Kimber bummer.

[westcliffe01]

There are so many things that can make a rifle shoot badly. Kimbers have slender barrels, which are subject to a lot of different vibration modes and very sensitive to any stock contact.

So the first question is on free floating. When I free float a barrel, I make sure I can get something the thickness of a business card between barrel and stock, not a dollar bill. The next is how the action and recoil lug is bedded ? Does the stock have a brass or nylon compression bushing where the action screws are located or is it just wood that can compress and expand and contract in response to humidity changes ? Most factory stocks fit the actions pretty awful, regardless of the price of the rifle, unless you are dealing with a company like Gunwerks who are building their reputation on producing rifles that shoot sub 1/2 MOA out the box.

On the scope, does it have adjustable parallax ? Do you know for a fact that you are shooting at the optimal distance for parallax ? Have you done a parallax tests by putting the rifle on a stand and moving your eye laterally to see if the crosshairs move on the target ? I bought quite an expensive European scope that had no parallax adjustment and it was a disaster at 100 yards. I returned it and every scope I had since then had adjustable parallax and the distance scale is never right on those either, but at least one can correct the problem.

Finally, how is the trigger ? A lot of factory triggers are either too heavy or have a bunch of creep and grittiness in them.

My worst personal experience was a Remington 700 "Classic" with a beautiful walnut stock. The original owner had a mag na port brake fitted to the barrel which made it loud as **** (it was in 8x57 Mauser). That thing never shot better than 2.5MOA regardless of new stock, bedding job, new trigger, better scope etc etc. And a variety of hand loads. When I first got it, it was 6moa. The quality of the Remington barrel and chambers were just very poor, rifling finish was bad enough to cause a lot of copper fouling and of course the factory trigger (post lawsuit) was about 10lb and couldnt be adjusted based on the new springs used in it. I finally swapped it for a "basket case" savage rifle which when I got into it, was assembled with the wrong recoil lug, which was preventing the barrel nut from being torqued properly. 1 new recoil lug later, and a headspace gauge, and I had a rifle with a Shillen lapped barrel which shoots less than 0.25MOA. My most accurate rifle ever.

In the meantime, if I want a different caliber, I just buy myself a cheap model 10 or 12 savage rifle with the appropriate action length and steel magazine, and order a Shillen barrel for it and when combined with a decent stock, you always have a rifle that shoots great for a minimal amount of money.

The Remington "Classic" with the best groups it ever shot....


The basket case Savage with its group from reload development

 

[Lelandwelds]

There are so many things that can make a rifle shoot badly.



On the scope, does it have adjustable parallax ? Do you know for a fact that you are shooting at the optimal distance for parallax ? Have you done a parallax tests by putting the rifle on a stand and moving your eye laterally to see if the crosshairs move on the target ? I bought quite an expensive European scope that had no parallax adjustment and it was a disaster at 100 yards. I returned it and every scope I had since then had adjustable parallax and the distance scale is never right on those either, but at least one can correct the problem.

Finally, how is the trigger ? A lot of factory triggers are either too heavy or have a bunch of creep and grittiness in them.

Don't forget we're talking about intrinsic accuracy of the rifle here. Parallax, magnification, trigger, or stock fit don't affect how well just the rifle shoots. They make a big difference how well the shooter can do his part but not how repeatable the machine can drop rounds in the exact same hole.

 

[westcliffe01]

if your assuming that you take the rifled action and clamp it to some sort of machine vice, then possibly. But in my experience poor bedding, trigger etc can make it impossible to get a rifle to group. What most of us need is a reliable weapon, that can put its first shot where you need it to be. Any rifle with bad bedding, barrel/stock contact, heavy / gritty trigger is not going to allow that goal to be accomplished. There are many youtube videos on the subject that show just how big the influence of bedding alone is, one would not know you are even shooting the same rifle based on the change in performance.

very common Rem 700 SPS result (cheap plastic stock)

Don't forget we're talking about intrinsic accuracy of the rifle here. Parallax, magnification, trigger, or stock fit don't affect how well just the rifle shoots. They make a big difference how well the shooter can do his part but not how repeatable the machine can drop rounds in the exact same hole.