Remington 597 22Lr question

So I have a Remington 597 in 22 LR. It was my first rifle I ever purchased when I was 18 years old back in 2000 or 2001. I bought it new from a big 5 store. It came in stainless with a standard diameter barrel and the ugly grey synthetic stock.

I'm sure as being a kid before the internet was a big thing I made several mistakes in it's lifetime. Like jamming cheap aluminum cleaning rods and brass cleaning brushes down it from the muzzle end of the barrel very often. It probably has 50ish thousand rounds through it or more. Then I went through a phase for years where it didn't see the light of day.

When my son was around 8 (about 5 years ago) it came out of the safe and he learned how to shoot using this rifle. He was actually impressive to watch. Very accurate as long as he did his part. The kid went through a phase and is still in it where he doesn't want to go shooting or even hang out with his parents right now.

I decided to drag it out and play with it a little bit recently. I put a weaver 3x9 scope on it I had in recycle bin. I was breaking clays on the berm out to 185 yards. That was the limit of my bdc reticle on max power. Having tons of fun I decided to upgrade the scope again. I found a Athlon 6x24-50 scope in my recycling bin that was known to be a great scope for the previous application it was mounted to.

I put the Athlon scope on and went to the range. I set up paper targets on a stand at 50 yards. Trying 4 types of ammo I was averaging 5-6" groups. I was frustrated with my groups and adjusted my scope in the center of my fat groups and proceeded to clays and random things out between 100-150ish yards.

Ranging every shot before actually pulling the trigger and making notes I was actually pretty accurate. The large groups on paper made it frustrating but yet amazing I was hitting single targets at longer distance. I went home and cleaned the barrel very thoroughly. Several patches came out very blue and then black before showing signs of being clean. I probably ran 25-30 total patches through it before I was happy.

After seeing how dirty it was I assumed it was the reason for my garbage groups on paper. Yesterday I took it to the range again. I set up my target stand at 50 yards. I ran 10 rounds through it before even trying to shoot a group and then passed it to my son that I forced to go with me.

After he shot about 80 rounds through it he was mad and frustrated he couldn't get a single bullseye. During that time I made a couple of scope adjustments and shot several 10 round magazines myself with poor results. All shooting was done from a very sturdy table with a stool that was not attached to the table. Front rest was a haris bi pod and the rear of the stock was rested on a bag. The setup is very solid. I used another rifle on the same setup same day at a 100 yards and was getting 5 shot groups under 1 MOA before moving the target stand closer and changing over to the 22lr.

Being at the point of major frustration here. I'm at a loss of trying to figure this out. I know it has a lot of rounds through it but I wouldn't think a 22lr barrel would not be shot out yet. As a kid I'm sure the barrel got hot or more like warm when I was yanking the trigger as fast as I could several magazines in a row. I probably abused it more cleaning the barrel improperly more than anything.

I'm curious what other people find as an average size group with their 597s. Am I wrong thinking it should be better? If I could get down to a 1" group at 50 yards I would probably be ok with that for what it is. I think that my results should be much better than they are.

I found a new Jarvis barrel for sale but I don't really want to dump a bunch of money into this thing. If it's going to cost me upwards of $500 to fix it I would rather spend the money towards buying a new bolt action CZ or Tikka. Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Maybe a Paralex problem, seems to start when the newest scope was added. They usually shoot pretty good so 1" at 50 should be very doable.

Click to expand...

I don't know. I had this scope on a bolt action 223 and never had any problems with it. I also don't ever remember using it at 50 yards either. It has a side focus designated distance on the knob. I usually either know my distance or use a range finder and set accordingly. I know it's not a top notch piece of hardware but I figured it would be a good fit for a 22 that isn't exactly a bench rest rifle either.

I guess I'm either used to something that produces better results or something is out spec somewhere. I will have to maybe put the old scope back on it and see if that changes anything.

Jmorris

Not to mention in "real world" use they might as well be considered identical. Except the 597's trigger is so bad I had to double check that I removed the safety, twice! The Marlin is quite a bit better and the Ruger slightly better than the Marlin.

Click to expand...

I will agree with the 597 trigger being horrible. I started to dig into this a few months ago back when I decided I wanted to start shooting 22s again. I did some "custom" work to mine. I pulled it apart and started to study the trigger group. I found a couple of things I could improve on or at least give it a try.

First thing I noticed is how similar the hammer spring looked to an AR hammer spring. The 597 spring is larger diameter and had 2 extra coils but the legs were shorter. So out with the 597 spring and lopped off the longer legs on the AR spring I had in the junk drawer.

Second thing I noticed that probably didn't do anything was I took out the little plastic bushings and made my own out of aluminum. Probably better than plastic but I probably should have used brass. Real world I don't see it making the trigger any better. I do have a metal lathe so I figured I should probably use it.

Next thing I polished the hammer on a buffer wheel. I didn't grind anything or remove any significant amount of metal or re shape anything. Just a little polish job to smooth it out a little bit.

That really cured my trigger. It's not a trigger tech or a timney but it's a big noticeable difference in the better direction.

Lots of good info here so far. I started thinking about this and maybe I did something else that screwed up the accuracy. When I did the trigger the biggest reason I tore into it was to possibly bed the stock. Then after removing the stock I discovered it's basically hollow and you probably need a quart of marine tex to bed it. I scraped the bedding idea (kind of).

So again I fired off the old trusty metal lathe and basically made some shims to fit between the action and stock. What I was trying to accomplish and I did was to free float the barrel without removing any material from the stock. My shims lifted the action up out of the stock about .020 and achieved a free barrel.

I'm wondering if doing this caused a problem of some kind. I'm limited to ammo in my area. CA is a no mail order state. I have several different ammo I have tried and doesn't seem to really make a huge difference. I know for a fact this Remington does not like Remington ammo. I would like to get my hands on some Lapua center X or something of better than standard bulk ammo. The CCI mini mags I think if I remember correctly have been the best so far.

I'm not threading the barrel and spending another $200 on a tuner.

Sounds like I will pull my shims. I know from previous experience this thing was better at one point even with the kid using it. I can't help but try to improve accuracy. I might be expecting more than I should but I do understand this thing is not a bench rifle and I am not a professional competition shooter.

A Tikka or CZ is definitely in my plans. I am not the guy out at the range jerking the trigger as fast as I can. My goal is to be as accurate as possible at my skill level and within the ability of my equipment. I think part of my problem is I got too used to using better equipment and hand loading my own center fire ammunition for accuracy. I actually spend a lot of time developing loads for each individual rifle/pistol I shoot.
Sounds like I have a thing or two to do before this weekend.

My barrel was not free floated. Maybe it was at one time I can't remember that I ever checked it previously. Maybe the flimsy plastic lost it's original shape? That was the reason I made the spacers. To get the barrel up away from the stock.

I saw on the local news today some genius was at the range I frequent weekly. He thought it was a brilliant idea to shoot at steel during the summer in the middle of a drought. He ended up starting a 3 acre fire. Hopefully his really great judgement didn't just get it shut down for the rest of us. That follow the rules.

If the BLM decides that they are going to close the range I will be up a creek without a paddle. That would leave me with option B. The indoor range that is limited to 25 yards. If that's the case I'm done for the next 4-6 months. I've been worried for quite awhile that this range will get shut down because of people leaving trash and doing stupid things.

I guess since I'm taking the day off tomorrow I will run out there and see if it's still open. I would really like to go do more testing this weekend.