Remington's Model 597™ VTR™ A-Tacs® CS

If you look very closely to the left of this text you’ll see a Remington Model 597™ VTR™ A-Tacs® CS. I put the gun down while setting up for photography and it took almost an hour to find it. Now that’s camouflage. What lies beneath the nicely done A-Tacs® camo exterior is a heavy barrel target version of the Model 597.

The VTR™ comes with an 0.825″ heavy 16″ barrel with a target crown. The ten shot magazine fits close in to the receiver and is released with a large sliding button located just above the gun’s trigger guard. Thirty round magazines are also available through Remington and aftermarket suppliers for less than $20 that will support serious plinking. The gun’s bolt stays open on empty to facilitate reloading. The Picatinny rail is affixed to the top of the 597’s receiver with three socket head screws and may be removed to expose the conventionally grooved receiver. Either can be used for scope or other form of optical sight mounting. The gun has a clean barrel, so no metallic sights.

The Pardus A2-style pistol-grip stock easily adjusts the gun’s pull length from 10.5″ to 14.25″ in four incremental steps. The squeeze release latch is positive in lock up and the stock feels stabile in any position. A front sling swivel stud is located on the barrel handguard. There is a recess for an aft swivel on the buttstock, however, the actual hardware is not supplied with the rifle. This is a standard AR part and available from Brownells.

Some of the subassemblies…

With the side plates removed, top, the Model 597 beneath is exposed. In the lower part of the photo at the major assembly groups. Take down is accomplished by removing twelve side plate screws and one Allen head fastener for each major component. The receiver block and handguard are removed as one piece, however, the disassembly guide did not mention the presence of a rubber handguard bushing that fits tightly between the handguard and barrel. The receiver block came off with a little wiggling, held into place by the rubber fore-end extension. Reinstallation was accomplished by coating the inside of the extension with dry powder white lube.

Much of the Remington Model 597’s accuracy is attributed to the twin tool steel guide rods and bolt buffering systems. These pieces keep the bolt in alignment with the rifle’s bore over the length of its travel and dampens bolt travel when coming full open after extraction and ejection are completed.

Good shooter…

It dawned on me, while I was fishing around for a scope in my landslide of an optics storage cabinet, that a Burris FastFire II dot sight might be a good choice for the Model 597. Mounted directly to the Picatinny rail and quickly sighted in, the FastFire did an excellent job at twenty five yards, slow or rapid fire. This is a really easy combination to shoot; easy to hold on target and quiet even for a rimfire. The Model 597 also didn’t seem very fussy about ammo.

CCI Mini-Mag copper plated 40 grain ammo, Remington – Eley and Remington 22 Subsonic shot about the same, consistently putting five shots, or ten for that matter, into smaller than a half inch and evenly dispersed groups. The worst spread came from Remington Yellow Jacket and Winchester TIN hyper velocity ammo with both shooting just under an inch, again, at twenty five yards. Rapid rate of fire, at least rapid fire for me, didn’t expand the groups very much as the heavy barrel anchored the muzzle in place and the action cycling was very smooth. And yes, for as much as I tried not to admit it, blasting away with a rimfire autoloading rifle that looks battle ready is a lot of fun… and a lot of inexpensive. Yes, I really did write that.

The VTR™ cycled and fed cleanly regardless rate of fire, mixture of ammo, or even if it was shot upside down… literally. That is excellent reliability for a rim fire. Parts stayed tight, the button rifled bore didn’t foul and the side plates stayed on at all times. The only thing I could not do was load ten rounds into the gun’s magazine. Nine was tops, regardless brand or load and I am willing to defer to the specs as the correct capacity number although I hardly missed the one round is a thousand round day.

The stock, any AR type stock, takes a little getting use to for people with a neck and a natural inclination for stock with drop at the comb. But once familiarized with this arrangement the gun is quick to the shoulder and quick to get on target. Nice little gun that puts the fun back into owning and shooting a rim fire.