A nice surprise this week re: my Remington Nylon 66.

I've never talked about it much here, but I own a Remington Nylon 66 150th Anniversary edition, long paired with a Weaver C4 scope. The rifle was purchased new by my great-uncle in the '60s and passed down to my dad when my uncle passed away in the early '70s. My dad gave it to me when I was a teenager in the late '80s, and it was my first firearm and the gun I really learned to shoot with. My first years spent at the range were with that rifle.

It's been sitting in the back of the safe for years, but I decided to take it out to the range last weekend. Plinked a little with it, and during a cold range talked guns a little with the guy next to me. He commented that my little Remington was a "high-dollar plinker." Huh?

So this week, out of curiosity, I did some digging.

http://www.nylonrifles.com/Nylonpdf/PlasticRems.pdf

I had thought mine wasn't all that special, but it turns out only about 3792 of the 150th Anniversary editions were made (all in 1966), out of well over a million rifles total, so they aren't as common as I thought. So then I checked Gunbroker and Guns America for that model, just to see what they're going for.

http://www.gunsamerica.com/902105531/Guns/Rifles/Remington-Rifles-Modern/.22-Rimfire-Models/Remington_Nylon_M_66_150th_Anniversar.htm

!!!

And it's on the BATFE Curio & Relic list, which I didn't know.

That's kind of neat.

 

One of the guns I wish I had not sold way back when

 

The 66s have really soared in price the last few years. The fancy or rare ones are out of sight and even the plain ones fetch several hundreds of dollars which is sort of nuts, IMO. Remington made millions of them but many were beat to death through hard usage. I wanted one as a kid but somehow never scored one. About 3 years ago I saw a well used one at a show and bagged it for $110. Still trying to recapture my youth.

I put a scope on it but the rings mount to the sheet metal cover and it's not too sturdy. These often don't shoot well with scopes because of this fact.

 

My brother bought a new model 12 back in the late 60's he later traded it in on a rem 870. I sure wish I had it now. Most folks never seen one!
mingo

 

The 77's (box mag) are not as collectable/valuable, no?

 

Holy Molie - that's a vacation there. Nice going. What else's in the back of the safe

 

Guns America Asking price and Selling price are two differnet things

 

Orlando, that $1,350 was the selling price.

Yeah, I'll probably hang on to it, only because of the sentimental value; my great-uncle was the closest thing to a father my dad had, so it's kind of like a grandfather-to-father-to-son thing. It is tempting, though, when you consider that I could almost trade it for a 10/22, a .22 revolver, a .357, and a shotgun; I still can't quite wrap my head around that. I'm thinking my great-uncle probably paid around $50 for it new, though admittedly that was a whole lot more money then than it is now.

I am certainly going to start being a lot more careful with it now! It's always been well taken care of, but I wouldn't have thought twice about carrying it in the woods, or shooting it in the rain, in the past. Now, it gets the velvet treatment...

I've noticed that with mine also. It seems very sensitive to how you hold it (point of impact shifts easily with pressure), so you kind of have to accept "close enough to do" when sighting it in. Chasing an exact scope zero can be frustrating, because I think scope mounting was a bit of an afterthought in the design. It certainly is a handy little gun to shoot, though.

The one thing I wish I could change about it is that the length of pull is too long for my daughter (10yo) to comfortably use it yet, but obviously you can't change the stock on a one-piece molded gun.

 

All I can say is WOW

 

Well, I talked to my dad, and found out that my great-uncle actually received this rifle in a trade, and was never that attached to it (nor was my dad). My dad said I ought to sell it and get something I'd be less skittish about shooting, since this is arguably the most valuable gun in my gun safe. So I decided to go ahead and put it on consignment at my local shop, along with the old Weaver C4 it came with, and he listed it on Gunbroker for me.

Perhaps I'll miss it eventually, but I realized that I could probably get a .22LR revolver, a 10/22 with a youth model stock, and accessories with the proceeds, and right now finances are tight enough that I can't buy any new guns without selling something I already own. So that's where I'm heading with it. My daughter has her eye on a 5" barreled Taurus Model 94...

I'll post if/when it sells, and range reports on whatever I get with the proceeds.