That fiddleback is bad wood, not as strong as regular grain walnut. I'll do you a favor and take it off your hands for what you paid for it and shipping?
Well, I'll have to see how back it looks after it gets ebony tip, Wiebe's red English stain, hand rubbed oil and checkered in the 721 Premier style.
http://customgunandrifle.com/product...d-alkenet-root
probably not quite this good-----
Color me jealous. The 721 is a great rifle and that is a great example.
Nice score! The extractors can and will give problems though. .02
Charter Member #148
OMG, the extractor story. Right up there with exploding damascus shotguns.
I've only owned 20+ 7XX rifles, have yet to have an extractor issue.
Share your stories with us.
Looks like my Remington 511! I have to have one!
USMC 6638
A friend and I hunted Buffalo in Zim back in 2008. He was determined to use his old 721 in 375 H&H. I was insecure and took my CZ450 Dakota and a back up 550 Gibbs Magnum wildcat I had concocted on a 30S. I like OM 70/Mauser 98 claw extractors. They do not break. First day we sight in. Extractor breaks on his third sight in shot. I thought it was funny, PH did not, friend did not.
You might say that the odds are a million to one, but so is the Lottery; and somebody wins every week or two.
There is a reason many PH's will not allow a hunter for DG to bring a 700 into camp.
I got an old wall hanger damascus shotgun. I briefly considered shooting it with trap loads. I had it magnafluxed first, fortunately. I think the pits were the only thing holding the bands together.
You have made two, shall we say, rather bold statements; that are 100% at odds with ancedotal evidence. We K-N-O-W that Remingtons have a history of extractor breakage. There are many gunsmiths who make a secondary living replacing 7XX extractors with either the m-16 or Sako. We also K-N-O-W that there is a good reason not to shoot damascus barreled shotguns.
However, do as you think best...
There is good reason not to shoot damascus shotguns with loads for which they weren't designed, or when the barrels have been impaired in some way. They can be weakened by raising dents deeper than should have been raised, and it is a good idea to use a gunsmith's barrel wall thickness gauge (which you can make from two stout steel bars and a dial gauge). Someone may have bored or lapped out pitting without knowing he was the third or fourth to have that bright idea. Shotgun barrels have a concave taper, and may be a lot thinner some way back than they are at the muzzle.o
But if all that is complied with, damascus isn't a bad barrel material.
Remington extractor breakage is indeed a rarity, but I'd agree that for anybody investing in what an African dangerous game hunt costs, sayings about ships and halfpennies'-worth of tar come to mind.
The .300H&H is a fine cartridge. Mine was just my own conversion of a P14 Enfield, with Dayton Traister trigger and speedlock and Shilen barrel. I never experienced what people say about inaccuracy, brass life or erosion with that body shape. Although I reamed a standard chamber, most reassuring when I reamed a half-inch into a plexiglass block and dropped in a 190gr. MatchKing, it was pretty consistent
in giving its best accuracy, about 1⅛in. at 200 yards, with 125gr. Sierra spires-point at 3450ft./sec/. Rifles are contrary beasts.
Last edited by Ballistics in Scotland; 12-02-2017 at 08:12 AM.
I have a buddy whos been to Africa 5 times now and the only BIG rifle he takes is his 416 rem and hes never been turned away or had a lick of touble with it. He hasn't taken elephant but has taken 3 cape buffalo with that gun. I had an accidentaly overload in my 300H&H last year. I tried pounding the bolt open with a block of wood and a hammer and the bolt handle broke off before the extractor broke. Id have to say youd need to be one strong sob to pull a bolt handle as hard as I pounded on it. I too have owned MANY 700s over the last 45 years and have never had an extractor break and id guess many of those guns saw 10 times more round count then the average buyer would shoot through them. As a matter of fact that was my first broken bolt handle on a Remington Something else the bashers like to bring up about them. id bet theres as many cases of short stroking a mauser action as there is rem ejectors breaking in the field of Africa.
As an aside, THE 721 WAS NEVER MADE in 375 H&H. So the one cited was not factory and who knows what was done to it.
The extractor conversion works but gives up gas protection.
The conversion is sorta like the guys who buy Williams extractors for the M70 "just in case".
