A Gun a Week: Mauser K98, 30-06 Springfield

K98 Mauser, 30-06 Springfield 

This "gun a week" is a proven hunter, but it didn't start out life as mild-mannered wall-hanger. Nope, it was meant for something much more bellicose.

The Mauser 98K was built for killing people, and that's it. It was designed by the Mauser company in Germany which had come up with the basic design around 1898 which means of course, that it served them in the two World Wars they started.

The earlier models aren't much different from the design I have which was adopted in or around 1934, you know, right before the Second World War. And even though the German army had other, semi and fully automatic rifles, machine guns, and sub-machine guns, this bolt action rifle from the turn of the century was still the arm of choice for most of the German Army.

They look like this before "sporterizing".

The Model 98K was different from its predecessors in that it was shorter--the K is for Kurz--and had a turned down bolt handle. Variations on the sights as well made it different from the older models though my rifle's original sights and barrel are long gone.

The Mauser 98, it has to be said, is the grandfather of practically all two-lugged bolt-action rifles. Sure, variations on the theme exist, but the principle, a bolt gun with two opposing locking lugs on the bolt shaft can be found on practically all mainstream, affordable hunting rifles to this day. Even after hostilities broke out between the United States and Germany during World War One, the US had to pay for patent infringements on the German patents because our service rifles and cartridges had stolen patented ideas the Mauser company had incorporated into their design.

Traits of the old Mauser design can be seen in modern sporting rifles right in your own safe. The example I have handy is a Winchester Model 70 which incorporates the Mauser "controlled round feed" extractor, giant claw extractor. Very big and very reliable, it has served rifle design well for 120 years. Winchester kind of moved away from the design, but in recent years has come back to the claw.

You can see the lineage! L. 1903 Springfield, C. The Mauser K98,
R. Winchester Model 70. Been a decent design.

I have no idea when my Mauser was made as all the pertinent info was buffed off when it was sporterized into a hunting rifle. Which is OK by me. There might be some identifying stampings under the scope mounts on the receiver, but I ain't taking the scope and everything off to look. The one stamping that remains easily seen is a serial number and the telling "Mod. 98" which is still factory fresh. Other more sinister icons are barely legible but undeniable and therefore telling of the rifle's origin.

The Nazi Eagle is just before the serial number, center...also
the terrible stamping Greensboro Gunworks, Inc is famous for.

Another one of the Nazi Eagles that's been mostly buffed off. Ugly origin.

My Mauser came to me through my buddy's old gun store. One of the guys who worked there had resurrected it from a student of Roxboro's Community College who had started it but gave up, or dropped out, or dies or something. It sported a pencil-thin, and very light 22" barrel chambered in 30-06 Springfield. It was stocked into a hideous, whittled-down stick not well suited for shooting nor picking your teeth. Trust me when I say it was butt-ugly. I looked for an image on the web, but couldn't find one even close, but it was a style back then when people brought their war trophies home and wanted to make them into respectable hunting rifles.

Brownells will get you started on any project. The
replacement magazine door is one of theirs. 

So the first order of business was to get a stock for it and since I was in a hurry, I just got something affordable and semi-finished from Brownells which was pretty wafer-thin and lightweight in its own right. Coupled with the lightweight barrel and action, I ended up with a "mountain rifle" configuration--something with alot of punch yet easy to carry all day. I finished it with polyurethane without any stain and ended up with an ugly, two-color stock! Like I said, I was in a hurry. An inch thick Pachmayr Decelerator pad finished it out to hopefully tame the recoil which, frankly, is brutal.

The pad jig leaves marks if you aren't careful, or if'n you're in a hurry like I was.

The scope mounts, I noticed, weren't exactly on the same plane as each other, so I got some Burris Posi-Align inserts to protect the scope from damage, and for the scope, I bought an FX2 Leupold 4 power scope with about 4 inches of eye-relief which is still barely enough for me! Did I mention the recoil from this rifle was a bit stout. After it was all assembled, scoped and loaded, it weighed on the low side of eight pounds. And when I shoot it from the bench, I have to remove the Butler Creek Flip-up scope cap from the eyepiece so it doesn't touch my forehead when I fire it. When I hunt, I'm in a more natural position and don't have to worry much about being crouched over a scoped cannon.

Posi-Align plastic ring inserts will hopefully keep the scope tube from
being damaged. 

And speaking of hunting, the last time this rifle went afield was on the last day of hunting season on the first day of 2010. After finding a cartridge load it liked at the bench I finally got up into a stand to wait and watch--hunting has always been a pretty strong word, but calling it "sitting" ain't very sexy-sounding.

Not the same day I harvested the two deer, but in a stand the same season, 2009-10.

