Throwback
04-24-2009, 06:27 PM
Anne-Marie and I are approaching our 12th anniversary. She bought a Remington M700 for me as a wedding present. It occurs to me that among my many reloading projects and old guns, like her, the 700 is as true as they come. And, like us, the rifle and I took some work to get to where we are today.
We narrowed our search to include a Winchester push-feed model 70 in a Mannlicher stock, that neither looked or fit right, and a third rifle that I don’t even remember before deciding the Remington was right. It was a big purchase considering that I was between jobs and had no money to speak of. Even so, it was a hell of a bargain in retrospect. Its price was reasonable; it came with a used Bushnell bullet-drop-compensating 3 to 9 power scope, a partial box of Remington Core-Lokt 150 grain cartridges, and a story.
Allegedly the scope was not right and was returned to the factory for repair. It was returned and put in the mounts but not tightened. According to the story, the owner’s interest had moved on and so did the rifle. The true story developed shortly.
Immediately upon shooting my new rifle I noted that the bolt face was burred, turning the spent cartridges in the chamber. I used a steel bristled brush and polishing compound in a Dremel tool to solve that problem. The gun also showed dramatic preferences for ammunition.
I bought loads in 150 grain persuasion from three manufacturers, lacking sufficient funds for a more thorough trial. The Remington Core-Lokt was terrible. It would not do better than 4-inches at 100 yards. I might have doubted myself but the Winchester Power-Points and Silvertips both shot into about an inch, and Federal’s ammunition shot into an honest 3 quarters of an inch.
The Remington ammunition showed a very pronounced off-center firing pin strike indicating that my rifle had a generous chamber. Clearly, this is why the rifle was sold, but obviously I had something to work with.
In season one I hunted a small piece of land surrounded by posted property, a lake, and orchards. I was moving into a brisk wind in uncertain weather and stopped to rest looking down into a depression that looked just like a Greek amphitheater. Suddenly like a ghost a deer appeared moving parallel to me perhaps 60 yards below. The rifle came up and the crosshairs found his shoulder and I fired. I couldn’t see where he went but as I approached, there he was. He had taken a single bound when the Federal bullet took the vessels off of the top of his heart.
By season two I replaced the large Bushnell with a Leupold 1 to 4 VXII. I also had Bill at Gulf of Maine Gunsmithing replace the plastic butt plate with a Pachmayr pad, cut the barrel back to 19-inches and improve the trigger. The decision to cut down the barrel cost me a bucket load of velocity as I was to discover some years later upon my purchase of a chronograph but the deer never noticed and the gun was far more portable in the thick gorse I seem to end up in all the time. The target crown and my purchase of reloading dies resulted in improved consistency in the accuracy department.
It has proven to be no great challenge to get better than one-inch accuracy with reloads once I had the shoulder precisely set. And, Remington 150 grain factory loads still shoot poorly in this rifle. Interestingly, 165s and 180s shoot OK and great respectively. And, this rifle absolutely hates 130 & 125-grain bullets but strangely shoots Speer 110-grain spire points and Remington Accelerators Brilliantly – go figure – I can’t understand it.
Season two meant success less than 40 yards from the previous season’s deer and the most peculiar deer hunting experience I have ever had. For some time I heard a “shuf-shuf” sound in the leaves that experience told me had to be a gray squirrel. Finally there materialized a 4-year old buck bird-dogging for the strangest piebald doe you ever saw.
I had gotten to my spot in the amphitheater when I discovered I had left my ammo in the truck. Almost in that instant I remembered that the shirt I had on was the same I had at the range the previous week. In the chest pocket were three Winchester Fail-Safe 165’s. They were not the best shooting but they would work. The wind worked against him but the buck finally saw me. I had been waiting for a side shot but when he hunched to run I socked him in the neck between his shoulders and he went down in his tracks. I shot him a second time when he tried to get up but it was not necessary. I never found either bullet.
The doe was the strangest thing.
She had her back hunched high like she had been paunch shot but I was able to glass her for at least 15 minutes and could see no wound on her anywhere. She was unable to move either hind leg independently and she would kind of hop with her back legs to catch up with her front. She was a mottled white and grey color and had jaws that curved downwards like a Salvador Dali painting. I had friends with doe tags and I thought long and hard of putting her down. It may have been the right thing to do but surely that’s exactly when the wardens would show up – and good intentions would have meant nothing. Finally I let her go though she took her time, frequently stopping to look back at me. I never heard a thing about her from local hunters or land owners though certainly she was remarkable in her appearance.
The esthetics of the Remington BDL were no doubt influenced by Roy Weatherby. The rifle still wears its white line spacers on the grip cap and fore-end but I re-cut the checkering to eliminate the French skip-line pattern and later I added stippling to the wrist in a pattern I am still very proud of. Somewhere around season 4 or 5 I worked up a leather addition to the comb to bring my eye into perfect alignment with the scope and correct the final annoyance of the factory set-up for this rifle.
This rifle has literally showered me in good fortune. In the years I have had it I have occasionally carried other rifles but chance has conspired so that no deer have fallen to these others. I simply go back out with “Lucky” and get my deer.
Now I have to admit that even though I saw plenty of deer last year, I did get skunked despite carrying Lucky twice. I also got skunked twice before, once due largely to a ruptured Achilles and a noisy walking boot and once due to hitting a tree branch, but that’s a good record, right?
This rifle plain shoots. It is unique. I know it. It has shot game and targets with cup-and-core as well as bonded bullets, Barnes TSX, Failsafe, and more recently it took another buck with a 214 grain cast bullet. It turns out this rifle loves cast bullets. It is a most adaptable firearm, delightfully familiar and always dependable.
