Remington 788
The client asked me to perform a deep clean and inspect on this .243 Remington 788 bolt action rifle. The rifle had not been fired in awhile, so priority was making sure it is safe and reliable. By the barrel stamp, it appears to have been made in 1971.
As received, this rifle is in pretty good shape. I did not have to do much to clean it up, it apparently was cleaned and put away whenever it was last fired. The bolt, chamber, and action cleaned up quickly.
The barrel has some scratches on it, nothing significant or unexpected for a rifle of this age. The front sight had some scuffs and what looked like white paint transfers. The stock was dirty, with only a couple of wear spots.
The bolt was also pretty clean, at least on the outside. Internally, the firing pin and spring were pretty gunky, as was the ejector and ejector spring. I suspect the bolt had not been torn down and cleaned for quite awhile.
The only problem I ran into is the screw that holds the trigger block to the receiver. These Remingtons have an aluminum trigger block attached to the steel receiver with a small steel screw that is staked in place. In theory one should be able to unscrew the screw, push out a pin, and remove the trigger block for complete disassembly. The staking on the screw will make it more difficult to remove, but not impossible if one uses the right tools and techniques. Unfortunately this rifle is also suffering from a bit of galvanic corrosion around the screw, making it even more challenging. The screw had already been damaged by someone trying to get it out, so I elected to leave the trigger block in place as I did not want to risk stripping out the screw head and making this clean and inspect a much more involved job.
The trigger and safety functioned perfectly, so I elected to run the entire assembly through a cycle in my ultrasonic cleaner and oil bath to clean it out. Fifteen minutes at 50°C seems to have cleaned it out well.
I was surprised to find that the stock had been bedded. There are spots of epoxy bedding around the receiver and the recoil lug recess. Some of the epoxy had overflowed onto the outside of the stock towards the forend. I could sand or scrape this epoxy off, but in all honesty I would recommend leaving it as you have to hold the stock just right in the light to see it. Unless the client wants to refinish the stock, I would just leave this as is.
I cleaned the stock and hand buffed it with a light wax, I think it turned out well. I polished the barrel to remove corrosion and make it shine again.
Reassembly was straight forward. The safety works as expected, as does the extractor and ejector. Firing pin protrusion was measured at 0.062", headspace at less than 0.002", and trigger pull is crisp at 3.7 lbs average.
This rifle functioned perfectly when test fired. Extraction and ejection were both strong and very positive. I was shooting it at only 25 yards, and not taking careful aim as i was most interested in function, not accuracy. That said, the resulting shot group was very tight, around 0.375 in.
This Remington is ready to go back to the client. It is a fun and reliable rifle that should serve well in the field or woods for many more decades. It was a pleasure getting to work on it!
Some more photos.....
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