My Christmas present

Hopefully, Santa was good to you this past Christmas. I am hard to buy for, so several years ago, my wife and I made a deal about presents. We would either tell the other exactly what we wanted, or we would just go ahead and buy the present for ourselves. Since most of the stuff I was interested in was outdoors oriented, my wife usually didn’t know specifically what I was talking about. It became easier for me to just buy for myself.

On that note, I bought a replacement/upgrade laminated rifle stock this past Christmas for one of the rifles I own. The rifle is a Remington model 788 in 22-250 caliber, which I bought new back in the late 1970’s. I was working for Fish and Game and was stationed in the Dillingham area. I happened to be in Anchorage for a meeting and stopped by a gun shop just to look around.

I had been thinking about getting a “varmint” rifle for hunting foxes and coyotes or an occasional wolf but hadn’t intended to buy one on this trip. As it turned out, I found a new, but slightly damaged rifle in the gun rack. The stock had a couple of fairly deep “dings” in the wood near the buttplate but was still quite serviceable. As I recall, the shop had slightly discounted the gun because of the stock damage. We negotiated a fair price, and I bought the rifle.

The Remington model 788 bolt-action rifle was the entry level centerfire rifle at that time in the Remington lineup. It was their “less expensive” bolt-action compared to the various versions of the model 700 then being produced. While some might call the 788 a “cheap” rifle, I always thought of it as “inexpensive.” It had a reputation for fine out-of-the-box accuracy. My rifle will shoot half-inch or smaller three-shot groups (good hunting rifle accuracy) off a bench at one hundred yards with ammo it likes, and it’s not too fussy about the ammo.

After I got the rifle back home, a friend stopped by to visit. I showed him the firearm. He immediately congratulated me on buying the finest caribou hunting caliber in existence. He said I couldn’t have done better in buying a rifle for shooting caribou at long distances, which is common when caribou hunting. When I asked what he meant, he talked about shooting the caribou in the head – no wasted meat and no tracking of the animal.

I didn’t say anything to him at the time but thought there was no way I would go caribou hunting with that rifle. With the vast improvements in hunting bullet technology over the past forty+ years, I could possibly consider using that caliber now.

Okay, so what was this great new stock I bought? A company named Boyd’s, located in South Dakota I believe, has been producing rifle and shotgun stocks for the industry and for retail sale through their website for many years. I have bought several from them to upgrade some inexpensive single-shot rifles and shotguns I have. I had bought a similar stock to assemble a bolt-action rimfire rifle I wanted to build, and the stock was a true “drop-in” fit as the company advertised.

The barrel channel is free floated for best accuracy and the front action screw is pillar bedded. This 22-250 stock also was a drop-in fit. I have not shot it with the new stock yet, but fully expect it to shoot the same as before.

I have an older Weaver 3 x 9 widefield-style scope mounted on it with Weaver base and rings. I transferred the sling from the other stock and have added a bipod to the forearm that allows shooting from a seated position. Most of the ammo I have fired through this rifle has been handloaded.

I got some loading “recipes” from articles in shooting magazines which were written by a well-respected gun writer at the time. Over time, I found out the powder amounts were beyond the maximum levels recommended by industry-standard reloading manuals. I backed off the heavy loads and will only be shooting reloading manual recommended loads.

Something I experienced while shooting these heavy loads with light-for-caliber bullets was something I never have seen before or since. I was shooting for groups at one hundred yards and no bullet holes appeared on the target. I didn’t think I missed but, instead, had seen a gray “mist” downrange while shooting. The bullets were disintegrating in flight!