Last week I hit a few local gun shops and pawn shops looking for a used Remington 700 short action anything. None to be had, the Colorado School of Trades students bag every one that shows up for sale or trade in . I swear they net work with each other covering Denver and get them all before they are put up for resale. Lots of long actions though from reasonable to ridiculous prices. I thought "whats wrong with putting together a LA silhouette hunter gun? " I came across this Remington Sportsman 78 in .30-06 in excellent shape mechanically and cosmetically though the cheap birch wood stock had plenty of dings,dents and scratches. I paid $250.00 out the door, not too bad of a price. It is nothing more than a 700 with out the cosmetic up grade to keep the cost down. This model took the place of the discontinued 788 and was made only from 1984 to 88. This ones mfg. date code was March 1984.

I took it entirely apart, removed the iron sighted barrel and cleaned it thoroughly. There was dried up animal blood down inside the safety side of the action, some one got lucky in the past. The bolt handle was a little rusty so it got stripped of blue and polished up instead. The black aluminum trigger guard was badly scratched so it got bead blasted and left natural. The stock was stripped of its original finish and all the damage was filled in with epoxy and sanded smooth. The swivel studs were installed by some one that was blind in one eye and couldn't see out of the other. They were removed and the misplaced crooked holes filled ,too. I got a spray can of Rust Oleum exterior lawn furniture paint and put on 75% of the can in 10 thin coats. Two days later it got four coats of Minwax satin polyurethane for better scratch resistance. I took one of my factory SPS take off barrels and spun the corn cob rough finish off and re-blued it to match the action. Then at the last minute I decided to install a satin take off with a 1200 round count instead. It screwed right on with a .002 over go gage fit. I will save that new one for my next project. I tuned and adjusted the factory trigger to a crisp 2.5 lbs. Even though the long action is 7/8ths. (.875) longer that a short action that 7-08 round does not look lost sitting on the follower. All five rounds feed normally to the chamber. For those interested the action and bolt only on the long action weighs exactly 29 oz. The exact weight of short action and bolt only is 25.6 oz. , a 3.4 oz. difference.

That barrel shot well on another rifle. I will rob a Leupold off another gun and take it out for a test drive soon. http://s766.photobucket.com/albums/xx30 ... /rem%2078/

Nice!

As usual Bob... Beautiful work & looks great

(Bet you could double your money now ;) )

Smooth, very smooth. You're right, that 7-08 cartridge looks nice and comfy in there.

I see you were working upside down again Guru. The roll stamp gave it away.

Trent wrote:I see you were working upside down again Guru. The roll stamp gave it away.

I wondered why the barrel was on upside down, but figured it might be a loaner for Daisy...

Bob,

Yet another nice project!

The only thing I might have considered doing differently would be to have built up the cheek piece before painting the stock. The Remington cheek pieces are just too low to suit me.

The long actions usually feed better than the short actions anyway.

Cheers,

Rick

BCloninger wrote:

Trent wrote:I see you were working upside down again Guru. The roll stamp gave it away.

I wondered why the barrel was on upside down, but figured it might be a loaner for Daisy...

If I can ever make it back to the old country for a shoot I would be more then happy to shoot it

Daisy

Rick, true classic stocks with no cheek piece fit me well. I love 'em.

Look me up when your in town Daisy, I got plenty of loaners (7-08's of course) to choose from. This one now wears a used new condition M8-12X Leupold with knobs and dual X reticle. The perfect plinker-practice rifle.

Lucky you, Bob. (Absolutely no sarcasm.) I would not go so far as to say I can't shoot a classic stock, but they are a problem for me to get any cheek pressure at all. It's good to have choices.

With that scope on it, the rifle should do double duty as a silhouette rifle and a "meat getter" nicely.

OK..time to fess up. I got weak and sold the Sportsman 78 last week. A guy at work needed an elk rifle for his kid and asked me if I had a used gun he could buy.

I pulled the 7-08 barrel off the 78 and re installed the original .30-06 barrel, put it in an older semi beat up pressed checkering ADL stock. I installed a new cheap 3-9x Bushnell and got a 200 yd. zero with it for him last weekend. I tossed in a used sling, a wally world camo zip case and 20 rounds of a 180 gr. Sierra hand load to get the lad started. Dad told me junior loves it and can't wait to kill something with it. I made enough profit to nearly buy that used 12X Leupold outright. What 12X you say? The one I got cheap off Gunsamerica last week. It now resides on another nice 1974 700 LA I picked up cheap last week and stuffed back into the custom green paint job stock I did. This is getting confusing even for me. I put the satin 7-08 barrel on that one and the marking ended up in the channel out of sight. I have not had a chance to fire it yet.

Oh yeah....I picked up a 1980 .270 BDL cheap that was badly in need of stock refinishing.(I have used the word "cheap" 4 times...but they were!!) The metal was real nice. Off with the .270 tube and on with that re done SPS 7-08 barrel. The marking ended upside down again. The DuPont RKW wood epoxy was a real bitch to remove, but the CitriStrip gel did a fairly good job of softening it for easy scraping.

The funky white spacers on the buttplate and grip cap had shrunken too bad to replace, would have been ugly. I trashed them, still looks OK. The fore end one is a permanent glue on so I left it alone. I sprayed on 12 thin coats of Minwax semi gloss polyurethane on the stock with the checkering covered, then two over the checkering only. I think it looks a lot better than that ultra high gloss finish that Remington puts on their BDL's. I found out that I won another M8 12x on Gunbroker today and it will go on this one. Here are some more pictures. Another choice for ya Daisy...you too Mr.259 http://s766.photobucket.com/albums/xx30 ... 0%20x%202/

Gosh, Bob,

That's very nice work. I guess spraying the Minwax must be easier than painting with a brush, sanding and repeating forever. Are you using an airbrush or just what?

The kid got an elk stopping machine. It is nice that he appreciates what his father, and you, did to get him ready for the hunt.

Rick

That must have take Bob 2 or 3 hours to type up!

That is a good looking .270 to 7-08 conversion there Bob.

Your not far off Trent, took me about an hour. I am getting faster.

Rick, all it took was a $7.50 spray can and the skill to use it. I put on a no fuss or frills protective finish, two in between steel wool scrubs and its good enough for my taste.

Bob Mc Alice wrote:Trent, I tore up the adoption papers. I was going to suprise you soon.

Rick, all it took was a $7.50 spray can and the skill to use it. I put on a no fuss or frills protective finish, two in between steel wool scrubs and its good enough for my taste.

Bob

One stock I tried Minwax out of a can with was really my fault for trying to work in conditions that were too cold for it to flow well without thinning it out a lot. I did a conventional oil finish and got a decent egg shell finish which is probably what you got with this stock.

Thanks,

Rick

Bob, I am the one that you should adopt. Leave Trent to deal with his own shortcomings!

Nice collection of 7's you are building up.

Innocent