Kimber Rifles - Stay away!

[Mike 338]

It's not referred to as 'Kimber Roulette' for nothing.

Had a fella next to me at the range shooting one of those new Kimber mountain rifles in .325. Thing shot great and he said it did it all the time like that. The reason I didn't run out and buy one is because of their reputation of being exactly that... "roulette". I grew up in an era where rifle makers and their shills, the gun writers, had everyone believing any hunting rifle should never get better than 2 moa accuracy and if you did, well, aren't you the lucky one. Thankfully, Savage Arms changed all that. I'm sick of gun writers telling us what we want. My hunting rifle is a target rifle 99% of the time. It's gotta shoot or I don't want to own it. Bottom line... Kimber needs to cut their overhead and charge more for their rifles and then just make quality rifles and responsibly address legitimate customer complaints as though they wanted to be in business 20 years from now. Basically, any of the norther Germanic gun-makers, Howa and Savage can sell you a rifle that shoots pretty well. This is exactly the reason I don't buy Kimber anything. Not even a 1911. They're just big enough to "big-time" you. Here's my toilet paper. Sniff it or get out of my office. One of the big problems is that customers don't give the manufacturer a chance to make thing right. But when they do and the manufacturer big-times them by brushing them off and offering to sell them a much more expensive rifle that may or may not shoot, well screw that.

My impression is that if you get a Kimber rifle that shoots, your just stupid lucky. If you buy one and it doesn't shoot, well, just know that the company that made it hopes you try to fiddle with it till it's out of warranty and they can tell you to go screw yourself. "I'm sorry. My hands are tied." F'n rednecks. What the heck... I can take almost anybody's rifle and get it shoot'in good, assuming the parts and components and shooter isn't total crap.

Kimber... synonymous with rotten customer service.

Here's a flash... their 1911's with full length guide rods have been known to totally crap out after a lot of rounds and good luck getting it apart. Another "screw you".

Hey... why would any reputable company not try to help a customer who had a clearly legitimate complaint, not try to rectify the a legitimate issue?

Answer: Your dirt that needs to be scraped off the bottom of our shoes.

 

[Greyfox]

My experience with Kimber was with a light classic sporter in 270W about 15 years ago. It shot OK with.75MOA. The wood and finish was quite nice but the action, a Winchester pre-64 knock off proved to have a lot of slop and would bind when cycled with authority. I ended up trading it towards a minty Pre-64 Winchester.....pure perfection!!!!

 

[UniqueUserName]

OK, so you buy a used 2012 Mustang 6cyl. They have a known issue with a tranny, but you don't check it when you buy it. Original owner says it is good to go. Car is 5 years old with 70k on it. 5 year/60k original warranty. You expect Ford to give you a new 2017 Mustang GT and you NOT pay for the upgraded vehicle, even though you are not the original owner, did not pay full price, and did not do your due diligence??

I think the major portion of the blame here is the seller. And a minor portion on the buyer for not verifying rifle condition. The original owner should have figured out his issue and taken care of it. Not passed the problem on to an unsuspecting buyer. That was a lousy move.

If I buy a used 2012 car with a defective Takata airbag, they're going to replace it. If they tell me that their rifle was built out-of-spect and is not reparable, I expect them to replace it with the closest equivalent that they have in their lineup. I've had experience with Remington, Ruger, Bushnell, Leupold and others and they have made no bones about replacing defective parts or entire merchandise.

A while back I purchased a second hand Remington 700 LVFS. It was one of the ones that developed a sticky buttpad. I contacted Remington and they immediately sent me a new stock, fixing the quality problem and scoring high points for customer service. I got to thinking, I'd like to do a camo paint scheme on one of these stocks, so I decided to contact Limbsaver to see if I could purchase a new pad to put on the original stock. The woman shared how embarrassed that the entire company was that there was a bad batch of these that went out (this was obviously a very big deal inside the company). I explained to her that Remington had made me whole and replaced the stock with a brand new one and that I just wanted to buy a replacement pad so that I could paint the other stock. She absolutely would not hear of it and insisted on sending me a replacement pad free of charge. This level of service and commitment to consumers, in my experience, seems to be the norm rather than the exception in this industry.

All companies will make mistakes and either experience service or quality problems at some point. Great companies go out of their way to minimize the negative effect on their customers, protecting their reputations and building brand loyalty.

Kimber failed on quality and then compounded it by failing miserably on customer service. They are deserving of neither a good reputation nor customer loyalty. Not when their competitors soundly stomp them on both commitment to quality and customer service.

 

[KBFPNW]

I have a Kimber Classic in 300 WSM. Heirloom quality tackdriver. I love it

 

[Pdvdh]

Nice to know they make a mistake every now and then which results in a shooter.

 

[mwess1113]

I've owned 8 Kimber centerfire rifles (2 7WSM's, 223AI, 243AI, 2 257 Roberts, 7mm08 and a 270) and none of them needed major work to feed, function and shoot accurately. Now have a 6.5 Creedmoor Montana to play with.

I've never seen a 84M 270WSM. Maybe that's why it's a defect...

 

[Trentcamp]

I just got my first Kimber rifle and while I'm still doing load development it is showing signs of being a shooter. I have had several of their 1911's and have always been very impressed with them. I have talked with Kimber's customer service dept on several occasions, not with any problems, and they have always been very nice and helpful.

 

[Rckymtnshooter]

I have a Kimber Montana in 7wsm and 300wsm and neither one shot that well from the factory. I ended up skim bedding both and they both shoot great now. I am actually pretty impressed with how they shoot for how light weight they are.

 

[Pharmseller]

From what I've read many Kimbers take a bit of tweaking before they shoot well. Magazine binding tends to be the biggest culprit. After a bit of minor adjustment Kimbers shoot well.

My question is, why should I have to modify a $1500 rifle to make it shoot, when rifles that cost half as much shoot great right out of the box?





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