Remington 597. Yea or nay?

There are a couple things you need to do to tweak it, but, nothing that will cost you any money. The biggest being the guide rod screws... they are too tight from the factory... back them out and just make them snug...

Make sure you get a Generation 3 magazine... but they have fixes over at rimfirecentral.com

Mine has been a great lil rifle... quite accurate out of the box... decent trigger...

Or... you could get a Marlin Mod. 60 and not have to tweak anything. You also would not have to go to rimfirecentral and find out how to fix your brand new gun.

the above dude is exactly right, if you like, slop some toothpaste all over rods, and inside receiver, and manually work the crap out of it. then take out the action, remove back plate, remove guide rods all the way out, then put back in, until just able to get back in and put rear plate back on. finger tighten, again, just in enough to put back together. Look for mags with a 10 in a circle, on the bottom of the mag.
This is one of the few 22's left, that is made with very good, fully adjustable, sights, especially the rear. Accuracy wise, it will shoot rings around a stock 10.22. Now you can get I think 25 or 30 round mags for them as well.

the marlin mod 60 is the most accurate semi auto made today, even for a 150 dollar rifle, get it in a 795 or 7000, and you will have a mag fed type.

Nay

Rangerruck,

You are a confusing soul... LOL... however, I'd disagree with your blanket statement about the accuracy of the Model 60. I'd even go so far to say I'd bet my 597 is easily as accurate as any out of the box Marlin 60...

My experience with the 597 is very limited. I've shot three Rem. 597s in my life. One was mine, the other two belong to friends. I only owned mine for a few months, as it was neither reliable nor accurate. My friends both still have theirs.

I have two Mod. 60 Marlins. One was purchased new. The other was a recent rescue from Hart Brothers (Albert Lea, MN). It was rusty and beat to crap. I stripped, reblued, sanded, painted (fire engine red) and took her to the range. That old beater is significantly more accurate than any of the three 597s I've shot. All three of the 597s I have experience with were either new or close to it. YMMV.

There are plenty of people out there who love the 597. They'll be along shortly.

Sorry missed your post (above). Yes, the 60 is tube fed. Marlin sells the exact same action in a mag-fed gun. I think it's the 795. Check their website. Give me a minute, I'll link it... here ya go...

http://www.marlinfirearms.com/Firearms/SelfLoading/795.aspx

My remington 597 has served me well for 5 years. I've probably put thousands through it and haven't even cleaned it, not once. keeps on ticking.

With my cheapie tasco 4x scope accuracy is pretty darn good, I hit a pen w/ a single shot at about 25 yards just the other day, not that it was very far away .

but the 10-22 is nice too.

A local gun store has the coolest looking 597. It's stock has a base color of a light/pastel pink, overlaid with mossy oak camo pattern - so pink camo. No fashionable woman squirrel hunter should be without one this spring!

Oh, thumbs up for the 597.

M597 was my very first rifle, I have it for 8 years now, and it's an excellent shooter. I also have 10/22 and they're fairly comparable. The Remington just feels more ergonomic in general.

Nay.

My 597 experience was not good. Two thumbs down.

For that price range I recommend the Marlin 60.

I vote Yea!

Mine ran fine straight out of the box.

Nay.

Don't overlook the Savage.

I've only put a few hundred rounds through mine, but it only jammed once, and that was in the first magazine. After that it's been fine. At least as accurate as my 10/22's. I like my 10/22's better, but that's only because they're DSP's with walnut stocks, but the 597 is a good shooter. The magazine is a LOT easier to change than on the 10/22, but really what magazine isn't? I also like the 597's "big rifle" feel.

I keep reading all these glowing reports about the Marlin 60 and I keep thinking "You should get one of those.", but man thing just looks and feels like a toy to me. I just can't make myself like it, which is funny because I like most every other 22 rifle I've ever seen.

I've heard a lot of yappin' yea and nay on the subject, but I have a good'n. Mine's a .22 magnum model. Absolutely 100 percent flawless function with all, but Winchester Dynapoint which is ammo, not gun. The stuff is about half power between Mini Mag and Maxi Mag. It chronographed about 100 ft lbs down on the CCI stuff.

The gun is a 1.5 MOA shooter with what I've fed it so far. Excellent rifle, LOVe the thing. I put a Varquartsen hammer in it and the trigger is sweet, now, best trigger I have in a rimfire rifle. Of course, I don't own any really high end rimfires, but it's really good. Out of the box, was not so good, very stiff, lots of effort. The Varq hammer is a must IMHO, but only about 35 bucks and easy to install.

