UPDATE! Rifle almost ready for sheep season.
After much thought I decided to take Kurt505's advice and look closely at the Kimber Montana rather than the Sako Finnlight 7-08. Since my hope was for something in the 7mm variety that was a bit quicker than the 7-08, I settled on the .280AI chambering.
Much searching led me to a very gently used Montana 84L in .280AI and I snapped it up this past March. I had it sent to Henry Rempel in Langdon to have it bedded, re-crowned with a recessed crown, to even out the stock's barrel channel and for some trigger work. Mr. Rempel had the rifle all done in the matter of less than a week, and by early April I was ready to start some load development!
I mounted my Z5 and was off to the range. First impressions were ok, but being used to the buttery smooth operation of my Tikka T3, I was initially unimpressed with the "clunkyness" of the action. After some work with the action, things got a bit smoother. The light weight of the rifle was a pleasant surprise, as was it's ease of handling. At the range, the first groups were promising but not great, at around 2moa.
After several days of different combinations of powder/bullet, I tentatively settled on 139gr Hornady SST over 56.5gr of IMR 4350. This seemed to yield groups that ranged between 0.8 and 1.2moa. Not amazing but consistently good. Further testing over the chrony showed a velocity mean of 3005 fps. Again, not a laser but right around what I was hoping to achieve.
Maybe even more important than grouping for me is the first shot accuracy (cold barrel) out of a pre-fouled barrel. I find that my other rifles, despite doing moa or better after a couple shots, tend to send flyers on the first (and most important!) shot. After testing this on several range days, the Kimber doesn't care whether the barrel is warmed up, or even whether or not it's squeaky clean or fouled. Reassuring to know!
After verifying velocity and POI out to 550yds at the Hinton range, I've got this rig just about ready for hunting season. Scoped and with sling and extras, it's sitting right at 7lbs even.
Can't wait to hit the hills soon! Thanks to all for their advice in the past months.
See pics below...
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Dave
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