Kimber's New .22 Rifles

Guns Magazine, Jan, 2001 by Charles E. Petty

The new rimfires from Kimber bring shooters back to an age when the company was known for world-class rifles.

From 1979 to 1994 the name "Kimber" was synonymous with, "fine accurate .22 rifle." The name of the company was Kimber of Oregon and they were located in the Portland suburb of Clackamas. Kimber prospered by turning out really classy .22 rifles. They were ambitious too and began an aggressive program with centerfire rifles.

Unfortunately, the money went out faster than it came in and Kimber was always strapped for cash -- eventually filing for bankruptcy. A couple of years later a new corporation, Kimber of America, emerged from the ashes.

But they were still cash poor and a minority interest in the company was sold to Leslie Edelman, a firearms wholesaler. Soon the minority became a majority and in 1997 the Kimber facilities in Oregon were closed.

On a parallel track a small defense contractor, Jerico Precision, in Yonkers, N.Y. was having hard times too. Government contracts were disappearing and the company was looking for something profitable to do. President Ron Cohen found Chip McCormick, who just happened to be working on a project to adapt the Government Model .45 to be made on modern CNC equipment.

Jerico just happened to have the equipment and know-how to build the 1911. It was a match made in heaven, resulting in Kimber's now-familiar line of fine pistols. As the 1911 project was just getting started, Edelman purchased Jerico Precision, which then became Kimber Manufacturing. Today when you say "Kimber" almost everyone thinks of pistols and perhaps some new shooters reading this won't have known that Kimber first made rifles.

Back To The Basics

When Kimber first resumed production in Yonkers, in 1997, it was just assumed that they would begin making the Model 82 rimfire rifle again. Israeli weapons designer, Nehemiah Sirkis came aboard to help. The old tooling was badly worn and not readily adaptable to Kimber's modern manufacturing methods. Sirkis' early work concluded that it would be easier to start with a clean sheet of paper -- so he did.

The design that emerged was geared toward modern manufacturing technology, but retains the classy look of the original. Sirkis borrowed heavily from the Mauser model 1934 that he called, "the ideal .22 rifle." One of the things everyone will notice is that it has a true Mauser claw extractor and a classic two-position safety that echoes the Model 70.

The convenience of manufacture is not easily noticed. The first thing to notice is that the receiver is perfectly round. There are lots of holes and milled cuts but these are the stock-in-trade of modem CNC machine centers.

One of these subtle differences is that the bolt is offset in relation to the centerline of the bore. It's about 0.2" higher. This eliminates the need to drill an off-center firing pin hole in the bolt or offset the barrel to accommodate the rimfire cartridge.

The bolt is machined from a single piece of 1/2" round stock to allow the locking lugs to be an integral part of the bolt. The threaded handle screws easily into the bolt. In addition, the bolt features a helical cut on the bottom that cams the bolt the last 1/8" to lock up. This serves to firmly seat the cartridge in the chamber and also provides positive initial extraction.

Sirkis calls the chamber a "flared, match chamber." The idea is to have a snug fit at the front of the chamber and throat where the bullet actually engages the rifling, but to be just a little larger toward the rear for good feeding. Even though you can see where the bullet actually touches the rifling, extracting a live round is no problem.

Upgrading The Classic

A five-shot magazine is standard and fits flush with the floorplate. It is held by a simple spring catch. To remove, simply push the spring to the rear and the magazine falls right into your hand. It takes just a bit of practice, but it is easily done with one hand.

Supplied by a vendor, the magazine is strongly reminiscent of the old Winchester 75 but is not interchangeable. Many shooters are asking why Kimber didn't use the magazine from the Model 82. Sirkis explains that the old tooling was not useable. In addition, the new style allows better alignment and more reliable feeding.

Sirkis also explains the reasoning behind the interference-fit barrel, as opposed to a threaded barrel. While it would seem that an inch of threaded metal would be stronger than a similar length of metal-to-metal contact, it really isn't. An engineer's drawing of two threaded parts will reveal that, at the very most there's only about 70 percent contact -- most of the time it's less.

Threading also introduces some problems. Obviously there are two sets of threads to cut and they have to be just right so that when the barrel is torqued-in, the extractor, cut will be in the right place. In a way, threads provide two opportunities for something to go wrong.

Kimber's manufacturing is well suited to turning round parts, or reaming round holes to very precise sizes. So the barrel shank is turned to be about 0.001" to 0.002" larger than the corresponding hole in the receiver. There is absolutely no way you can put part "A" into hole "B" -- unless you know the trick.