Has anyone used a Remington 740 or 750 at an Appleseed? Or had experience with one in general. Wondering how they would hold up in terms of reliability and accuracy over long periods of use. Input on other auto-loading hunting rifles as a rifleman's rifle would be appreciated as well.
Roland
Hey Roland,
Tried using my 740 in '06 at a few of the early AS's I went to....found lots of functioning problems with it to not only question it's reliability in the dust/rocks of Piru, but also as a primary "dangerous sort of game" (bear, pig, feral hog) firearm....... :wall: ::) #) $$-0
It still sits in my gun safe, but that is simply because I have not gotten around to putting it on Gunbroker.com yet...... %)
As with all things, some are a bit more "equal" than others, so YMMV......but it is not a very forgiving action, and they do not seem to like their inner workings to be "soiled", as it were...... ++) :))
There are, as always, others that are better, and some that are worse......find the ones that work best for you.....
My Garand even jammed in Piru from all the blowing rocks & dirt on one occasion...and I would have previously laid down a $100 bill as a bet that it was physically impossible to jam a Garand with just some twigs, rocks & dust.....lots of very fine dust...... %) !@#) :-\
Point being, they are all machines, and they are all susceptible to malfs......part of the learning......how to quickly, and safely, keep your iron running.......use what you know, then learn it better.....
Good Luck!!
LLP
My father-in-law was a 742 fan. He was also a fan of accurate rifles so over the years he bought 7 of them to get 2 that shot well enough to suit him (buy one, take it home, shoot it, hmm, not good enough, take it back, exchange it for another one in the rack, take it home, shoot it, not good enough, take it back, exchange it for another one, take it home, okay, that's what I'm talking about, let's go hunting sort of search to get one that suited him.) The first one he kept worked fine for several years and he shot his rifles year round, not just at deer season. It suffered from some internal wear/failure issue and fired one day when the buttstock was jarred (putting it back in the Jeep) and his search started over.
Having said all the above about finding one that shoots pretty good I have to say that even though the last one worked fine for years for him it broke on me a couple years after he died. The firing pin return spring (coil spring sort of like what is on a 1911 or a bic pen) broke and jamned the firing pin so as to keep it from hitting the primer. They aren't much fun to take apart, but interesting.
If you want a centerfire .30 caliber rifle but don't have the big bucks for an M1A I suggest an M1 Garand from the CMP. I REALLY like mine. All of them. :)
Thanks for the replies, tells me everything I need to know :D.
Roland