Monster, I may indeed follow your lead with the V hammer. But I'm going to try the stock first. But wait, did you mean 20" 597 instead of HB? Or have they produced a 20" HB in the past? Now that would be heavy.
Craig, thanks for your treatise above (and helping keep things civil here). I've only scanned it so far, but must work before reading thoroughly, which I look forward to later.
Just two comments for now.
One, the purpose of my HB? Multiple uses, but mainly -- and I'm being sincere here -- to just try out a
heavy short barrel in a variety of uses: target shooting, plinking and ... yes, hunting. It may work for me, it may not. But the only way I'll know is to try it over time. (I don't want to just borrow one temporarily -- this decision will take some time.)
And for the record, I'm not a gun collector. I never have more than 3 - 4 at a time, by choice. One or two handguns (for me now that's a SW 642 .38 spl +p; hope to add a Ruger SR9C by winter), my Marlin 336 in .30-30. The HB will take the .22 niche, at least for now. Ask me again in 2017.
My reasons for a small kit are several, but I won't get into that here. It has to do with the way I use all my tools, and my lifestyle, with is necessarily quasi-nomadic -- and I just don't want to haul around a bunch of guns. Suffice to say, I've owned 4 - 5X that number of guns in my lifetime. (I acknowledge that's small beans to many on this forum.) If it doesn't work long term, or my needs change, I don't keep it.
I'm really, really not concerned about the weight. I sling all my long guns, bar none. I've got one kind of sling that I love (can't remember it's name right now, and it's at home, I'm at work -- I'll check later). The one that came off my 39a will go onto the HB -- yes, I'll put in studs. I never just carry a rifle when I'm walking until I need it; until then, African carry.
As for the weight, Remington lists the weight of the 597 HB as 5.75 lb. I said 5.5 above, so I was off. (The standard is listed as 5.5.) But I'm hard pressed to believe that they'd make that bigga mistake -- but such things are possible. But I can see taking 4" off a 20" barrel, and turning that metal into more mass for the remaining 16". Hence, only adds 4 oz.
So, if that's true, then I'm not at all worried about the weight.
But honestly, even if it turns out to be 8 lb, I still want to try it.