 I sat there and heard off in the distance my buddy take a shot, and then another (which usually means we'll spend some time looking and tracking a wounded, walking-dead deer) and waited some more. And as is the case very often, I had to wait until almost dark before I got a chance to use the rifle for something other than killing Allied Soldiers and Marines. Close to the end of legal shooting light, a big momma doe and her yearling fawn came out of the thick brush along a fence just about 60-70 yards away to my left.

Tailor-made position for a right-handed shooter, it didn't take long for her to present the classic broadside shot, which of course, I dug into the rifle, stopped breathing, and took. The recoil knocks me back but both eyes are open and I see her flip and fall and kick trying to run but unable, dying. I don't remember working the bolt and reloading the chamber but I did. I know I did, because something instinctive inside me--modern greed? ancient hunters' instinct?--had me looking for the yearling and drawing down on it too. Amazingly, bewildered by the shot and shocked into immobility, the smaller deer was nervously stepping around where its mother had dropped.

And again, it didn't take long for it to present the classic broadside in the waning light to me and again, I took the shot. Both eyes open I could see the smaller deer run away but then curiously circle back right towards me where I sat above in the stand. This has rarely happened to me before, and I must say it was shocking. The most noticeable effect of my shot, as the little deer turned its body in the arc of the circle it was running was that when it stopped, the exit wound on the opposite side was to me, and I could see cupfulls of blood pumping out every step it too in front of me, less than twenty feet away.

I'd never seen the effects of a 30-06 like that, up close as it's happening in real time. Up until then, I'd only seen the blood and gore after the fact, like a forensic scientist while tracking a deer that had been shot but then ran away, seeing the trail and knowing it must have looked awful. And seeing it happen, the life pouring out of this little deer, was a sight I'll never forget. I watched as the deer stood for its last few moments alive and then lay down to die. I felt terrible.

Much later, turns out the two shots by my friend off in the distance weren't well-placed and he and I ended up tracking his deer through thick brush, sometimes on our hands and knees--in fact, the briars were so thick that some of the scratches on the stock at picture time were from that ordeal. Midway through, I begged off with some others from our little party to help search and I took off to collect the deer I had shot and another from another friend before it got much much later. Their ordeal is probably worth a whole other blog post, but it's not my story to tell! Suffice to say, when you're tracking a wounded deer, there's a chance that when you find it, it won't be dead and somebody better have a firearm to dispatch it or things could get uglier.

Anyway, we were putting deer in the back of my truck, and the momma doe and her yearling were reunited. Turns out he was a little buck, unbeknownst to me in the fading light and four power scope. It was a shame a future trophy buck was taken so soon, but it was a clean kill even if it were horrifying to see in person. And that's how hunting is sometimes. It's a rush, but it's also a terrible thing all at the same time.

With no stain, the stock is brown and blonde at the same time. Unique...
a polite word for ugly.

Even if the ending spectacle was hard to watch, it reminds me that hunting isn't always pretty. The big momma doe was a textbook, clean kill, and I wish every time I pull the trigger on a deer its death would be just as quick, but that's not always the case. The little buck's death wasn't a bad shot or a super horrendous death, it just happened right in front of me, seven yards away so it was a little hard to experience, but it too was a quick kill. In the end, no matter how difficult, a hunter owes it to his quarry to see it to the bitter end.

And again, it was nice to take a rifle which started out as a weapon of war up into a tree stand and use it to feed my family and friends and help control North Carolina's burgeoning (at the time) deer population. As always, holding a piece of history that's much older than yourself yet still functional is rewarding in its own right. Taking two deer as well is just an added, edible bonus.

"What are your thoughts on diversity?" An open-ended question it was and it got me thinking quite a bit. And here's what I thought in random order:


1. We are surrounded by diversity in my neck of the woods. Here, in one of the only blue counties of North Carolina, you can't throw dead cat without hitting someone from a different country, ethnicity, age group, religion or sex. We're lousy with diversity around here. Sure you can gird up against it and hang out in bastions of "white america' like shitty sports bars or your church*--but like it or not, the majority of places round here are teeming with a multi-cultural and multi racial and multi-sexual diversity that CBS can't seem to grasp by the looks of their boring TV show line ups they offer every year. (What will fat-ass Kevin James be in this year?)

A quick example? Go sit amid the minarets (salam, muthfucca!)  that surround a delightful little area near Ben and Jerry's Ice cream in Friendly Center where one can sit outside and eat and people watch. Last time I was there there were a trio of bored black guys ignoring each other at a table with phones and laptops out, a gay couple were out getting ice cream for their obviously adopted, south of the border boys, and a gang from a local college sat about laughing and eating in a multi-racial gaggle all under the watchful eye of a hot Latino couple eating their ice cream from a cup....together (eww). And of course, as you sit there, keep your eyes peeled at the folks on the sidewalks and you won't be disappointed if diversity is what you're looking for. Heck, there was even a white family there with a bored daughter--dad had on a 49'ers shirt (the cool kind from UNC-Charlotte, not the stupid NFL kind).

