Super User Way2slow Posted January 5, 2020 Super User Posted January 5, 2020 My dilemma is I want to put a new barrel on my 6mm, 788 Remington I bought new for $66 and the new barrel I want to put on it is over $500. I loaded up 12 bullets that’s the same load it has always shot, took it out today and shot four three shot groups. The first one from a cold, clean barrel, two bullets were overlapped a little, the other was just under those two and had about 1/8” space between it and the other. The other three groups had all three bullets touching or overlapped. I bought the rifle in 1968 for $66 in Left Hand action (I’m a south paw) and $12 for a 3x9 Tasco scope and they gave me a box of bullets. I wanted something cheap to keep in a gun rack I had in the roof of my Bronco. I put the scope on it, zeroed it in about five shots and in the gun rack is where it went. Other than when I took it down to shoot something, it stayed there for three years. Was still using that box of bullets they gave me with it until so one day I decided to develop a load for it. Right off the bat the thing was amazingly accurate so I decided to make it even better. I had lapped the barrel. Then I pillar post and glass bedded the action and free floated the barrel and work up a very accurate load with 44 grains of IMR4350 and 85gr, boat tail hollow points target bullets. I always shot everything in the head so being target bullets didn’t matter, the head still exploded. When I say “very accurate” I mean just that, the thing was consistently shooting one hole, three shot groups, all most unheard of back then, even for a high dollar target rifle. Fast forward a few years, in 1990 while I was station overseas. I had left my guns at my parent’s house and my dad had let a friend of his use my 788 and sometime after I got back I went to run an oil patch down the barrel and it came out with rust. One area about three inches long had some significant rust, made me sick. The thought of the barrel being in that condition has always bothered me so I finally decided I was going to put a new barrel on it, even though I don’t use the rifle anymore, but it has a ton of sentimental value to me. I rarely use it because of the left hand action. Even though I’m left handed, every bolt action rifle I’ve ever used other than that one has been right handed and I’m just a whole lot better and more comfortable with a right hand action than a with a left. The thing is, even being a rust bucket, the thing shoots so dang good, the new barrel may not even shoot as good as the one that’s on it, but it bugs the h*** out of me it being rusted. Quote
SuperDuty Posted January 30, 2020 Posted January 30, 2020 If the rust is only on the inside of the barrel and it still shoots good, leave it alone for now. Neutralize the rust and just keep your eye on it. If it shoots as good as you're saying, you very well may be disappointed with a new barrel. Quote
Super User Way2slow Posted January 30, 2020 Author Super User Posted January 30, 2020 Oh, it still shoots very good, that's the problem. Every time I look at it and think I really need to go ahead and order a new barrel, I take it out and shoot a three shot group with it. When it prints a 1" group @ 300 yards it makes me change my mind, and yea, the fact that a new barrel may not shoot as good as the barrel that's on is the main reason I haven't replaced it. The rust has been there for over 30 years that I know of, but it's just my nature of being that frigging perfectionist, and just knowing it's there that bothers me. Truth be known it's probably been in there since it lived in the roof of my Bronco it's first six years and was seldom taken down except to shoot and cleaned maybe once a year or so until 1975. It stayed in that gun rack so long, the rubber on the gun rack it was in melted into the finish on the stock. Several years ago I stripped and refinished it with an oil finish that looks nice. It's just when I get bored with what I'm doing, I look at it and think, that's something that needs done. Since I've converted over to mostly using the 260, it seldom gets used, and will is not likely to get used by me, but I still like the old thing and would never get rid of it. Quote
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