WB
In the late 70's I fell into a good deal
Wednesday, December 04, 2019, 09:02

On a Remington Montana State commemorative 600 Remington. It had a medallion in the stock and the radical looking plastic vent rib etc. It had already been hunted with and no box. The caliber was 6mm Remington (the only chambering of that run). So I got a Lee tap-tap-bang reloader kit and made my own ammo. The thing shot fantastic and while my buddies laughed at the looks, it worked. Sold it to Doug's dad and they made it the new meat gun. It stacked a pile of deer for the freezer.

Later I had a custom "working" M98 Mauser built up by a local smith. Ordering the barrel I wanted a .257 Ackley but calling the order in they were fresh out of .25 barrels. But they had them in .243 bore diameter. I had a stainless fluted .243 Win. built. It shot great for 2-3 shots then went to crap. I never was happy with it. Sent it to another smith who did a simple re-chamber to 6mm Ackley and nothing else. It did the same thing. Taking matters into my own I found the A&B barrels, particularly the stainless ones like I had were notorious for having rough bores. I bought one of the "fire lap" kits to test. Same principle as hand lapping but more fun. It worked! The badly rough bore suddenly smoothed and it shoots like a champ. The lapping only helps a bad rough bore in dramatic fashion. If your bore is pretty good you won't see much improvement.

The M98 feeds 6mm Remington factory butter smooth but switching to formed Ackley with blown straight sides and sharp shoulder it is a little cobby feeding. Makes sense. I'm sure a really good smith could stone this to improvement but I don't know anyone to do it. Guess I'll have to teach myself. The little Ackley can shoot the bullets too fast, 3500-3800 fps for 85 gr., 105's over 3300 fps. Throttling back some is lots more pleasant and I do not want to shoot the throat out.

I did fall into a trade on a Ruger Stls. MKII in .243 Win. with rings and the skeleton stock with rubber inserts. Why, oh why did I sell it?!! It was a gem. They command stupid prices now days, much more than they are worth to old coots that have the money, and by golly just want one. For some reason, some folks refer to them a "Boat Paddle" stocked Rugers.

I'm keeping my 6mm "Blue Gun". While I have a second laminated thumbhole sporter stock for it I like the shock effect of walking around with a Blue stocked gun. It has a Timney Trigger, MKII safety, and is Glass bedded, floated barrel. I've since changed out the Buehler mounts to little taller ring set, for more scope options. You know I like to be different.