So yeah, it's inescapable around here so if you're some kind of xenophobe, you better not live in Greensboro, NC. Don't get me wrong though, I don't mean to suggest we live in some kind of Disneyland harmony, sometimes far from it, but the opportunity to indulge and include are there for the taking.


2. "Be good to me and I will be good back..." is a theme I hear alot. And of course, I've said the same thing myself. And on the surface it sounds reasonable and you can say it paraphrases the good old golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But it doesn't quite measure up to the golden rule. Often, to me, it smacks of that old thing we'd hear over and over when Amendment One, the amendment that would have made (already federally illegal and state level illegal)  same sex marriage's illegality part of our state's constitution, was put to vote and those noble enough to oppose same-sex marriage would say they, "loved the sinner, but hated the sin".

It's an easy way to rationalize your own (and mine--I'm not saying I'm above reproach) bigotry and racism. And it's a way of dealing with the unknown people you encounter that has you meeting folks with your guard already up. You're already expecting the worst, and when you get the worst returned to you, when someone reacts to you as guarded and unfriendly, you say to yourself, "Ah! See there! I was right. this [fill in the blank] was an asshole just like all the other [fill in the blank]s."

I know, admittedly this is my default setting too. In a world of "Day in and Day Out" (David Foster Wallace's awesome essay and speech--google that shit right now) it's hard to not create a shorthand for dealing with new people. But like I say, it sets you up for "getting what you give".  On the other hand, if you're trying your dad jokes on the wait staff, you might get an even worse result. So I try to temper my "sit back and react to what I get" with a calm demeanor and maybe a testing-the-waters kind of dad joke. I like to paste on a dopey half smile when I have to interact with people. It's no way to win friends and influence people, but that's not my intent on a day to day basis with the diverse public--mostly I'm trying to get some kind of food or service!

Anyway, my point is, as it pertains to diversity, is that accept yourself as I have accepted myself, that as a race of one, an entire species of one, at the center of the universe and all, you owe it to yourself to be good to others in spite of what you think they'll be to you. It's a tough nut I know, and it might be impossible on a "Day in and Day Out" prospect...which brings me to...


3. "Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy."--yeah right. According to the facebook poster from whom I gleaned this quote, Thomas Merton (never heard of him) said or wrote this.
It's an interesting thought as far as Disneyland utopias go, but I suggest you can't love a stranger--that's nuts. I mean if you loved everyone you met you'd destroy yourself. The word gets thrown around alot today by people who want to spread the idea of a happy diversity, of a happy melting pot, but more often or not, it's an attempt at self delusion. You don't, can't possibly love people you don't know. If you did, there wouldn't people standing on the corners with "Please Help, God Bless" signs, and there wouldn't be homeless people and there wouldn't be any debate on the right choices for healthcare/daycare/etc etc...no one would have to "qualify" for "welfare" they would just fare well. 

I can count on one hand the people I love, that I would die for and sacrifice everything for on one hand. Oh, I like a bunch of assholes and airheads a whole awful lot, but I don't love them--they don't get a kidney...maybe I'll buy them lunch someday.
My point is, don't aspire to something you can't deliver as you'll only disappoint yourself. I'd rather be surrounded by people burdened with 'Be nice to me and I'll be nice to you" than people who try to delude themselves into thinking they love me. 
And so, to wrap things up...


4. Try not to fall into the everyday traps we set ourselves--where we expect disrespect so we project a guarded front, or we try to "love" everyone in a gushing Pollyanna approach and then fail. Try the little things and embrace diversity. It's tough. God knows. I can say thank-you, awkwardly, in five or six common-around-here languages--I learned phonetically so I can't write them, but a little "shukra" can go a long way when you want your damn kabob quickly!

Accept your racism and know it, recognize it so you can choke it down when it starts to raise its head. When that kid asks you if you're a Carolina fan because you have a Goodwill-bought, Carolina Panthers T-shirt on, ignore the fact that his pants are down around his thighs--it's supposed to be cool--and answer him. Ask the Indian woman who's minding the Subway to repeat her question again, y'all will get the order correct eventually--smile and remind her that you're half deaf thanks to your job and remember that she's smarter than you as she speaks two languages, though one with an accent. And (one of my big prejudices) no, you (probably) won't get hepatitis from the waiter with "FTW" tats on his hand and bolts in his nose, face, ears, and neck--all that shit is cosmetic! And if you're lucky enough to never question your sexuality or even gender, be glad and be nice.


5. The time for making America great again came and went a long time ago when we shipped in slaves and tried to destroy indigenous people as the United States was created. All we can do now is move forward and try and repair the damage done by at least admitting that we can and must do better in the future.


What do you think?



