Kimber 8400 Subalpine - The Ultimate Backpack Hunting Rifle

After years of carrying heavy wood guns that offer substantial recoil in a 300 WIN. chambering, I decided I needed something more suitable for lighter weight backpack hunting.

As a long time Kimber fan and owner of several Kimber 1911’s, I had always dreamt of owning a Kimber light weight mountain gun…2018 seemed to be a good year to pull the trigger to make this dream a reality.

I had looked at the new Kimber Subalpine a few times and liked the idea of the reinforced carbon fiber stock. I imagined it would be both light weight and much tamer on recoil due to the absorption qualities of the carbon. The Subalpine also has a threaded barrel with an available muzzle break.

After reviewing this, I became partial to the GORE Optifade (Subalpine Pattern) wrap that Kimber dressed this gun in. Kimber also had an option to add a scope (Leupold VX-6HD 3-18X44mm) and rings with the same Optifade pattern, which looks great.

I couldn’t resist and had Impact Guns order the whole kit and caboodle.

You can check out all the gear I used here:

Kimber 8400 Subalpine .300 Win Mag

Leupold VX-6HD, 3-18x44mm, GORE Optifade Subalpine Camo

Kimber Talley Optifade Scope Mount

Once the gun arrived I took it home as quickly as possible and mounted the optic. Unable to wait to get the gun sighted, I went to my local indoor range the next morning and dialed the gun in at the 25-yard mark.

The Subalpine was surprisingly mellow, having substantially lesser felt recoil than any other 300 WIN. than I had experienced previously. The rifle came in at 7.95 pounds with the scope, and WOW — the trigger was amazing, right out of the box, at 3.5 LBS, just right for me!

For ammunition, I selected the Barnes Vortex 165 GR. YYSX BT. I decided this would be a good round to use for all my deer and elk hunts. When I got the chance to go out and shoot at 100-yard and 200-yard distances, I was very happy with my result: achieving 1 MOA groups or less with no problem. Plenty good for a hunting rifle.

As a suppressor junky for many years, I’ve always wanted to try a suppressor on a hunt, and this will be my year to do so. After getting the gun dialed in to where I felt confident taking it into the field, I dug out my Thunder Beast Arms 30P-1 titanium 30 cal. Suppressor, and attached it to the barrel (I achieved this by using the Kimber adapter to go from 7/16x28 to 5/8x24 threads). Adding the can to the end of the barrel brought the weight up to 9.05 pounds; still super light for a long action gun with a big scope and full length suppressor — I was very excited to see this in action.

Knowing my point of impact would change with the addition of the silencer, I shot two, 2-round groups at 25-yards…one with the can, and one without. The windage did not change and the elevation only moved by ¾ of an inch… I will still have to shoot the rifle out at the longer distances to ensure that I know where I am hitting.

I’ll use the Zero stop dials on the Leupold to adjust for the suppressor, and when I take it off I can just easily set everything back to 0.

With my elk hunt less than a month away, I can’t hardly wait to get this gun on my pack and get out there.

-Darin