Currently my .22s consist of a 10/22, a Remington M512X, an old Mossberg M152, and an AR7 Charter version. The old Remington is just as accurate as the 597, but the rest not so much. Compared to the 10/22, it's a friggin' match rifle. LOL

What, nobody recommended a CZ, yet? There are many .22s as accurate as any M60. The M60 Marlin is a lot of rifle for the money, though, but yeah, it's got the tube magazine. Both my Remingtons will outshoot your standard M60, my 512 has done it in several bench rest matches with the club. Seems everyone in my club has a M60, probably why I don't have one, like to be different.

I took my 597 to the Appleseed, and it ran just fine. Brand new, and not even broke in, I only had two stoppages - both on the last few shots of the first day, and both were magazine-related (followers binding up from crud).

My only complaint is that I just can't get used to using the buckhorn sights for target work. I'm sure they're fine for hunting or plinking (neither of which can I do in my urban setting) but for target work, I'd prefer a good set of peep sights. And nobody makes a set of aftermarket peep sights for the 597. Williams makes a set of open FireSights for it, but I haven't tried them.

If you're planning on mounting optics on it, then you won't have that problem at all. I put a cheap Simmons scope on mine, and have little trouble making single ragged holes at 25 yards. Accuracy is limited to that of the shooter. (In my case, that's quite a limit...)

597 is OK for the price and is a decent plinker but not what I would call a target rifle. Trigger is a little rough and there is a lot of plastic in its build. The Ruger 10/22 is OK once the Ruger barrel and internals are replaced. Too expensive. The Marlin 60 is a great value for the price.

I've heard a lot of yappin' yea and nay on the subject

Click to expand...

Let me qualify my 'nay' then. I bought a 597 when they first appeared on the market. It would jam at least once with each magazine fired, sometimes more than once, depending on the ammo used. At the time, people hadn't figured out the 'fixes' yet for the rifle to make it run semi-reliably, and the metallic magazines weren't available then. I ended up selling it for about a $50 loss a year after I bought it.

Remington may have fixed some of the problems with the rifle, but I still hear about tweaking and the advice to buy certain magazines for the rifle on forums. FWIW, I pretty much got a rifle where Remington might as well have been using their customers as 'beta testers.' For that, I'm pretty biased against Remingon as a whole, and haven't been a Remington 'customer' since.


Edit: I should mention that another gripe I had about the rifle was the rough 'krylon-like' finish. I couldn't keep the rifle's barrel exterior from rusting no matter what I did, I should aslo mention that I've never had another gun rust on me before.

Mine has plastic mags and no problems. But, apparently, they are a crap shoot...or were. I won't buy an 870 and don't know about a 700 right now. I own a FAIRLY new, about 12 year old M7 I absolutely love and has been used exclusively for deer and hogs since I got it. I've seen some junky 870s in the marsh, though, and those express models will rust right in front of your eyes. SORRY, sorry finish on 'em for salt marsh hunting. Yeah, I don't know about Remington right now as a company. I traded a guy a little 90cc kid's motorcycle for this 597 magnum. Didn't want the bike, didn't really want a .22 mag, don't have a lot of use for it, but made the trade and I love the rifle, so it turned out good. I still don't know what use a .22 mag has except a range rifle, but it's fun for that. I COULD squirrel hunt with it, but I really prefer handguns anymore for my squirrel hunting. I have a scoped .22 contender I've used for that in the past, but will probably take my new Ruger Mk2 that I've been playing with, with 2x scope on a few squirrel hunting trips now. If I hadn't made that trade, I probably wouldn't spend actual MONEY on a 597. LOL BUT, I didn't get screwed. It is a fun gun to shoot and has a little more heat on it than a long rifle.

Well, the thing about the mod 60 is, there have been several variants built on this action/receiver, and bbl. the 99, 99c, 70,75,75c, 99m1, 795, 7000, and several others. Most of these were mag fed.
I still back the mod 60, or any of those variants , such as the 795, being super accurate , the most accurate out of the box, of any made semi.
I have a stock mod 60 that is so accurate, it is actually quite unreal.
That being said, the remmy 597 is deff a go, and i would not hesitate to get one.

We just started shooting my brother's 597 more regularly since ammo prices have gone up so much. The trigger is very heavy. Come to think of it, the trigger is not particularly desirable in any respect. The gun will not shoot jacketed ammo. All of the jacketed stuff we've tried leads to ~14" groups at 75 yards. Switch to lead (especially Wolf MT) and accuracy gets better. Nowhere near my CZ, but less than 3" at 75 yards. Reliability is pretty good, we only had a few stoppages last week.

As for the Model 60, I can't say enough bad about them. I've had three and every single one of them was a POS. None of them can go more than 10 rounds without jamming no matter how clean they are, what ammo is used, or what style ejector system they use. Accuracy doesn't mean a thing to me if the gun doesn't work. Just for the record that would be one Western Auto version (Revelation?) and two genuine Marlins.