Anyone who subscribes to Double Gun Journal knows that quality damascus guns in A+ condition were stronger than their fluid steel contemporaries. I shoot a 10 bore Ithaca cannon breech and an 1894 Remington 12 bore with smokeless loads that have LOWER pressures and a better pressure curve than black powder loads.
As soon as smokeless came along (as a premium product), Remington started proofing their Damascus guns with smokeless.
I guess I should buy more Lotto tickets! In my short life time I've had the extractor come loose in two Remingtons, 700 mountain rifle in 7x57 and 721. Oh did I mention 1 700 BDL, 4 700 ADL, 1 Model 7 and 1 700 mountain rifles ALL have new homes now, and I do feel better. I did keep a M11 shotgun and a Nylon 66 black diamond though. Now if you keep polishing that tiger stripe stock and only pull the 721 out of the safe every so often to look at it the extractor will be just fine.
Charter Member #148
i've never had any problems with the Remingtons. I haven't owned any of the current ones
You only paid about $250 for the H&H? That is what I paid for a 721 in `06 with a 4X Weaver scope and mounts besides a nice custom leather sling last Summer. I just cleaned it up and oiled the bore and metal and sold it this Spring for $400.Robert
I've never had an extractor problem with a Reminton 700. But what do I know I'm just a hick who shoots almost every day. I've logged thousands upon thousands of rounds through Remington 721, 600, 760, XP100, 788, and most of all the 700 and I've never broken one of those wimpy fingernail extractors. I have broken a 93 Mauser extractor but I wrote that off to the part being 100 yrs old.
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Yep those 7xx extractors are terrible ! Did I mention I have had seven FN Mauser extractors break, an even dozen 7.7 Japs blow of the top of the receiver ring as well as six 870 split their barrels ?
I know my experiences are VERY unique but you are reading it on the internet so it MUST be true !
(chuckle)
I never was keen on the extractor on my 722 in .300 Savage. It was always dropping the extracted case half way out. I had a Brownell`s Sako style extractor installed and have been in `hog heaven` ever since. I bought the 721 from a widow that needed some dollars after losing her husband and I had a few extra bucks to buy the rifle with, so I did. It was a private sale I did when I sold it, the buyer didn`t seem to flinch much at the asking price.Robert
If, as you say, the cases were dumped in the action, the fault was with the EJECTOR, not the EXTRACTOR.
It's not uncommon in old plunger extractor guns for the plunger and spring to get gunked up an not function correctly. Removal, cleaning, polishing the pin/pin hole and (sometimes) replacing the spring will fix it.
A 722 Savage is at least 50+ years old --- not suprising it might need some cleaning.
Amazing to me, that Remington has sold millions of 7XX rifles with these terrible extractors/ejectors ---- yet there has been no huge class action suit by survivors of the 10s of thousands of hapless hunters killed by rampaging Elephants, Leaping Lions, Rampaging Rhinos, Killer Kodiaks, Demonic Deer ----- not to mention Pitiless P-Dogs !
Also amazing that all the other push feed rifles out there have somehow escaped this problem.
Yet another "only to be found on the internet" problem.
My current dilemma is whether to store my cast boolits nose up or nose down to mitigate the settling of Pb atoms.
Another 60 year old 722 action still soldiering on with the original extractor & ejector with its 4th bbl and a nice 700 SA stock.
$250 for a 721/30-06 with a 4x Weaver is a steal in my mind. The action alone is worth that.
Lucifers- why are you seeking out a crappy old Balvar 8x when everyone knows the new $150 Oriental scopes are superior???
BP | Bronze Point | IMR | Improved Military Rifle | PTD | Pointed |
BR | Bench Rest | M | Magnum | RN | Round Nose |
BT | Boat Tail | PL | Power-Lokt | SP | Soft Point |
C | Compressed Charge | PR | Primer | SPCL | Soft Point "Core-Lokt" |
HP | Hollow Point | PSPCL | Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" | C.O.L. | Cartridge Overall Length |
PSP | Pointed Soft Point | Spz | Spitzer Point | SBT | Spitzer Boat Tail |
LRN | Lead Round Nose | LWC | Lead Wad Cutter | LSWC | Lead Semi Wad Cutter |
GC | Gas Check |