And so it was, that a vintage Remington showed up yesterday for a reasonable price. And today, it showed up at my house! It is a Remington 721 in .270 Winchester. A quick message of text to someone in the know, and I found out it was manufactured in 1951. That's plenty of vintage for me.
The 720/721 models were introduced in 1948. They were a step above Remington's model 30's which were really just a quick and easy way to make sporting rifles out of leftover Enfield parts the government stuck them with after WWI. Obviously, there weren't any new rifles made for the public during WWII, and it looks like, after the war, Remington hit the ground running with the 720 and 721.
Pick up your trusty Model 700, right now, and you're holding the latest refinement on the older 721. Think of your model 700 as the 721 2.1--no kidding. It's neat for me to see the likenesses, and differences, as I fondle my "new" rifle. But that's how innovation is. One idea spawns another.
Anyway, the next order of business is to rip it apart and clean it, inspect it, and really fondle it, inside and out. I'll snatch it out of the stock and check for rust below the stock-line and if I find any, whisk it away with some very fine steel wool. I'll blow the trigger mechanism out with compressed air. Just sitting around for years and years, a rifle can collect alot of dust in very unlikely places. Let the trigger and safety gunk up with dust and old, sticky gun oil and you're asking for trouble, especially on a cold morning.
Then, after I finish and put it all back together, I'll grab the scope I had on the last rifle I sold that was chambered in .270 as well (Oh the irony) and mount it atop the receiver. As old as the rifle is, those new-fangled scopes were coming into widespread use back then, so Remington wisely drilled and tapped the receivers for the mounts. My older Model 30 Express isn't prepared like that, and when I took it hunting, it was with open sights because I couldn't bring myself to "butcher" the old rifle and wanted to leave it as it was back in the day.
I know, I sold the old M700 Mountain Rifle and declared that I only like short action rifles, but this is a vintage model remember. I would have bought it even it had been chambered in something as dull and lack-luster as 30-06. I'll be holding "grand-dad's" rifle--someone's grand-dad I reckon. It's got it's own history inside it somewhere, and while I'm shooting it at the bench and working a load up for it, I'll be thinking about the people who did the same thing before me.
And when I'm up in a stand, or hiding under my poncho, hunting, I'll be thinking about how someone else had done the same things and had seen the same things as I. I'll think about how I'm using the rifle for what it was built to do. In my mind, the rifle has sat in a closet or a safe until Grand-dad died and the grand-kids took it to Cherry's to be sold on consignment for the cash and that it hasn't been in the woods for twenty or thirty years. And when I throw it over my shoulder and carry it afield, all will be the way it should be.
And when, if I'm lucky enough to do so, I shoulder the rifle and place the cross-hairs on a game animal, I'll have done everything right by that old rifle.
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| Remington Model 721 |
So, I can rationalize buying a new rifle to myself just like that--usually I have no problem doing so. And when it's an old, yet innovative-for-its-time workhorse, chambered in a go to cartridge like the .270 Winchester, giving into that craving just gets easier. My wife doesn't even try to understand, but then, I don't understand why we have at least three Christmas trees every year.
I'll keep you posted on how it shoots, and of course, I'll let you know when and where it gets to go hunting again--stay tuned.
