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Post by grasshopper on Aug 26, 2021 11:01:33 GMT -7
Hello all, I wanted to see what the thoughts were about two rifles I found in my favorite local gun shop. My buddy just took in two Remington model 788s in on trade. The two both have left handed actions one is a 6mm in rifle form with a 22” barrel and the other is a carbine with an 18 1/2 barrel chambered in 30-30. They both have old steel tube weavers in them, the 30-30 is a fixed 4 with fairly heavy crosshairs and the 6mm has a fixed 6 power with super fine crosshairs(as an aside I just learned reading an article about WWII that Germans used actual human hair in their submarine reticles for the crosshairs and that’s how they got named that way? New to me but very interesting I thought) anyway I wanted to see what folks here thought about each rifle. They would mainly be used for whitetail or the random coyote if he presents a target. My buddy said I could have either for $400 or $800 for both! What a guy huh? Im sure I can really only afford one for now so which would you pick/reccomend? Thanks to all for their input!!
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Post by Junior on Aug 26, 2021 11:54:41 GMT -7
one of my first rifles was a 788 in 223 and I have a fondness for them. I would love to have a left handed 788, in something like 308. $400 is a very good price.
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Post by grasshopper on Aug 26, 2021 13:24:36 GMT -7
I thought the price was more than fair also, I think the price will go up once my buddy that owns the shop actually puts them on the shelf. They are both in great shape and I doubt with has had two boxes of factory ammo thru them. It’s interesting the rifle you can cycle the bolts when it’s on safe but the carbine you cant, not sure why there’s a difference.
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Post by Junior on Aug 26, 2021 15:11:15 GMT -7
I wish it was closer. I would probably buy that 6mm. Not my favorite caliber, but I do have a boat load of 6mm bullets and I think I have dies as well.
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Post by Bullshop on Aug 26, 2021 15:32:57 GMT -7
Ok I am going to be harshly honest here. I hate short barreled 6mm Rem rifles. The cartridge needs a long barrel to realize its performance potential. A short barrel is big on noise but small on performance. Don't get me wrong I love the 6mm Rem cartridge but I want a 26" minimum barrel length for it. I even consider a 24" too short for the cartridge.
Now the 30-30 GRAB IT !!!!! The 30-30 and 44 mag were fairly rare chamberings in the 788 Rem . And see if he has extra mags because they are hard to find and expensive. Being chambered in a high pressure platform the 30-30 cartridge can be safely loaded to velocities well beyond any published data. The 788 is a 60,000 psi platform where as traditional lever actions are 40,000. The case design is far from being weak and with the large rim around the primer pocket can easily handle much higher chamber pressures than book loads. In the 788 platform the old 30-30 can come surprisingly close to the performance of 308 Win published data. In fairness though much 308 data is in line with auto loaders so chamber pressures are held to the moderate side.
Another bonus to the increased chamber pressure potential is that you can use spitzer bullets for improved down range ballistic performance over the traditional flat nose 30-30 bullets. I like it ! Grab it !!!
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Post by missionary on Aug 26, 2021 16:08:51 GMT -7
I would also vote for the 30-30. A superb cast caliber (long neck) and very useful for all sorts of hunting from bunnies (round ball) up to whatever needs to be perferrated. A 220+ grain fn slug cast of range scrap for up close shots will plow a long hole ripping and snorting the whole way.
I have never met a 788 that was not accurate. Our .243 is still (after 45 years) still the most accurate 6mm we have ever owned.
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Post by Junior on Aug 26, 2021 17:20:53 GMT -7
I think you would be lucky to find a factory rifle chambered in 6mm with a 24” barrel. 26” is unheard of on a factory rifle.
I think the magazine length is fairly limited on the 788 in 30/30, meaning spire point bullets would have to be seated pretty deep.
However, I had not considered the rairity. 30/30s are rare. Left handed is rare. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of another left handed 30/30.
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Post by grasshopper on Aug 26, 2021 17:23:25 GMT -7
I called my buddy and told him to set the 30-30 aside and I would take it. I think it will be an interesting platform to experiment with the 30-30 for sure. I’m not really surprised that you would think the 6mm had too short a barrel at 22”. I always remember you telling me it needed a longer barrel to wring the most out of the cartridge, it’s interesting that two inches can make such a big difference(no chuckles please). I’m also excited about the vintage weaver K4 that comes on the carbine. There was a time I would of passed it by as just being an old fixed power but hopefully it’s true with age does come wisdom! Thanks for all the input! Once I pick it up I’ll try and post some pics and hopefully get started shooting it!!
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Post by Bullshop on Aug 26, 2021 19:04:15 GMT -7
About the barrel length that 2" does make quite a difference. Consider that people stretch out and blow out case dimensions and wildcat cartridges to hopefully gain maybe 100 to 200 fps. All calibers have been factory magnumized to get that same gain over standard cartridges. With some like the 6mm all that is neccessary to realize the same gain is to add barrel length. Going from that standard 22" barrel and adding 4" length for a 26" will realize the same gain in velocity of about 200 fps for about a 50 fps per inch gain in velocity. It seems a simple way to magnumize a standard cartridge. When Remington first came out with the cartridge they stamped barrels with the 244 Rem brand but they also offered it in longer barrels and stamped some of those early rifles with 6mm Rem Mag. Those early barrels had a 1/12" twist and with bullets it would stabilize up to about 90gn it could squirt them out at a good clip when loaded to near max chamber pressures. Magnum performance for sure.