*Obviously, if you're African American or Hindu or "whatever", the same can be said that if you want to avoid having to interact with different folks, you can hang out in your local enclaves including places of worship and the cumin-filled or cilantro-scented restaurants near you. And let's face it, it is a nice break to be surrounded by like-skinned folk who at a glance know they have something in common with you. I'll admit that. I felt like a king in Guatemala where everyone had black hair, brown skin, and brown eyes--not to mention I was taller than everyone!

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.

A Gun a Week: Remington Model 788, .308 Winchester

Remington Model 788 in .308 Winchester. 

We all like recycling right? Want to save the planet and stuff. And lately we all like bad-mouthing cops too. So what if we could do both at the same time and get a rifle out of the deal? That's kind of what I did when I bought this Model 788 Remington back in 2006 or so...I really should've kept better records on purchase dates.

Back in those days, when the "Jack-Booted Government Thugs" kicked in your door to serve a warrant on you, and you possessed firearms even if you weren't allowed to, or if the warrant was a felony warrant, the cops would keep them! One of the things gun owners have to worry about in order to enjoy the privilege of buying and owning firearms legally is adhering to the law. It can be tricky--thus far I've managed to do so by not, you know, selling drugs, beating my wife, or killing people...etc. Stupid cops, right? Crazy that they'd take a firearm out of an alleged criminal's domicile. 

Hard plastic butt plate means you can't just lean it up
in a corner--it'll slide right down.

Anyway, somewhere along the line, someone's battered old Remington 788 was seized in a raid, or taken in as evidence in a criminal case, and held onto by "the government" for a while and then, in a burst of common sense, was sold to a firearms distributor/wholesaler to gain back monies for the courts, police departments, and other government entities. Seized firearms are essentially recycled for cash instead of being chopped up and destroyed. To me, it makes perfect sense to recoup some of the money spent on law enforcement by selling the possessions of lawbreakers to law abiders like me with a rifle addiction.

You see? Over-zealous cop bashing and recycling! Two for one in this week's blog.

And that brings us to my Model 788. Back then there was a store in Greensboro, NC called Southern Firearms--today it's called Dana Safety Supply operating as Southern Public Safety Equipment & Southern Firearms, but it's still there. Also back then, my "go-to" gunstore's owner heard from the guy running Southern Firearms at the time about some evidence guns that were for sale. And knowing my love of just about everything Remington--hair straighteners and nose hair trimmers notwithstanding--the manager, Ken Something-something, let it be known to me that he had a deal on a little rifle in .308 Winchester.

Everything Remington I always say.

The Model 788 was introduced in 1967 as a more affordable model than the Remington flagship, the Model 700. I can't imagine how it would be less expensive to make as it shares several qualities with the M700, but that's how it was marketed until about 1984. Mine was made in 1974 according to internet sources. The rifles are machined out of a piece of tubular steel, like the M700, but have rear locking lugs instead of the front locking lugs on the M700. The receiver "bridge" of the M788 is super long to accommodate these lugs, which might limit one from mounting a shorter, more compact scope, but they do allow for a shorter bolt throw which may or may not make working the bolt and reloading easier and faster--I have no opinion on that.

The 788's bolt is in front. Note the nine rear locking lugs as opposed to
the other two bolts, a Winchester and a Remington top to bottom, that sport
the age-old front-located, dual opposing locking lugs.

They might've saved money on the trigger assembly, since there's no adjustment screws on it. They just slapped them together and pinned them in and what you get is what you get. A M700's trigger can be adjusted by the owner though no one recommends that you do so--and yes, we all do so. And there's no visual cocking indicator that lets you see if the rifle is cocked and locked when you're afield but that's no big deal since the safety cannot be engaged if the rifle's not cocked. So if you got a second, and you can't remember if you loaded your rifle after you climbed up into your stand, try the safety? Though, if you can't remember, maybe you shouldn't be in a tree stand with a rifle at all.

The rear locking lugs and the big plastic safety at home in the action.

My Model 788 came with a bent scope attached--legend was it was used as a bludgeon in a murder so the nickname it got in that very small circle of friends (more like a triangle really) was "the murder weapon". 788's are magazine fed affairs too, but guess what was missing from mine? I've yet to get a good deal on a vintage rifle that comes with the magazine it was born with. It's always an Ebay or gun show crawl to get one of those pesky magazines that always seem to disappear. I can tell you, like the aforementioned Model 760 Gamemaster, the old magazines are pretty pricey...just as well. 

The manager, Ken, had an eye on a pistol I owned at the time, so getting the rifle I wanted was a simple affair of "you buy my Ruger Super Blackhawk (in .357 Mag/9mm Luger) at Greensboro Gunworks, and I'll jaunt down to your store and buy the scope-bent, mag-missing murder weapon". We had to do it like that because of all the paperwork and commissions and such, and I think in the end I got the rifle for $250.00 plus tax...fricking tax. They tax us when we make the money, and tax us when we spend it? Both ends! And we're fine with it I guess...but I digress.

