Gun

Kemen KM-4

Richard Rawlingson takes a fresh look at the latest Kemen KM-4 and finds some new tweaks on Spain’s most successful competition gun.

One or two big name users may have moved on to lucrative endorsement deals elsewhere, but sales of the Kemen KM4 remain buoyant. Even without the celebrity cachet the basic virtues remain — good handling, proven design and competitive pricing — and Kemens are a common sight in all disciplines these days. Encouragingly for owners there now seems to be a stable secondhand market to underpin the new sales, always an important consideration if you are about to shell out in excess of £3,000 on a new gun.
It is some time since I last had a Kemen on test and importer Mike Meggison of Kelbrook Lodge in Lancashire sent down one of the latest models for me to play with. It proved to be a pleasant reunion.

Technical Overview
The test gun was a standard model KM-4 sporter, with 32” barrels and the plain black action. It featured however an adjustable comb, the first time we have seen this feature on a Kemen. It is an interesting design, using not just a section cut out of the stock, but in effect the whole of the comb from the nose to around 50mm from the heel. It is now an optional extra throughout the Kemen range, adding £175 to the cost.
The benefit of this design is that all styles of gun mount can be accommodated. Many trap shooters, for example, particularly those who shoot the international disciplines, like to really wrap themselves around the gun and this can often take the point of contact between comb and face quite a long way forward. With some designs of adjustable comb this may leave the cheek in contact with just the very front portion. On the Kemen even the most aggressive stance will still result in good and even contact with the raised portion.
The unit is locked by the standard two Allen bolts and offers a surprising amount of adjustment. I was able to extend it by over 20mm, creating in effect a Monte Carlo stock with a substantial step down. The long necked should look no further for a means to perfect fit. The mounting pillars can also be adjusted in the comb piece to give up to 5mm cast on or off.
The barrels are stamped with a weight of 1605 grams, towards the upper end of Kemen’s weight range for this length. At their lightest they can get down to around 1500g and individual orders come in within 5-10g of the specified weight. All barrels are balanced specifically to the rest of the gun, another advantage of a production system that builds only to order. The factory builds only 300-350 guns each year, so this is hardly mass production.
More relevant perhaps than the barrel weight in isolation is the proportion they represent of the overall weight. The gun tipped my scales at 3.9 kg (a fraction over 81/2 lbs), so within that the barrels at 1.6kg are a modest proportion. This gives a clue to the weight distribution and how it will affect balance and handling. More on this later.
Both top and mid ribs are ventilated, the top rib a plain cross-cut type tapering from 11 to 7mm. This is the most popular, but other styles and dimensions can be specified.
My bore gauge reveals a slight degree of overboring, both barrels measuring .735” (18.7mm). This is in contrast to the usual Italian practice of leaving bores on the tight side of nominal, perhaps 18.3 or 18.4. My expectation would be that, all else being equal, the larger bore should deliver rather less felt recoil. The barrels are also built with long forcing cones as standard.
Specifications are flexible on Kemen guns. Buyers can have a gun built in around 8-12 weeks and there are lots of detail options that can be selected. Thus our test gun had a non-selective trigger and no safety catch, whereas the next gun off the line may have a totally different set of options. It is this degree of customer control over the final product and the relatively fast turnaround on custom orders that has given Kemen an edge.
Building to order is all very well however, but few shooters would be able to fill in a detailed specification sheet with complete confidence. Mike Meggisson is very proud of the fitting service he provides, with all the facilities of Kelbrook at his disposal. He tells me that a full fitting can often take 4-5 hours and to get expertise and service of this kind is rare these days. Even guns ordered for stock are built to a specific order and set of dimensions and Mike has very firm views on what works. He is a strong advocate of higher comb dimensions for sporting guns and often builds in more cast at the toe than is usual to take account of shooters of heavier build. The test gun came with 2mm cast off at the heel but 7mm at the toe and could have been made for my ‘fuller’ figure.
Getting this kind of service in a £3,000 gun is remarkable and not to be sneezed at. Kelbrook will typically have 30-40 new and used guns in stock, each one unique. There is a good chance that one of these will be nearly right and can be fitted with minor adjustments. An alternative service is to order new wood to a specific fit and exchange it on delivery, charging only for any refinishing needed on the original stock.

