A search for a vintage Remington Model 12 slide action 22 rimfire rifle was underway at Real Guns™. Unfortunately, examples fell into one of three categories: retrieved from the bottom of an ocean, sanded slick and refinished to look flawlessly new and/or so expensive I’d be classified a dilettante if I purchased one… along with anyone who ever bought a Blaser. No, not a Chevy Blazer… Forget it.
In any event, the point is that I wanted to find a slide action rifle that smacked of tradition; satin and matte versus walnut dipped in plastic and bluing polished to a mirror like finish. Distraught, despondent and disillusioned by my gun auction exploration failure, I was sitting at my desk and thumbing through a stack of firearm catalogs, when I ran across the Model 7600 listed in a satin finish version and chambered for the .270 Winchester and the 30-06 Springfield cartridges. A quick coin toss… then a second… then a third and the 30-06 Springfield was the winner. Kismet!
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Looking at the Model 7600, the Model 14 of 1912’s lineage is obvious. The current satin finish Model 7600 is actually an elegant firearm. Great lines, functional and clean, well finished, not austere, but not ostentatious.
The rifle has a Monte Carlo comb, but no cheek piece and more drop at the comb and heel than a Model 700. The geometry suits open sights but the rifle also feels… right with a scope in place.
There are no swivel studs. The gun’s checkering is clean and there are no spammy displays of corporate identity. The satin finish polymer forend and grip caps are a conservative touch and this gun’s walnut actually has a lot of personality with noticeable contrasting grain and figure.
Routine service…
The Model 7600 is cleaned from the muzzle end, after the magazine has been removed, the chamber checked for empty. The chamber is cleaned through the ejection port.
The trigger plate assembly is removed for cleaning by closing the action, assuring that the safety is on, pushing out the front and rear trigger plate pins, and pulling the trigger plate assembly free of the gun. This is the extend of tear down recommended by Remington and sufficient to keep the gun clean. The rest of the gun’s disassembly is not difficult, but it is not covered in the manual and I am sure Remington has their reasons.
Other stuff…
The Remington Model 7600 bolt lugs lock up in a barrel extension rather than to the gun’s receiver as is the case with the Model 700 bolt action rifle. This is actually a very good mechanical design to assure a high degree of accuracy because the breech face is always square to the gun’s bore and part of the barrel harmonics. I’ve seen this with the Remington Model 770 and I have seen this with AR15 and AR10 type firearms. The other design element that helps the Model 7600’s accuracy is a full floating barrel and enough forearm isolation to assure no change in point of impact when shooting from a rest or a handhold..
Where the Model 760, like the model 750, utilizes an interrupted screw type locking lug arrangement, the Model 7600 uses a more conventional single row four lug system. So it isn’t the action bar assembly holding the action closed, it a heavy duty set of locking lugs that provide at least as much, of not more strength than a bolt action rifle. Yes, I did notice the absence of any reference to the name “Gamemaster”.
Scope mounting is straight forward… which is probably a good thing when mounting a scope. For this project I installed a set of Warnes two piece bases, Brownell‘s # 947-000-182. The only issue with this set up is that the rings are close together, although there is plenty of room to set the sight for comfortable eye relief.
Interesting. Nice butt plate, hard plastic retro look on a 30-06 Springfield. I know it left an impression on me, in several places. Actually it isn’t that bad, but I think people get so use to referencing the cartridge as a threshold to mild that when they get bang around a little by recoil, they develop and instant respect. The Model 7600 is relatively light, it’s pretty loud and it bucks just a tad. I think it needs a recoil pad.
And, yes, it does shoot…
I didn’t want my handloading antics to alter the outcome of live fire assessment of the Remington Model 7600, so I went with 150 and 180 grain Remington Core Lokt factory ammo that cranked out, respectively, 2,921 fps and 2,685 fps of muzzle velocity.
Those are two groups, not one…
I did not shoot hundred yard groups. I was predisposed to thinking the gun was going to spray 2″ groups because it is a pump action rifle and… well, it shows you what I know. But I did shoot fifty yard groups so, with a little imagination, I think we can extrapolate and get a fix on hundred yard accuracy.
With the cross hairs laser aligned to the bullseye, and with the cross hairs splitting it up and across, I shot the lower three shot 150 grain group of 0.4″ and assumed it defined the word “tiny” then shot the 180 grain group. Point of impact shifted about 0.9″ and the group size shrank to 0.25″. Pressure from the rest against the gun’s forearm apparently had no impact on accuracy and the group size for these loads is typical of the morning range session.
The gun is easy to shoot. Actuation is smooth and there is a lot of camming force, by design, behind ejection. I know, I was the one who had to crawl around the floor collecting empties. The gun is fast shooting offhand and it’s nice to have a detachable magazine for both loading and unloading the gun. The only issue I encountered was the long reach to the forearm, twenty seven inches to the center of the checkered panel compared to twenty three inches for the average bolt action rifle. Considering the pump stroke on this long action is four and one quarter inches, I don’t think there is much that can be done to reduce the reach to the forearm. No a significant problem at any rate. Overall, nice gun, good shooter and good looking.
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