mcwoodduck is right in his remark "Beauty is in the eyes of the beer holder."
I'll try not to get long-winded on this one, but my favorite is my Remington 721 in 270 Winchester that I did a make-over on. I originally picked up this rifle, which was close to going into a garbage can, in 1993 from a local gun dealer. Barrel proof marks indicate that the rifle was manufactured in June of 1948. The original stock, which was badly butchered, was replaced with a Bell & Carlson Carbelite stock for a Remington 700 BDL that I had to do a little modification on for it to fit the 721. I replace the weakened firing pin spring with a Blitzchnell Speed-Lock Striker Spring from Brownells, and the worn out original extractor was refitted by a local gunsmith with a Sako extractor. Barrel and lockwork is all-original.
Whoever did the hacked-up stock work on the original stock no doubt also did the drill and tap job on the receiver, as it was also badly butchered! The front receiver ring had one hole #8 and one hole #6. The holes in the rear receiver ring (both of them miraculously #6) were badly off-center. I had to shim the Burris scope base .010" on the right-hand side to level the base out (I made this permanent with an epoxy compound bonded to the scope base only). I lucked out on this one.......scope alignment rods showed both bases/rings in perfect alignment when all was finished!
I topped this off with a vintage 4X Redfield scope. With 130 gr. loads, all's this rifle will do is 2-inch groups @ 100 yds. As I have previously said***, this rifle is the only .270 Winchester in North America that will NOT put all of its shots into one jagged hole at 700 yards! Over the years I have taken deer with one shot - one kill out to 300 yards. And this rifle has NEVER ONCE lost its zero over several years.
If I could only keep one deer rifle....this one would be it. She may not be the prettiest girl at the dance, but she'll go the distance!
////////***- back in late 2001, I made a post almost identical to this one about my 721 on what is now the defunct Shooters.com. Within one hour of making that post, it was eliminated by the site administrator. Seems I must have upset someone's fragile, sensitive nature! /////////
Red