We narrowed our search to include a Winchester push-feed model 70 in a Mannlicher stock, that neither looked or fit right, and a third rifle that I don’t even remember before deciding the Remington was right. It was a big purchase considering that I was between jobs and had no money to speak of. Even so, it was a hell of a bargain in retrospect. Its price was reasonable; it came with a used Bushnell bullet-drop-compensating 3 to 9 power scope, a partial box of Remington Core-Lokt 150 grain cartridges, and a story.
Allegedly the scope was not right and was returned to the factory for repair. It was returned and put in the mounts but not tightened. According to the story, the owner’s interest had moved on and so did the rifle. The true story developed shortly.
Immediately upon shooting my new rifle I noted that the bolt face was burred, turning the spent cartridges in the chamber. I used a steel bristled brush and polishing compound in a Dremel tool to solve that problem. The gun also showed dramatic preferences for ammunition.
I bought loads in 150 grain persuasion from three manufacturers, lacking sufficient funds for a more thorough trial. The Remington Core-Lokt was terrible. It would not do better than 4-inches at 100 yards. I might have doubted myself but the Winchester Power-Points and Silvertips both shot into about an inch, and Federal’s ammunition shot into an honest 3 quarters of an inch.
The Remington ammunition showed a very pronounced off-center firing pin strike indicating that my rifle had a generous chamber. Clearly, this is why the rifle was sold, but obviously I had something to work with.
In season one I hunted a small piece of land surrounded by posted property, a lake, and orchards. I was moving into a brisk wind in uncertain weather and stopped to rest looking down into a depression that looked just like a Greek amphitheater. Suddenly like a ghost a deer appeared moving parallel to me perhaps 60 yards below. The rifle came up and the crosshairs found his shoulder and I fired. I couldn’t see where he went but as I approached, there he was. He had taken a single bound when the Federal bullet took the vessels off of the top of his heart.
By season two I replaced the large Bushnell with a Leupold 1 to 4 VXII. I also had Bill at Gulf of Maine Gunsmithing replace the plastic butt plate with a Pachmayr pad, cut the barrel back to 19-inches and improve the trigger. The decision to cut down the barrel cost me a bucket load of velocity as I was to discover some years later upon my purchase of a chronograph but the deer never noticed and the gun was far more portable in the thick gorse I seem to end up in all the time. The target crown and my purchase of reloading dies resulted in improved consistency in the accuracy department.
It has proven to be no great challenge to get better than one-inch accuracy with reloads once I had the shoulder precisely set. And, Remington 150 grain factory loads still shoot poorly in this rifle. Interestingly, 165s and 180s shoot OK and great respectively. And, this rifle absolutely hates 130 & 125-grain bullets but strangely shoots Speer 110-grain spire points and Remington Accelerators Brilliantly – go figure – I can’t understand it.
Season two meant success less than 40 yards from the previous season’s deer and the most peculiar deer hunting experience I have ever had. For some time I heard a “shuf-shuf” sound in the leaves that experience told me had to be a gray squirrel. Finally there materialized a 4-year old buck bird-dogging for the strangest piebald doe you ever saw.
I had gotten to my spot in the amphitheater when I discovered I had left my ammo in the truck. Almost in that instant I remembered that the shirt I had on was the same I had at the range the previous week. In the chest pocket were three Winchester Fail-Safe 165’s. They were not the best shooting but they would work. The wind worked against him but the buck finally saw me. I had been waiting for a side shot but when he hunched to run I socked him in the neck between his shoulders and he went down in his tracks. I shot him a second time when he tried to get up but it was not necessary. I never found either bullet.
The doe was the strangest thing.
She had her back hunched high like she had been paunch shot but I was able to glass her for at least 15 minutes and could see no wound on her anywhere. She was unable to move either hind leg independently and she would kind of hop with her back legs to catch up with her front. She was a mottled white and grey color and had jaws that curved downwards like a Salvador Dali painting. I had friends with doe tags and I thought long and hard of putting her down. It may have been the right thing to do but surely that’s exactly when the wardens would show up – and good intentions would have meant nothing. Finally I let her go though she took her time, frequently stopping to look back at me. I never heard a thing about her from local hunters or land owners though certainly she was remarkable in her appearance.
The esthetics of the Remington BDL were no doubt influenced by Roy Weatherby. The rifle still wears its white line spacers on the grip cap and fore-end but I re-cut the checkering to eliminate the French skip-line pattern and later I added stippling to the wrist in a pattern I am still very proud of. Somewhere around season 4 or 5 I worked up a leather addition to the comb to bring my eye into perfect alignment with the scope and correct the final annoyance of the factory set-up for this rifle.
This rifle has literally showered me in good fortune. In the years I have had it I have occasionally carried other rifles but chance has conspired so that no deer have fallen to these others. I simply go back out with “Lucky” and get my deer.
Now I have to admit that even though I saw plenty of deer last year, I did get skunked despite carrying Lucky twice. I also got skunked twice before, once due largely to a ruptured Achilles and a noisy walking boot and once due to hitting a tree branch, but that’s a good record, right?
This rifle plain shoots. It is unique. I know it. It has shot game and targets with cup-and-core as well as bonded bullets, Barnes TSX, Failsafe, and more recently it took another buck with a 214 grain cast bullet. It turns out this rifle loves cast bullets. It is a most adaptable firearm, delightfully familiar and always dependable.