A Gun a Week: Remington Model 700ML, .50 Caliber

Remington Model 700ML, .50 Caliber

Cool August mornings, the kind that surprise you when you walk out of the door before heading to work, used to remind me of early-in-the-year school days until I was about 35 years-old or so. But after I hit the forty-year mark they've only reminded me of one thing and that is deer season. And since I'm reluctant to try my hand at bow hunting, the first weapon of choice is a rifle that the state allows to have its own two-week season as the manner of taking game--the Remington Model 700ML--and the ML stands for Muzzle Loader.

A common theme with my rifles. Remington and Leupold.

We all know what "muzzleloader" means. It's a rifle, like our ancestors used before the states were united and the Indians were harder to ignore, that is loaded from the muzzle with loose black powder, a patch, and a lead ball all stuffed home with a ramrod. It's what Charlton Heston raised up over his head and shouted his famous line, "From my cold, dead hands!" It's what was around when the Framers wrote that pesky Amendment number two.

I admit, I had my first muzzle loading pistol before I finished high school! Who didn't? And somehow, a school buddy had given me his as well, so there I was, armed with two .45 caliber pistols that shot patched round balls about as accurately as Ray Charles could shoot skeet on a windy day. And that's about the time I saw Jeremiah Johnson pull a .50 caliber Hawken Rifle out of the dead, frozen hands of Hatchet Jack--suck it, Charlton Heston--and when I'd saved up enough money I bought one of my own in kit form from J&B Arms at the corner of Mackay Rd. and High Point Rd... An hour later I was returning it...mom thought two pistols was enough for any high schooler's arsenal. 

Fast forward to 2002 or so, and finally, I'd bought a modern, inline muzzleloader for the sole purpose of hunting deer in the earliest days of hunting season, the muzzle-loading season. Mom had no say in the matter as I'd been a cooperative, productive member of society since I'd dropped out of college ten years hence. I'd bought this rifle to replace another muzzleloader that'd I'd loaned a buddy to hunt with after I'd broken my leg and had to sit a hunting season out. Naturally, like every good friend who borrows something from you, he left it out and let it get ruined, and when he reimbursed me for it months later I bought the Remington.

The ramrod is the only obvious sign you're toting a modern muzzleloader.

This rifle is a traditional muzzleloader in name only. I mean, sure, you pour your loose black powder, or black powder substitute, down the barrel, stuff a projectile and its wad into the muzzle and cram it all down to the breech with an honest-to-god ramrod like our forefathers used to do, and prime the thing with a percussion cap...but that's about it. The rest of Remington's rifle is all modern...in fact, the rest of the rifle is all Remington 700--the Remington flagship model.

It's the same tubular steel receiver, same trigger group and safety controls, and the same stock and bolt action you ought to be used to if you've ever owned and shot another, short-action Model 700. The only difference is the ignition system. Rather than have a big, lever style hammer on the side of the receiver like a Hawken rifle, the ignition system on this rifle mimics the firing pin throw of a Model 700, but rather than striking the primer of a cartridge, it strikes a No. 11 percussion cap inside the breech block thus igniting the powder charge.

Same controls with which you're familiar. The trigger group is stainless
steel to fight the corrosive effects of black powder.

The barrel is longish and fat! Made to accommodate a .50 caliber projectile or, more often or not this day and age, a smaller caliber projectile held in the bore with a sabot. In other words, you can shoot a .44 caliber projectile or a .45 caliber one as long as you include the proper-sized sabot to help seal the bullet to the rifling ahead of the expanding gasses from the powder. You can still buy Minnie Bullets, huge .50 caliber semi-hollow based bullets if you want, but I've never had much luck in the accuracy department with them. Those are throwbacks to the Civil War.

My rifle shoots ok...I guess. The design of course, lends itself very easily to mounting a scope for easy target acquisition. In the early days, I'd singe the bottom of the scope with flaming, escaping primer gasses, but I finally just added the "weather shield" that completely hides the primer and striker inside the action and eliminated the problem--no more scope singes. There have been a few upgrades offered by manufacturers like making it work with a shotgun primer ignition, pelletized black powder, and substitutes, instead of loose powder, but I have never bought into that. I'm too cheap...and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

Instead of a cartridge case, there's a breech block and a percussion nipple in my rifle.
Thus far I've stuck with this system and it hasn't let me down.

