Jaywalker
October 12, 2003, 09:34 AM
Well, I didn't mean to do it. I went in looking for something that I could shoot more easily than my six-pound Ruger M77 RL .270 - which stock shape, weight, whatever, beats me up off the bench, so I don't practice as much as I should. I figured a nice short action, moderate cartridge would be just the ticket.
You know, like a Browning A-Bolt II Hunter, which has the tang safety I like, and no black fore-end tip. Or maybe the Remington 700 BDL, which has the hated black fore-end tip, but whose stock fits me (as somebody here said recently) "like God put it there." I'd kind of ruled out Winchester - the M70 Featherweight was, well, garish, with its faux-schnabel fore-end, and its odd checkering. The M70 Classic LT had an attractive stock, but at eight pounds was too heavy to be needed with my selected calibers, the newish .260, or the 7mm-08. Additionally, it had a slightly longer than I like pull length. Clearly, the Winchesters were OUT.
Let me introduce you to my new Winchester M70 Classic LT in .300 Winchester Magnum. I bought it yesterday. It's my first Winchester, my first magnum, and with a 26" barrel, my first rifle barrel over 22 inches. I don't know what to say - I've never bought a rifle on emotion before. I saw it first about a month or so ago at my local gun store and haven't really stopped thinking about it since then. It didn't matter that I meant to come out of the store with a Browning or a Remington.
This piece just kind of sang to me. It's gorgeous; slim, with really nice inletting, polishing, checkering, and a pretty good pice of wood, with a little firguring in it. It's hard to describe the complete effect. When I got it home, my wife suggested I hang it on the wall as art rather than hiding it in a gunsafe.
It also didn't matter that the rifle is essentially useless to me. I have nothing here in Virginia that will take all of that power, and any hunting trip that would need it would give me plenty of time to work up a new rifle, so that wasn't it. I just had to have it, and no substitutes.
P1K? That's my "Posleen at 1000 meters" rifle, with apologies to author John Ringo, and I guess I'm now set for an alien invasion of northern Virginia.
Jaywalker
You know, like a Browning A-Bolt II Hunter, which has the tang safety I like, and no black fore-end tip. Or maybe the Remington 700 BDL, which has the hated black fore-end tip, but whose stock fits me (as somebody here said recently) "like God put it there." I'd kind of ruled out Winchester - the M70 Featherweight was, well, garish, with its faux-schnabel fore-end, and its odd checkering. The M70 Classic LT had an attractive stock, but at eight pounds was too heavy to be needed with my selected calibers, the newish .260, or the 7mm-08. Additionally, it had a slightly longer than I like pull length. Clearly, the Winchesters were OUT.
Let me introduce you to my new Winchester M70 Classic LT in .300 Winchester Magnum. I bought it yesterday. It's my first Winchester, my first magnum, and with a 26" barrel, my first rifle barrel over 22 inches. I don't know what to say - I've never bought a rifle on emotion before. I saw it first about a month or so ago at my local gun store and haven't really stopped thinking about it since then. It didn't matter that I meant to come out of the store with a Browning or a Remington.
This piece just kind of sang to me. It's gorgeous; slim, with really nice inletting, polishing, checkering, and a pretty good pice of wood, with a little firguring in it. It's hard to describe the complete effect. When I got it home, my wife suggested I hang it on the wall as art rather than hiding it in a gunsafe.
It also didn't matter that the rifle is essentially useless to me. I have nothing here in Virginia that will take all of that power, and any hunting trip that would need it would give me plenty of time to work up a new rifle, so that wasn't it. I just had to have it, and no substitutes.
P1K? That's my "Posleen at 1000 meters" rifle, with apologies to author John Ringo, and I guess I'm now set for an alien invasion of northern Virginia.
Jaywalker