A vintage rifle deserves a vintage scope--especially if the rifle has a very long
receiver bridge that doesn't accommodate modern, compact scopes.

The gun's first trip to the range was as a single shot but it proved to be a shooter. The grubby barrel it peered down at the store didn't look any better after i cleaned it prior to shooting and that worried me a bit, but it still shoots well. All that neglect after murdering someone didn't seem to affect accuracy much, but I often wonder if it would shoot much better had the barrel stayed pristine. It shoots well enough that I wouldn't rebarrel it now--it'll last longer than I will.

As a handloader, the rifle's never had store-bought ammunition through it. Everything I've blasted out of it was hand-rolled by me, and the favorite load it seems is the one built around Nosler's 125 gr Ballistic Tip bullet. And it the powder Winchester made for the .308 Win. round since they started loading the round: Win 748. The two just came together in "the murder weapon" and shot just fine. Fine enough even to be used on a quick, after-work hunt with a buddy of mine up in Stoneville, NC.

A tweak of scope adjustment, and this dog will hunt.

A hay field partly surrounded by a band of trees was the setting where the garden-poaching herd of deer would appear at just about the same day everyday, and one day, J.B. and I were there fixing to get ready for them. At one point, the surrounding band of trees are nearly all pine trees which means for quiet stalking instead of crunching through hardwoods' leaves. And that was the plan of attack in the last few minutes of legal shooting light. We walked couched over on our knees in the pine needles to within 40 or 50 yards of a group of emboldened deer who had rarely been shot at in those days. J.B., a lefty, was on my left and we whispered we'd shoot at the same time, him shooting a deer on the left, and I shooting a deer on the right.

At the time I had mounted on the rifle a Leupold Vari-X III, 1.5-5x scope which is a fine and dandy choice for bright sunny days (and hard kicking rifles), but we were under a bower of pines nearly thirty minutes after sunset and I was straining to see a smallish doe through the little 20mm objective in the dusk. We were counting down and I was bobbing around trying to find the cross hairs to put on the shoulder of one of the deer. And we were counting down. Finally, I settled in and squeezed off the shot and my little doe disappeared. Turns out, since the deer were so close, I had hit her very high on the shoulder through the spine and she died instantly where she had stood.

Older scopes tend to be longer for their power, so I stuck this old Redfield on the 788.

That was the first deer I shot with that rifle and the last, though I have hunted with it and shot it many times since. It just hasn't happened for the rifle again, but I'll keep trying. So from the belly of a government recycling plan, for good or bad, I reclaimed "the murder weapon" for hunting and shooting. It's chambered in one of the best all-round cartridges ever developed so it was a no-brainer at the time. 

In the ironic world of guntardness, these days many 788s will garner a higher price on the used market than the old Remington standby M700 which the 788 was developed to be cheaper than. Find an old 788 in 30-30 Winchester or 44 Remington Magnum, and you better dig deep into your pockets to buy it. I owned another 788 Carbine in .243 Winchester but I sold it off to make room in the safe for other projects. No, I think owning only one of these old bolt guns is enough to get a taste of how shooters and hunters from the last century went around hunting and losing their magazines in the woods so I'll just hang onto mine for a while longer. But if you see it for sale any time soon at Southern Firearms, I'll probably be in jail!

Worth its weight in gold if you have a 788 without one. They don't make 'em
like this anymore.

A Gun a Week: Remington Model 760 Gamemaster, .35 Remington

Remington Model 760 gamemaster, .35 remington.

If you ever been to a pawn shop, and a rifle catches your eye, you know that horrible feeling you get when the guy behind the counter flips the tag for you (you always have to ask--no gun store is smart enough to display hang tags with the prices facing out) and you see how much they think their rifle is worth. You know and I know and the guy behind the counter knows that the shop has paid someone around fifty cents on the dollar for that rifle, so why do they always ask for exorbitant amounts on rifles that they've pretty much stolen from someone who needed quick cash? I'm not real sure, greed I reckon.

Anyway, such was the case back in 2006 when I spied this Remington Model 760 Gamemaster on the rack among all the Mossberg pump shotguns. I think at the time they wanted $399.99 dollars for it...as if anyone'd be fooled by the missing penny. I recoiled in horror and amusement. The 760 was obviously old as dirt and was missing its magazine which meant right away, if someone bought it, he or she'd be on an epic quest to find a vintage magazine to fit it.

These rifles were made on the same frame as Remington's 28 gauge Wingmaster shotgun, so the feel of the stock and the weight and the position of the safety and trigger were very familiar to me. There wasn't much bright bluing left on that receiver, but there wasn't much more than faint surface rust either and just a few scratches. The old original sights were still intact, though I knew I'd scope the thing--as old as it was, it was drilled and tapped for a scope mount for sure.

