Some months back, Cabela's had a sale on the 799s. I picked one of the last two they had in 7.62x39 as I was looking for a small rifle in a light-kicking caliber for my son to deer hunt with. It seemed like this little Remington import might fit the bill. Anyway, I think those little guns are cute-as-a-button...
While I patiently waited for the back-ordered Leupold base to arrive. I took the opportunity to cycle the action some 300 times in front of the TV to smooth it out some, as the action was atrociously rough, right out of the box (I'd heard that the rough action was a common complaint with these, so I was ready for that).
The safety latch also seems very stiff, no matter how many times I cycle it. Maybe this is for liability reasons... am hoping that my 13 yr old can manage it without too much trouble.
The base finally came in (seemed to take forever) , so I mounted a 3-9 variable scope and took it to the range with a box each of Remington and Winchester factory loads, plus some handloads that I made up with some of the factory brass that I was lucky enough to find after my SKS flung the empties randomly about the range during previous shooting sessions.
Bad news:
1) The reloads wouldn't chamber, my bad... the SKS has a larger chamber (apparently) than the 799 and I didn't resize far enough down the case. I'll correct for that with the next handloads.
2) The safety latch is still rough to manipulate...
Good news:
1) It's a shooter! I bore-sighted through the breech prior to that first shot, so the first two shots hit paper, just about 3" high @ 50 yds. 100 yd groups were running right around an inch for 3 shots with factory loads on a windy day. The Win. ammo hitting low compared to the Remington fodder. Last group for the day was exactly 1 1/8" I'm pretty well satisfied with that kind of accuracy for a brush-gun.
2) No big surprise that recoil was minimal. Another nicety was the fact that the barrel takes alot of shooting before it starts to heat-up. (I am officially cured of 'Magnumitis'!)
3) It's still as cute-as-a-button...
All-in-all I'm happy with it. My son should be able to perform admirable execution on our smallish central Texas whitetails with it come Fall.
Just needed to talk about it!
HH!
Skillet
(Say, is it true that I shouldn't shoot Wolf ammo etc. in this bolt-gun because the primers are harder and may damage the firing pin???)
