I picked this rifle up this past summer and haven’t spent as much time with it as I should.
The serial number is 35918XX which makes it an early 1970’s gun and it’s got some bumps and dings on the wood but the metal finish is dark shows very little wear.
The stocks finish is a little darker than the forearm, so I don’t know if it’s been replaced or not; but, that identified, I picked it up at a decent price so I’m not complaining.
I have shot it some with 170 grain Jwords and it shoots as well as any of my other 30/30’s with groups running around 2 to 2.5 inches at 100 yards off the bench with my handloads (nothing remarkable).
Last night I got to cleaning up the garage and found a couple of hundred Hi Tek coated .311 diameter 165 grain castboolits that needed to be shot up and I figured I’d see what it could do with cast.
I loaded up 30 rounds with 16.5 grains of IMR4198 and carried it out to the range and was fairly surprised at how well it shot cast.
My Labradar shows this load averages 1500 fps for ten rounds and is very accurate.
Due to the number of shooters on the firing line I couldn’t get downrange to take pics of the groups but suffice to say it likes that powder/boolit combo (right at 1 inch for 5 rounds at 75 yards).
Groups were about 6 inches low at that distance but like I said very good.
Although I have neglected it for the last few months, this one will move to the “front of the line” for a while with respect to levers going to with me to the range.
A few more pics: