A good friend of mine handed me this rifle and asked If I could make it go bang again. It seems a young man that we have been coaching in football for the past few years is going to get a chance to go elk hunting. This young man has no father and a pretty rough family life. He has drawn a cow elk tag and my friend has offered to take him. The gun is a Remington 740 built in the early 50s. I don't have a lot of experience with auto loaders except ARs and shotguns but in looking over the 740 it looked a lot like an 1100. It was my friend's grandfather's gun and hadn't been fired in 10 years and the last time out failed to cycle the second round. Sounds like fun .......right?
I brought it home and looked up an owner's manual on line and went to work. The 740 was never meant to be completely broken down. The owner's manual even said that full disassembly should be done by a competent gunsmith :shock: . I pulled the forearm, trigger mechanism and magazine out and that's where the manual said to stop. In the later 742 and 7400 there is a nut that can be removed that lets the bolt be removed from the action. The 740 needs a specialized spanner. I made my own out of some bar stock using a grinder and file work. I removed the gas tube and spring and the spanner nut. This allowed me to break the gun down completely. The insides of this gun were a mess. Hardened grease, carbon, dirt and some rust (but nothing to serious) were encrusted on the internals. All the small parts went into the sonic cleaner for a double cycle and I went to work with brushes and solvent on the rest. The barrel was clean of carbon fouling but the copper fouling was terrible. Once everything was down to metal I treated all the internals with a dry/lube rust preventative and then lightly oiled moving parts and a little grease in the heavy wear points. Then I had to put it all back together............It went smoother than expected. The first reassembly is usually a trial for me.
You probably are all wondering why I'm doing this. I thought of just loaning him one of my guns but the young man is left handed and we're both normal :grin:. I got the gun back together and it's running very smoothly. I made some dummies and they cycle well. I mounted an extra scope and sling that I had and loaded up some pressure loads working up to full book load for the 30-06.
I'll be loading IMR4350 and 165gr NABs up to see if it'll shoot'em. Should make a decent elk load for a 15 year old young man and 60 year old rifle. I'll be sighting in and load testing tomorrow.
Scott
I brought it home and looked up an owner's manual on line and went to work. The 740 was never meant to be completely broken down. The owner's manual even said that full disassembly should be done by a competent gunsmith :shock: . I pulled the forearm, trigger mechanism and magazine out and that's where the manual said to stop. In the later 742 and 7400 there is a nut that can be removed that lets the bolt be removed from the action. The 740 needs a specialized spanner. I made my own out of some bar stock using a grinder and file work. I removed the gas tube and spring and the spanner nut. This allowed me to break the gun down completely. The insides of this gun were a mess. Hardened grease, carbon, dirt and some rust (but nothing to serious) were encrusted on the internals. All the small parts went into the sonic cleaner for a double cycle and I went to work with brushes and solvent on the rest. The barrel was clean of carbon fouling but the copper fouling was terrible. Once everything was down to metal I treated all the internals with a dry/lube rust preventative and then lightly oiled moving parts and a little grease in the heavy wear points. Then I had to put it all back together............It went smoother than expected. The first reassembly is usually a trial for me.
You probably are all wondering why I'm doing this. I thought of just loaning him one of my guns but the young man is left handed and we're both normal :grin:. I got the gun back together and it's running very smoothly. I made some dummies and they cycle well. I mounted an extra scope and sling that I had and loaded up some pressure loads working up to full book load for the 30-06.
I'll be loading IMR4350 and 165gr NABs up to see if it'll shoot'em. Should make a decent elk load for a 15 year old young man and 60 year old rifle. I'll be sighting in and load testing tomorrow.
Scott