him the Kimber. After haranguing the fellow over a 19 month period and getting nothing accomplished, John finally had the guy send it back to him. By this time, “Mark” no longer worked for Kimber.
The new contact at Kimber was “Paula”. John packed the gun up and took it to Fed-Ex in a paper wrapped box with Kimber’s shipping authorization number on the label on the outside. FED-EX refused to ship a paper wrapped box. The solution the FE employee offered was to place the package inside a new FE box w/o unwrapping it. OK. They did and shipped it. Kimber refused acceptance because their shipment number was not displayed on the outside. DOH! John had forgotten to transfer that vital bit of information to the outside of the FE box! John added the authorization to a new FE package and re-shipped the gun back to Kimber. Kimber received it. Sometime later, they got it to a range and test fired it with factory ammunition and confirmed the .260 Rem. would not shoot an acceptable group. (total number of rounds fired is unknown; brand(s) of ammo and bullet weight(s) unknown) John got a call from “Paula” that Kimber no longer chambered .260 Remington, what did he want them to do with it? John told “Paula” my second choice was .308 Winchester. (I have my own reasons for that choice.) Done deal. Kimber’s shop replaced the original .260 Remington barrel with a .308 Winchester barrel. At the next opportunity Kimber sent it out to the range and it was test fired with Winchester 168 grain Match ammunition (total number of rounds fired is unknown; total number of different ammo mfr’s, bullet weights, etc. fired is also unknown) and turned in a 0.77” 3-round group. Rifle was packaged with the test group and returned.
Off and on over this entire extended time, I would occasionally ask John for an update and he would provide his cover story that “Kimber was backed up with government work, blah, blah, blah”. I knew no different and had no immediate need or use for the 84M so I accepted his story without questioning him about it. I mean, he IS a friend after all, yes?
Everything finally gets all ironed out and my 84M comes back to me, rather remarkably, without any new handling marks or other damage to the wood. So far so good. I will note here that the contour of the .308 barrel appears to be heavier than the .260 Remington barrel and that the finish of the new barrel is not a good match to the receiver in texture or color. (If it had been up to me, I would have at least re-blued the stripped barreled action with the new barrel installed.)
I take my now .308 Winchester Kimber 84M out to the range with a first batch of test loads. Five-round groups ranged from 7” to 3-1/4”. Not so hot. But it is only the first batch and I did use a Burris 2-7x40 scope, so that really did not mean much. A couple weeks went by (we had a smallbore silhouette match) and I thought another batch of test loads was in order.
I swapped the Burris 2-7x40 out for my Weaver 36x Target scope and ran a ladder test of 165 gr. Hornady BTSP with once-fired (in this rifle) Winchester brass, Remington 9-1/2 primers and charges of IMR 8208XBR from 38.5gr. to 40.0gr. in 0.5 gr. Increments. Seating depth was set via RCBS Precision Mic in order to consistently set the ogive-to-lands distance. I added several extra rounds with starting loads to get the bore fouled and for sighting-in purposes for the Weaver scope.
Today, I went to the range to fire the test loads for the Kimber and some bullet seating-depth test loads for my 6.5x55 Tikka.
After getting the Weaver zeroed, I fired the Kimber’s test loads for group.
I had loaded 2 3-round groups of each powder charge and one charge actually fired all six rounds (39.5gr.) and produced a 0.79” group and a 1.1” group. This will be a good load to tweak, I think.
However, I had 13 rounds out of 50 that failed to fire. This is very unnerving and distracting when shooting for group. The primer strikes appear to be quite light. I have no other rifle that strikes this light. So, upon returning home, I got out my scale and weighed all the loaded rounds that failed to fire and a 18 fired cases to confirm powder in the cases, even though I was sure I could hear the powder rattle in the case when shaken. Powder in loaded rounds confirmed. (Avg. weight of 18 fired cases = 161.55gr. (Avg. weight of loaded cases minus bullet weight and minus noted powder charges = 162.33gr.) Check out the photo of one of the fired cases and one of the dud cases. They all look alike.
My next thought was that, maybe I had set the shoulder back too far and that was resulting in the light strikes. So, with a RCBS Precision Mic, I measured all of the “duds” (13) and 10 of the fired cases. (The Precision Mic measures the distance from the base of the case to the datum line on the shoulder.) Headspace dimension specification for the .308 Win. is, according to the RCBS literature, 1.630” / 1.640” (min. to max.) Fired cases measured dimensions ranged from 1.629” (shortest) to 1.631” (longest). Loaded “duds” (all 13) measured dimensions ranged from 1.625” (shortest) to 1.630” (longest). This does not appear to be enough difference in length to cause a failure to fire. Especially as the chamber tolerance is .010” and the extreme spread of all measured cases is only .006”.
My intuition tells me two possible problems: 1) Broken firing pin? 2) Broken firing pin spring?
Anyone have any other ideas?
Perhaps another conversation with Kimber is in order?
ETA: Photo
ETA #2: Using the Kimber owner's manual, I removed the firing pin assembly from the bolt. Nothing apparently amiss to my untrained eye. (Gunsmiths & I have an understanding that I will not perform gunsmithing and repairs if they abstain from practicing architecture.) The firing pin is intact and the firing pin spring shows no evidence of breakage. There appeared to be an excessive amount of oil in the bolt, so I sprayed it and the firing pin assembly down with brake parts cleaner and gave it a couple drops of Kroil. If the problem continues, back to Kimber it goes.
