thegreatmodel8.remingtonsociety.com

5 or 6 years ago on a hunting trip to Maine, a pit stop at LL Bean had me looking over an odd rifle I had never seen before. During the remainder of my drive I spent time researching exactly what that rifle was. Since that day I knew I had to have my own 81 Woodsmaster and bring her back to Maine to hunt the big woods again.

I've been biding my time, looking at every shop and Cabelas around, as well as online. As scarce as they are around me, every single one I found seemed to be overpriced, so I decided I would have to roll the dice and buy online sight unseen to get a reasonable deal. Which I did this month and just picked her up!

Last year of production, 1950, made in August, barrel code WWW. High serial, over 56000. Metal is in fine condition with no extra holes. Wood has some amateur level checkering added- someone's teacher didn't make them color inside the lines! And an added older recoil pad. As far as chips or scratches it is in good condition. I plan to strip the varnish and fix the checkering and perhaps add a nice older red Silvers recoil pad. I think that would look classy with a hand rubbed BLO finish. Oh yeah, it's chambered in 300SAV!

Bore is great, internals are pretty gunked up. Job for the gunsmith- I dare not get in over my head disassembling such a special gun to me. Can't wait to prowl the woods with it again, just like the gun deserves! Promise to add some photos today.

Here she is, any comments from the experts welcomed!

Nice find in a great hunting caliber! Congratulations.

Beautiful blue on that 81! I'd love to see the checking too!

Gents I hate to say this but there is something that comes pretty close to a well kept woman??
A well kept rifle!!! It is Sunday thought I should spread a little gospel.
SB

Beautiful! As"incorrect" as that pad is you will appreciate it on the bench! My 81 is the same year/caliber! Congratulations on a great find. Best, Thomas.

81 police, here is what the checkering looks like. Ok from a couple feet away, but not so good up close. One interesting find appears to be a slight outward bulge at the top of the receiver near the hump back. Very slight and hard to capture with a photo but I did my best. Any ideas?

Metal issue as described above...

Hey the checkering isn't bad, I bet after you "touch up" it'll be very functional. The stock grip panel has a factoryish look to it so that's tasteful.

THE BULGE: I can't imagine a bulge (from the inside out) on the humpback of a 8/81 receiver being made without significant stress/recoil internally. It's almost as if the velocity of the recoiling bolt carrier wasn't reduced enough before striking the back of the "hump". If the rifle were mine, I'd absolutely inspect the internals. The compression of the heavy buffer spring and to a degree the action spring in the stock are intended to reduce the velocity of the bolt carrier. I think it would be very wise to inspect the action entirely for wear/stress/damage. Just my 2 cents, I errrr on the side of the caution. Maybe S&S HUNT CLUB can chime in with their thoughts???

I'm right there with you, this gun won't be shot until it's been stripped to the bones by a smith. That would have happened even without the bulge.

I too thought something could be worn out internally and allowing 'overtravel', but the pristine bore and 1950 build date don't support that. But then again, one never knows the history of an old gun!

MackLegacy wrote: But then again, one never knows the history of an old gun!

That's exactly right!

If you don't have a smith schooled on long recoil guns, please refer them to the page below for disassembly videos. I say this because the outside of your rifle is too pristine and can EASILY be boogered up by a gunsmith not taking it slow. I say this in relation to having those beautiful factory receiver screws boogered as well as when removing the safety lever and having it scratch the receiver. Caution there!

http://thegreatmodel8.remingtonsociety.com/?page_id=842

Mack,
The checkering can easily be cleaned by an experienced person.
What I wonder is how to tell if the gun has 300 savage recoil springs or 30 Rem recoil spring.
My guess is ,it has the wrong recoil spring and buffer.
Jim C
Ps, I just bought my first Remington auto last week . Its a Model 8 made in the 30s.
Just shot it yesterday. Its a 35 and was surprisingly pleasant to shoot.

I'm expecting finding parts to be an adventure of its own. While the gunsmith has it all torn apart I might as well replace the recoil and buffer spring anyway. Naturally the places who no longer carry the parts actually call out different springs for different calibers. And the one place who claims to have parts doesn't differentiate by caliber...not good! And nobody seems to have action springs!

I've learned through the Numrich website that a 300sav or 32/35rem buffer spring will measure over 2" with lesser calibers being under 2". It appears the recoil springs differ too, but I haven't been able to find the way to tell one from the other yet.

Before I changed any springs I'd inspect the existing springs first. They may be OK. This could be the case of repeated shooting of "hot" loads, or something else. I'm curious to see if the gunsmith finds anything (in the barrel assembly especially!) damanged, deformed, mushroomed, etc.