Same frame as a 28 gauge Wingmaster so all the controls are very similar.

I asked to fondle it which means I was really interested to see it. These days I'm at a point in my life where I don't need to fondle guns to shop for them. I mean, you fondle one Model 700 or Model 70 or Glock pistol, you've fondled them all. No, just tell me how much you want for it. But at the time, I wanted a closer look for sure. I wanted to see what chambering it was, and seeing that it was chambered in 35 Remington made me really want it. 

You see these pumps, the "Yankee Lever guns" all the time in plain-Jane, boring old 30-06. And you see those rifles all the time for sale around the $350.00 mark. So dull in fact that a guntard like me wouldn't even want one of the old ones in 30-06. No, all the cool ones are in old-school numbers like 300 Savage, 257 Roberts, 244 Remington and, naturally, 35 Remington. I've seen one since I bought mine in 270 Winchester, which is also pretty neat, again, giving that it isn't in that ol' has-been 30 caliber. 

Old timers trick to reverse the rear sight for scope mounting...that way you you'll not lose it.

So I made an offer of $250.00 and was laughed at by The Man...that was 2006.

It's a pawnshop in Kernersville, NC and I used to stop by every quarter or so to check things out. I lived in Stokesdale, NC and it was on the way to Target, Walmart and BoJangles--pretty much everything you need to survive, so it was as easy as pie to stop in and see what else they had. Once I stopped in, and the normal guy behind the counter was gone, replaced by another guy. I asked him about the rifle again, and he handed it to me unprompted. By now they had stuck a magazine, or tried to, from a different model Remington, a 742 Woodsmaster! It was literally jammed in and since it was designed for a semi-automatic version of this same rifle more or less, it didn't allow the function of the slide at all.

I told the guy it wasn't the correct magazine and looked at the price tag. It was holding fast at $399.99 so I made an offer of $250.00 to the "new guy" and was laughed at...that was 2007. In fact, I think I did walk out of there with a Model 700 in .243 Winchester which, by some crazy misalignment of the universe was being offered at a reasonable price!

The model 760 was introduced in 1952 and ran until 1981. Only about 1.03 million were made! I knew this gun was an early one by the rather plain forearm and hard metal butt plate. I think they call it a corncob fore end because it sports simple cuts to allow a good pumping grip and it resembles a cob of some kind. I had shot a former customer's (in 300 Savage--very high cool factor) and his was around the same age and so they were very similar in appearance and wear. And since I had coveted his granddad's rifle then, it only made me want the pawn shop's even more.

Corncob fore arm says "old school".

I stopped in again several months later and asked about the rifle. The "new guy" was still there and so was the rifle. Only now the pump-o-matic had lost the mismatched magazine for the empty hole again. If anything, this was actually better. Imagine buying it and getting to the range and finding out it wouldn't work; caveat emptor I reckon.

I don't remember the price at that time, but I offered him $250.00 and was laughed at by him and the owner....that was 2008. I did find a nice Western Auto version of a Marlin 336 in 30-30 Winchester which, because it didn't say Marlin on the barrel, was offered for a very reasonable price--$250.00 as I recall.

As you know, 2008 brought a grinding halt to everything alot* of us knew about building houses and making money. It was like waking up with amnesia--overnight everything had changed and I had to learn many hard lessons. The one lesson I always repeat is, "I'll never take money or work for granted again."

Aluminum (I think) butt plate. In 30-06, that'd be brutal on your shoulder.

I bet I didn't step foot in that pawnshop for two years; why would I? I didn't have any money to spend. I'd drive by and think about it but never got out of the truck. But when things started looking a little better, I thought about stepping in again. And when I did, there was the little rifle waiting for me. I flipped the tag to check the price: $299.99! They were getting closer!

I smiled and made my offer to the owner himself--I guess they had to get rid of some people on account of the depression. I offered $250.00 and was laughed at by the owner....that was 2011.

In the meantime, I had dropped deer with the .243 I bought there. I had dropped deer and even taken my buddy Bill on his first deer hunt with the Western Auto 30-30 I bought there. So when Christmas was coming up the next year, I knew I had to get myself something to ease the pain of buying everyone else I know and love something they wanted.

And when I walked in the pawnshop that last time, I explained myself to the plucky "new kid" behind the counter. I knew that the gun had been there for six years and told him. I knew a new magazine for it was going to be a fifty dollar ordeal and I told him. I laid it all out for him, and he took my case to the owner. When the owner looked at the back of the tag and saw it was a six-year-old pawn, I knew I had him. I offered him $250.00 and he took it...that was 2012!

Sure they got me for tax, of course they did, but in principle, I got that fricking rifle for $250.00! And it only took six years. As soon as I got it home and got a Leupold 4x M8 scope on it, there was a photo-op in the bathroom--nothing pervy, that room just had the best bank of bulbs in the house.

