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.