Now if TC would only offer the 6mm cartridge instead of only the 243 in their 28" standard length Encore barrels I would surely have one. One really nice aspect of long barrels and small bore over bore capacity cartridges is that they do their best with very slow burning powders of the type that you can still buy as surplus for $65.00 per 8 pound keg from surplus outlets like Jeff Bartlett's GI Brass. Watching the chronograph light up while burning cheap powder is just one of those simple pleasures for me.
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Post by grasshopper on Aug 26, 2021 20:00:49 GMT -7
I suppose learning that a couple of inches can equate to a couple of hundred FPS is just one of the many interesting things I still have to learn about this vocation, it’s also hard for most people to understand what a difference those couple hundred FPS can make in a given cartridge. Other than he Army I don’t have a lot of experience with long range shooting. When I first started in the Army the sniper system we were still using was the Vietnam era M21 which was nothing more that a super tuned M14 in 308. Later we went to an M24 which was basically the Remington Sendero in 308 in military form. Some years after it had been in the field the Army realized they needed a little more range and they reworked a lot of those M24 systems into the 300 win mag and this produced some really amazing results when combined with other new tools like laser rangefinders, ballistic computers etc, there’s still no replacement of a range card that’s been laminated and taped to the buttstock with ranges and mil adjustments to me though. Any machine can break or batteries die etc. talking about the Sendero I bought one of the first I ever saw in AK, it was in 25-06 and was topped by an old steel tube Vietnam era Redfield, I can’t remember if it was a fixed 10 power or if it was variable, I’m thinking variable though. Perhaps the chap I got it from all those years ago can chime in and remind me. It was a fantastic shooter as I recall and produced some great 400 yard groups which was about as far as I’d ever shot up to that point.
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Post by grasshopper on Aug 26, 2021 20:39:41 GMT -7
After reading your reply about the couple of inches in a barrel basically can make a factory magnum in a given cartridge is the opposite true as well? Say somebody bought a rifle and found that the barrel was just too long for their daily routine, I suppose kind of like the Forrest service did to their M70 375 H&H. Would cutting back those couple of inches reduce it to being almost a non magnum? Thanks.
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Post by Junior on Aug 26, 2021 20:58:07 GMT -7
its not as critical in big bores. I played with this concept before I bought my 375 ruger. I only lost about 50 FPS from the 375 ruger with the 20" barrel vs a 23" barrel with the same loads. in 45/70 the difference between a 18" and a 22" is almost unnoticeable.
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Post by grasshopper on Aug 26, 2021 21:31:12 GMT -7
Fantastic! I just didn’t know if it would make that much of a difference or not. When I first got up to AK the first gun I bought was at Down Under. It was a Marlin 1895 thinking maybe 1974 that had been cut back to about 16 1/2”, the stock had also be cut at one time but the piece had been added back when I got it, had a recoil pad and not the crescent butt plate. I suppose they were trying to make a “guide” gun before Marlin offered one from the factory. The bullet master himself may remember that rifle. He helped me develop a good load for it, I’m thinking it was 51 or 52 grains of IMR 3031 with a 425gr GC bullet that gave devastating results even with the barrel cut back from the factory 20”. I carried that rifle quite awhile while we had students in the summer taking them up on the Glacier of up on tenderfoot, saw more than a couple of bears and with students not keeping up with their trash it always made me nervous.
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Post by Bullshop on Aug 26, 2021 21:41:24 GMT -7
Its a simple rule that the larger the expansion ratio the shorter the barrel can be to achieve top attainable velocity for a given case volume. For instance look at the case used for the 7mm Rem mag, 338 Win mag and 458 Win mag all I believe on the same case. When at 7mm a long barrel is required to reach the magnum velocities. When at 338 caliber the expansion ratio goes up so the 26" barrel is not needed and a 22" barrel will get there. Increase expansion ratio further still to the 458 and your there with a 20" barrel. Also consider that the smaller the bore diameter for any given case volume the slower the powder burn rate that will be optimum. As bore diameter increases so does expansion ratio and so in turn the optimum powder burn rate must get faster. So with that you can see that in the larger calibers the powder burn rate is fast enough that long barrels are not required for full powder consumption.
To try and explain expansion ratio it is the ratio of internal volume per unit of length. In other words a one inch length of 7mm barrel has far les volume than a one inch length of 458 barrel. This is why as caliber goes up so must the powder burn rate get faster because it requires a faster gas production rate to maintain pressure in a larger area of volume in an equal amount of time in milliseconds.
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Post by grasshopper on Aug 26, 2021 22:06:40 GMT -7
Honestly perfect! Think I understand as well as I can at this point anyway! Thank you for the brilliant and succinct description and explanation!
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Post by Bullshop on Aug 27, 2021 6:16:29 GMT -7
Albert Einstein once said that if you cant explain something it means that you don't really understand it.
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Post by grasshopper on Aug 27, 2021 7:56:07 GMT -7
It just made perfect sense to me after you explained it the way you did I suppose. My takeaway from what you said is basically the bigger the bore the less critical barrel length becomes. I also think if Eisenstein is the one that said that if you can’t explain a subject you really don’t understand it was absolutely correct!
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