Facebook photo op shortly after i bought it. Note missing magazine.

That weekend it was taken to the range to get zeroed in. Around this same time, I had some of Hornady's Leverevolution ammo left over from previous hunts with a Marlin 336CS in the same chambering, so it was a no brainer to use it. Obviously, the 760 is vertically fed from its magazine (which I was missing when I zeroed it--think, single shot rifle) so I didn't have to shoot ammo designed for a tubular magazine fed rifle like the Marlin, and some day I might just whip some ammunition up from the bench with good old fashioned spitzer bullets, but I did for that hunting season. That ammo is really good stuff for any rifle in 35 Remington. They also make it for 30-30's as well, and I can't say enough good things about those two offerings.

The next weekend, after buying a modern magazine for the 760's progeny, the 7600, the rifle and I were in a tree stand. The newer magazine was very difficult to install and extract, but it would have to do for the first hunt. The cartridges fed flawlessly from the magazine even though it was a true pain in the fingers to get the thing in or out of the receiver. Sadly, I have three modern mags for the rifle which I probably never use again. Later I found a dusty old vendor at a gun show and he had a dusty old magazine that fit my rifle perfectly for, you guessed it, fifty dollars...turns out my gun was $299.99, but I digress.

And when the gang of does stepped out of the thick woods to graze and cross the logging road I was perched above on the farm in Eden, I picked the biggest one, the one staring intently and knowingly at me, and took her down instantly and humanely with a neck shot. She was inside 100 yards, but further than fifty away which is the perfect range for any rifle chambered in 35 Remington. When I walked up to her I took a picture of her with the rifle not to gloat, but to document what she looked like before I killed her, to document when and where I was and with which rifle I had killed her. I think it's important to remember you killed something, to "make a mark" that you'll always have, and thanks to the internet, I will.

The evening light makes phone photography tough.
It was good to get the old gun into the woods again.

I did in fact take a copy of that picture back to the pawn shop to show the guys what I had done with "their" rifle. I wanted them to know I wasn't some crackpot guntard that wanted the rifle for a low-ball price just to tuck it away in a vault forever. I wanted them to know I took an old hunter hunting again. A quick Google search had told me my gun was made in 1954, and I was happy I got it off the rack and back out into the woods to do what it was designed for.

Nature-made tree stand.

I hunted with it again the next year down on federal game lands--I could tell you where, but then I'd have to kill you--and watched a dopey young six-pointer mosey right by me from the top of a busted down tree. It was a natural deer stand, and from atop it, I watched that buck the whole time he was in 35 Remington range through the scope as he ambled by but never shot him. Maybe I was just enjoying sitting in the woods watching the first big, black squirrels I had ever seen in the wild dig around in the leaves, or maybe it was that old realization that the fun's over as soon as the smoke clears, and the truck was parked a long long way away to drag a deer.

Scope caps up, this dog will hunt.

A Gun a Week: Remington Model Seven, 7mm-08 Remington

Remington Model Seven, 7mm-08 Remington

Quickly after becoming a guntard, or rather, an enthusiast, you quickly get sucked into a certain school of thought after you realize that you can't hunt or shoot with just any over-the-counter, store-bought rifle. And I bought into this for a while, for sure.

First is the realization that you can't kill deer with any of the common cartridges sold in Walmarts all over America. No, a 30-06, .243, 30-30, or a .308 just won't do anymore. You need a custom-chambered rifle for your hunting needs in some ancient cartridge that preceded them all. You need a rifle chambered in a cartridge like 7x57mm Mauser that was developed in 1890-something to beat out all the other guys with their cookie-cutter rifles at the hunting-shooting game. 

Here's Emily in 2006 behind the scenes at The Gunsmith's with another "custom" rifle...
I guess we were trying to goad him to finish it by pestering him.

To do this though, first you need to buy an old beater rifle...that's at least 400 bucks. Then you need to buy a new barrel for the thing, and that's another 400 bucks. Then you need to pay a guy to put the two together...that's another 300 bucks...you see what I'm getting at? If you read anything I've written about a "custom" rifle I own, this is what I had to do. It's an expensive process, but slow, so the costs get spread out. But it's something I've done to the tune of a bunch of dollars. Sigh. 

And so it was, several years ago when I wanted a rifle chambered in that old, grandfatherly cartridge, 7x57mm Mauser, in stainless steel so I wouldn't have to wait a year for the gunsmith to get around to bluing it, that I had the mother of all epiphanies: what if I just bought one ready to go? 

Another realization you come to as a guntard is that your nine-pound rifle is way too heavy to tote all the way from your truck to the deerstand. Think of all the other stuff you have to carry: your binoculars, cell phone, and...well, that's about it, but that's alot* when you're bundled up in winter wear. No, you need a svelte little carbine that comes in under seven pounds of course. And they make and sell those for sure. Kimber Mfg. makes them and sells them at such a premium, think MFSR $1,768.00 (from the pages of this month's Rifleman), that gun-nerds will hand it right over to keep from straining their backs. I can't do it, well, not all at once; I got kids...and dogs. 