Now! Fast forward another four years or so to 2004. In the early days of my hunting "career" (after I had taken decades off to work and go to school, and start a family..etc etc...all the trappings of adult life) I hadn't had much luck. Oh, I'd seen plenty of deer--running away--but had never connected, but that all changed in Rockingham County on my buddy's fish farm.

Before that year, I was a big fan of still hunting. That is, I was a big fan of walking quietly through the woods with a gun and hoping to sneak up on a deer. It can work, but I never stepped slowly enough, nor quietly enough, and as I mentioned, I always saw deer high-tailing it out of my general area. But this hunt, in 2004, I decided to just sit...or "stand" hunt. Yeah, "still hunt" you walk, and "stand hunt" you sit; that's hunter logic I guess.

The business end.

I remember getting in the woods above a drained fishpond early one afternoon with my loaded and primed muzzleloader...and promptly falling asleep in the warm fall sunshine. When I awoke, for whatever reason, I rose slowly and deliberately without making too much noise, and there, feeding on the fresh green grass growing in the dried pond bed, was a fork and horn buck--not quite a four point, but much bigger and older than a simple little "spike". Bad genetics? Who cared? This was going to be my first deer!

I lifted the rifle up and propped it onto the folding stool I had brought to sit on, and using the stool as a bipod of sorts, I put the crosshairs on his sweet spot and freaked out. This was it. When you can hear blood coursing through your veins, you're freaking out. When you have to force your self to breath normally, slowly, you're freaking out. It's called "buck fever" though even the sight of a doe will also cause palpitations like that. And if you ever lose that feeling, you should probably quit hunting, but for me, this was the first time I absolutely knew, I was going to get this deer.

He wasn't a white tail bouncing away in my scope--an impossible shot--no, he was right there and so was I. I put the crosshairs on his sweet spot and squoze the trigger! BOOM! And then nothing but a white wall of smoke before me hid everything from view! All the shooting at the bench in an open rifle range had not prepared me for the effect of shooting a muzzle loading rifle in the woods. I couldn't see a thing. I didn't know what had happened...had I hit the deer? Did it run off? 

I used this time to reload, and by the time I had stuffed another load into the rifle, the smoke had cleared enough to see something white, super white compared to the green and brown grass in the pond bed, laying on the ground. I had no idea deer were so white. This was the first deer I had killed in the woods. By now it was getting dark so I stood up and walked over to the buck where he lay and was instantly sad and glad at the same time.

I knelt beside him and stroked his coat...looked into to the still vivid eyes and felt sorry I had killed him. But at the same time I felt an exuberance I cannot explain. Years of trying and failing, years of practice and reloading and more practice had just culminated into this gorgeous deer's fate. I patted his neck and said my "sorry's" and thanked him all in the same silent "prayer"--something I still do to this day for just about every animal I kill.  It sounds cliche, but if you don't feel a little bad about killing something, there might be something missing from your heart.

Anyway...that Model 700ML is the killingest rifle in my safe. I buy and trade and sell many rifles every year looking for something new (to me) to hunt with, to work up a load for, but with the muzzle loader, I've found out what works and have stuck with it. Tuning a new muzzleloader at the bench is a huge pain in the ass and shoulder--too much work in my mind to have to start over every fall. No, I'll just keep this rifle the same way it's been set up for 11 years and 10 deer.

If I see you first, Mr, or Mrs. Deer.

There's not alot* of pictures of me and this rifle afield. I don't know why. Perhaps because to me, this rifle is old hat, nothing new under the sun since I've spent more time with it in the field than most other rifles I own. A workhorse like this gets taken for granted, like your wife! And the pictures I have taken that were stored on social media are tough to find.

Hunting "old school" like this does limit you somewhat. There's the range limitation; you're not gonna be blasting deer much past 100 yards if you're serious about taking deer ethically. And you're sometimes handicapped by the amount of stuff you have to carry around to shoot and maintain your rifle. There is a thing called a Possibles Bag, but I know a man-purse when I see one and so opted for a regular old tool box. But the good news is, the whole thing cleans up with hot, hot soapy water.

I missing some parts out of this, namely the preloaded containers that aid
in reloading after a first shot, but I'll dig them up.

Well, bow season starts in these parts next week, and that means, since I haven't started using one yet, that I'll be dusting the ol' ML off and taking to the club to check for zero. Last year, I hit a deer pretty high on the shoulder which may mean that somewhere along the line the set up has been jostled and knocked out of true. Got to practice to take deer cleanly, and I'd hope that's how we'd all do it. You shouldn't pick up a rifle that's been leaning up in the safe all year and go hunting without popping a few rounds off.