Kimber's Delightful Little Varminter: Trim, elegant, accurate and beautifully crafted — the Kimber 84M just may be America's classiest production rifle

Guns Magazine, March, 2002 by Holt Bodinson

The economy scope line is labeled Tracker and is available in 3-9x40, 3-9x50, 4-12x44 and 4-16x44 in black matt finish only.

Then there is the return of the Widefield specialty line in 3-9x27, 2-7x22, and 4x22 in gloss or matt black. Designed for hunting timber and brushy terrain, these scopes offer exceptionally wide fields of view and low profile lens bells, permitting the scopes to be mounted low on the receiver where they belong.

The Illuminator, Golden Five Star and Widefield lines share a number of similar mechanical features. The aluminum tubes are one-piece construction. Windage and elevation knobs are finger-adjustable in 1/4 MOA clicks. Lenses are fully multi-coated. The reticles are of a duplex design. The company states that the scopes are waterproof, fog-proof and shockproof, and they carry a lifetime warranty for the original purchaser.

The economy priced Tracker scopes, on the other hand, feature a two-piece tube, no warranty as to their waterproof, fog-proof or shockproof qualities, and the lenses are simply coated, not multi-coated. In optics, you usually get what you pay for.

I recently had the opportunity to work with the 3-9x40 Illuminator and the 6-18x40 Golden Five Star. Representing two price ranges, and presumably two qualities of lenses and internal components, the scopes were interesting to compare at comparable power settings.

The 6-18x40 Golden Five Star is a pure and simple, high-powered target/varmint scope, and it was mounted on the Kimber Varmint .22-250 Rem I was testing. Measuring 13 inches in length and weighing 16.3 ounces, it has an adjustable objective scaled in yards and meters from 50 yd/m to infinity. When working with most AOs, I find that the AO index lines and reality rarely meet, so it's best to focus in on measured distances and record the results for future reference. Both the power ring and the AO adjustments were smooth with just sufficient friction. When wringing out Kimber's .22-250, I found that the 1/4 MOA adjustments were precise and repeatable.

The 3-9x42 illuminator features a wide-view eyepiece, measures 12.6 inches long, and weighs 14.9 ounces The 3-9X scope continues to be the best selling model on the market. Given its broad range of usable powers, it is all the scope anyone needs for big game and, in fact, most small game. The elevation/windage turret of the Illuminator is located in the middle of the tube, facilitating fore-and-aft mounting adjustments when I placed it on a very accurate Model 70 in .243 Win. As a point-of-interest, the width of the TV screen-type eyepiece of the Illuminator requires a bolt handle with generous clearance. Some military bolt handle conversions might prove troublesome. Also, when focusing the widescreen eyepiece, it's important that it be locked in a position that is square with the rest of the tube. The '70s Wideflelds, featuring the same type of eyepiece, actually had an "V" notch index in the locking ring that forced you to square up the eyepiece.

Having the opportunity to compare the optics of two scope models from the same maker in different price ranges was a real treat. Before the sun rose, I sandbagged both scopes and studied the details of a cacti covered hillside 200 yards away. At both 6X and 9X, I could see no difference in the light-gathering or definition qualities of the two models, which speaks exceedingly well for Redfield's lenses and coating technology. In fact, the light-gathering ability of both scopes was remarkable in the early morning twilight condition that is often the finest hour of the day to spot game animals.