This is why I type out Model Seven every time. It's just how it's done!

And that brings us back to the afore-mentioned cookie-cutter rifle. Turns out Remington makes exactly that for less than half of the cost of a Kimber. The Model Seven. The only compromise I had to make was getting one in a modern cartridge. You see, the old 7x57mm Mauser cartridge won't fit in a modern short action, but the ballistically identical 7mm-08 Remington will. Introduced in 1980, it's a pretty old design...not as cool and as old as the Mauser round, but it'll do.

The real selling point on the cartridge is this little rifle. Its action is a quarter inch shorter than a regular old Remington model 700 and I guess that little bit helps it shed some weight, and they come with a shorter, thinner barrel too, which also helps keep the weight down. The one I bought, brand new (the last rifle I ever bought brand new eight years ago or so) also has a super-slim plastic stock that makes the thing feel almost toy-like in my grip. If ever a rifle was made for carrying around unnoticed on your shoulder for less than the cost of a used car on Craig's List, this is it.

The barrel is 20 inches long with only about 19 1/4 inches sticking out of the action. It's pencil thin at the end, which you'd think would hurt accuracy but this is not the case! The handload I manufactured for it back in 2007 comes in under an inch at 100 yards and amazingly, at 200 yards as well--shocking to say the least for any rifle let alone a little hunting carbine.

Reloaders save the good, the bad, and the ugly. We need the data so we don't
repeat bad recipes and do replicate the good loads. This is a good load.

Heck, the whole rifle is only 38 3/4 inches long. Mine weighs 8 pounds with the scope, sling and four cartridges in the holder strapped around the stock which means it's a pound lighter than most rifles are nekkid. Admittedly, I didn't do a very scientific weight check by doing the old weigh myself with the gun and then without, but I think it's close enough for the ten people who read this blog...on a side note, I'm back on the Atkins Diet for the next two weeks.

A meter of rifle!

If you look at pictures at an old Remington model XP-100, I think you can see the lineage of the Model Seven. They seem to sport the same action so if you get rid of the XP-100's weird dog-legged bolt, oddly-shaped safety, and "pistol" stock, and exchange it for the standard Model 700's controls, you've got the Model Seven. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to convert a Model Seven into a pistol...but why in the world...

Here's an old XP-100. 

Here's the Model Seven's controls...You can see the lineage I think.

The only bad thing I could ever say about my rifle is that the recoil pad went "sticky" like most of the Remingtons sold in those days. It's a Limbsaver Inc.'s problem that became a Remington problem, but it's easily fixed. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Such a pain to have to unglue it from the safe floor to get it out for hunting or fondling. And I might just take this opportunity to fix it once and for all for the photos.

Sticky pad problems. Look close and the cartridge headstamps are 308 WIN which
is the parent case for the 7mm-08--a run throught a sizing die does the conversion.

The first doe I shot with this rifle was a micro-deer at 125 yards. I had only been hunting for four years or so back then and sometimes had trouble judging deer sizes in waning light and through the 2-7X Leupold so I consider the fawn an "oops" moment--but! the small ones sure are tender and tasty and easy to manage I hafta say. Two more does in December 2011 and November 2013 until the latest doe in December 2013 which was an awful experience in the perils of neck shots.

A hundred yard, more or less, shot to the neck which dropped her in her tracks as usual, apparently didn't kill her right away and after hours and hours of tracking ever-shrinking blood drops, we finally gave up finding her. I had started using neck shots because it usually keeps the deer in sight for quick and clean kills which is what every hunter should want. I know I work pretty dang hard to keep my kills clean and humane as possible, but lousy shots happen for one reason or another. It sucks when you flub a shot and I think about them often, mostly to try to prevent them from happening again, but also as a type of self-flagellation I suppose.

It's important to not let bad shots from seasons past affect your confidence on the next shot opportunity for the worse. I always say killing an animal is an awful and terrific thing--terrible and thrilling all at the same time...and you don't need the spectre of the last dicked-up shot making you place yet another misplaced shot downrange. There's alot* going into the mental game of taking game. 

Anyway, this little rifle is a proven shooter and game-getter as long as I do my part. I can't think of anyway to improve it except to buy an even better scope for it. Trim little rifle need trim little scopes on top. And of course, I need to get around to fixing the sticky pad. Other than that, I wouldn't change a thing. 

An extra pair of eyes never hurt.

Of course, all the while, I still keep an eye out for an old rifle chambered for an old cartridge like, say, 7x57mm Mauser. They're still out there.

Ilion's smallest high-powered rifle. The Model Seven.