REVIEWS
Kimber 84M Classic
A lightweight sporter with a custom touch.
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| Action: | Bolt-action repeater |
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| Caliber: | .243, .260 Rem., 7mm-08, .308 (as tested) |
| Capacity: | 5 |
| Barrel length: | 22-inch light sporter contour |
| Weight: | 5 pounds, 10 ounces |
| Stock: | Claro walnut |
| Price: | $917 |
Kimber 84 Classic: Specifications
I fantasize over lightweight rifles. I find the sleek lines and narrow stocks highly appealing. The best ones balance superbly with lightning-fast handling qualities. I've shot a number of them over the years that I couldn't really afford to pony up for, so I don't own what you could really consider a real lightweight.
Essentially, most such rifles are custom made and cost far more than my pocketbook can handle. I suppose the same is true for most guys. So with a variety of responsibilities we must take care of first, a custom lightweight sporter gets shoved to the bottom of the priority list. Recently, however, I was awakened by a nice reality check on the day an elegant Kimber 84M .308 showed up at the office. It is truly a lightweight treasure, and it costs a third of what most similar rifles do.
The 84M is what you might consider a custom-production rifle. "Production" because you can have any feature you want so long as it's what Kimber is producing. "Custom" because many a refinement is already built into the rifle, from muzzle to butt.
The receiver is its foundation. Most custom lightweights are built on a "hollowed-out" Model 700 action. That is, anywhere a riflemaker feels there is excess metal that provides no additional strength, that portion is milled away. That's fine, and in most cases it looks really cool. But the 84M's receiver has been built from scratch—actually, from 4340-class steel. It's approximately 1.1 inches wide and just under eight inches in length. Its equally petite bolt is about .7 of an inch wide. It's an attractive little action with plenty of good features. It has a two-position wing safety, for example, and a full-length Mauser-style claw extractor. The floorplate assembly, while plenty rugged, is equally as petite and about as low in profile as I've seen on any rifle.
To this Kimber attaches a 22-inch match-grade barrel with a muzzle diameter of .561of an inch. All metal is matte-blued with the exception of the polished bolt shank and extractor.
The hand-rubbed oil-finished stock, made of claro walnut, is a thing of beauty—very narrow and well fitted on my test sample. It features 20-lpi checkering on grip and fore-end, and it's topped off with a Decelerator recoil pad and a steel grip cap for a touch of class and durability. The barreled action is bedded via a pair of aluminum pillars, and the barrel channel is cut to float the barrel. The rifles are said to come with a trigger break of 3.5 pounds, but the test sample broke at a crisp four pounds. No travel though, just clean let-off.
In my book, this all equates to "custom."
For a range evaluation I topped it off with a Burris Fullfield 4.5x14X scope using Leupold rings and the Kimber-supplied bases. If there is one pitfall to lightweight rifles other than their cost, it's that they can be difficult to shoot. By that I mean they are so light that any shooter error is magnified—if you can't hold them dead-still, you won't always see the best accuracy results. Even with this truth hanging over my head, I got pretty good results with a couple of different loads.
Out of five different offerings, this 84M shot best with PMC's 165-grain Barnes XLC load and Remington's 180-grain Core-Lokt Ultra load. For the most part, groups ran under an inch and a half, but when I was steady on the trigger I could get it to group in the one-inch range. Nothing stellar, but certainly very reasonable for a rifle weighing five pounds, 10 ounces.
For less than $100 more there's another option, the 84M LongMaster Classic. It's essentially the same rifle but features a 24-inch stainless fluted barrel of slightly heavier contour. Weight is approximately seven pounds, five ounces. I have yet to shoot one, but I think I might prefer it over the Classic. But then I wouldn't have a true "lightweight." Decisions, decisions.