The rest of the gun remains much as it was when I first tested a Kemen in these pages, nearly seven years ago according to my records. Then its Perazzi-inspired lines, detachable trigger unit and all, were a novelty, but now with so many other makers also going down this road, much less so. Suffice to say that everything on this gun in design terms is proven over many years of hard competition use. You can wear one out, but you will fire a heck of a lot of shells doing it. Some prominent Kemen users have fired in excess of 300,000 cartridges without so much as a firing pin needing to be replaced. Even so, every gun comes with a comprehensive spares kit containing replacement springs and firing pins. All other spares are held in stock at Kelbrook, but are, apparently, rarely needed.

COSMETICS
The plain black action has a purposeful and understated air, relieved only by the gold maker’s name and model details. Most buyers seem more than happy with it, although some of the higher grade models can look stunning. Upgrading the wood is a popular choice — spending an extra £150-250 can make a big difference — although there was certainly nothing to complain about in the timber used on our gun. It had strong dark figure, albeit very straight grained. This will be an advantage through the slim wrist area, the point where any weakness will show through.
Wood to metal fit is neat, although the stock is left deliberately proud of the action in a way some dislike. On a gun meant for hard use it is not something I take great note of. Generally the evidence is of care in construction and good standards. The chequering for example is cut at 28 lines per inch, with no significant flaws or overruns.
In the early days I would have said that Kemen’s build quality was not quite to the level of the best Italian firms. The evidence of this and other guns I have seen recently is that they have stepped up a notch and given the price advantage over the principle competition, that is commendable.
ON TEST
So much of each gun is unique that it is very difficult to test a Kemen. For example, the pistol grip fitted to our gun has quite a sharp radius, certainly tighter than I prefer, but you can choose from up to ten different styles. Similarly this is the standard trigger but extra cost options include an anatomical design or a fully adjustable type with the blade sliding on a rail. Our gun also came with a Kick-Eez pad fitted, another popular option.
The fore end style is another decision for the buyer, but I feel I may just have found my perfect sporting fore end on this gun. It tapers both in height and thickness towards the front and has a slight belly that sits in the palm of the hand. When I have my ideal gun built (one day!) this is the fore end I will copy.
Going back to that subject of weight distribution, I found the Kemen to balance dead on the hinge pin and have very neutral handling. The weight feels very much between the hands, with no feeling of mass hanging off the front of the barrels. Those Briley chokes are very light and add very little extra weight over a fixed choke gun.
Because the gun is well balanced the overall weight is hardly noticeable — 81/2 lbs is no flyweight, but this is not a problem. It shows once again that weight, weight distribution and balance must all be considered together, not in isolation. One of the sweetest handling guns I ever shot weighed 91/2 lbs, but was beautifully balanced and soaked up recoil like a dream.
Kemens have a reputation as soft shooting guns, borne out by my experiences with this one. The low barrel line is theoretically the optimum, giving recoil in as near a straight line as possible, but the overall effect is the result I suspect of lots of small contributions from the overboring, longer forcing cones and recoil pad. Good fit is also a great help in minimising felt recoil and I was able to set the gun up to something like 90% right for me – a rare luxury when testing.
Trigger pulls can be specified when ordering, but on this gun they had been set very much lighter than I would like. The bottom barrel measured barely over two lbs, the top about half a pound more. I know some trap shooters like ultra light triggers, but I believe they are not advisable on a sporting gun. Three pounds is the lightest I consider sensible and preferably a bit more. That said there is no denying the crispness of the pulls.
Which brings us finally down to value for money. A basic KM-4 can be yours, built to order, for £3295. To put that into perspective I looked up my original test from 1995 and found the price then to be £3500. Several factors are behind this change, including a change of importer and currency movements, but the winner is the buyer. Mike Meggisson is providing a level of service and back up few can match at this price point. If you are ready to take your choice of gun seriously, then this has to be high on any shortlist.