I'm in love again...

Retrieved: December 06, 2013

I'm more or less a "black rifle" guy, Kalashnikov type. But every now and then I get fired up by some weird old stuff. A few years ago it was the Evans levergun from the 1800s. Just recently, it's the Remington Model 8.

The Model 8 is a long-recoil semiauto designed by John Browning, first hit the market in 1906. It fed from a nice box magazine (fixed, but detachable conversions were available, including a 15 round "police" magazine!) and was chambered for one of four low-pressure cartridges designed specifically for the Model 8 - the .25, .30, .32, and .35 Remington. The first three are basically forgotten, but the .35 is still out there strutting its stuff. Izhmash even offered that chambering for home-market Kalashnikovs a few years ago.

Later there was the Model 81, chambered in .300 Savage.

Note this was decades before Garand's heavy, over-complicated design, *and* it was back when many militaries were casting about for working semiauto designs. I have no idea why nobody noticed Remington had been cranking out Model 8s for decades.

The Model 8's original chamberings were a bit wimpy by military standards, but the Model 8 was a *little* rifle; a pretty little svelte thing. It looks like a levergun, except there's no lever. And, by the way, the barrel and forend came off and the two halves of the rifle could be carried on the train or subway in its little leather and cardboard carry case... the design could easily have been scaled up for military use.

It's interesting how conservative the military arsenals were, compared to what was available on the civilian market. When the US Cavalry was still using single-shot trapdoor Springfields, anyone with the money could walk into any hardware store and order a 34-shot Evans repeater. Later, when the US Army got their shiny new 1903 Springfields out to the troops, they were still supposed to use the magazine cut-off and fire single-loaded rounds, just like the trapdoors. Meanwhile, the Evans had been joined by the semiautomatic Remington, with optional 15-round detachable box magazine.

Yeah, the .44 Evans and .35 Remington didn't have the ballistics of the .45- 70 or .30-06, but an Evans or Remington could lay down a big bag of whoop-A** while the Army shooters were still fumbling the next shot...

Hate to link to external pics but there is a wealth of stuff there.

I made a derogatory comment about the "obsolete" .35 Remington when I saw that Izmash had chambered an AK for it. I quickly got educated by several .35 aficionados.

The .35 was designed in 1906, as a *hunting* cartridge. Not "knocking a bull moose flat at 300 yards" hunting, but "take the rifle to the woods and get something for dinner" hunting. Realistic ranges were probably more like 25 yards than 250 yards. Being "pot gun" cartridges, the .25 to .35 Remingtons were designed to balance bullet design vs. velocity; something that would reliably kill a small or medium deer, but you could take out a rabbit or turkey if the opportunity arose, without turning it into gobbets you had to look about for. That's why a whole lot of those late-1800s hunting cartridges look so wimpy; they were adequate for killing something to carry home to eat, not something you took to a guided hunting trip looking for things with bad tempers and weighing more than a Harley.

A little clicking about and I found that the .35 was also popular in several Scandinavian countries, probably for the same reason that Russian and American hunters liked it. I'd only known it as an old levergun cartridge, and that it seemed to have a following with the Contender fans.

Well, now the continued existence of the .35 Remington made more sense to me. Though the people who smoove over feature articles like, ".458 Winchester Magnum - Big Enough For JACKRABBITS?" would probably still think it was useless...

TRX
August 12, 2013

Quote from: barnbwt
2) Are you telling me that sainted genius John Moses Browning invented the retarded AK safety lever abomination?

Looks like it. Well, the Dragunov lever, anyway.

Back in JMB's day, designers were really uptight about the idea of "stuff" getting into open areas of the mechanism. That's why the ejection port on the 1905 (the 1911's predecessor) was *just* large enough for a loaded round to eject, and why various guns had sheet metal covers to over various parts.

TRX
August 15, 2013

SCORE!

I just won an auction for a nice Model 8 in .30 Remington.

Now for dies and brass...

The .30 Remington is ballistically very similar to the 7.62x39. I can live with that, considering I paid less than half of what a decent rifle in .35 Remington or .300 Savage would cost.

TRX
August 17, 2013

The money order went off to the seller yesterday. Grafs has loading dies in stock. I may pick up a box of .308 bullets as well. It pains me to pay the same price for bullets as I used to pay for loaded ammunition just a few years ago...

Looks like brass went out of stock everywhere at the beginning of the year, most places have "no backorder" as well. I found a couple of places that show brass in stock, but I need to call and verify before placing an order; it took nine months for "in stock" .50 Beowulf to show up from two different sellers a while back.

The .30 is an odd case size. I've read about cobbling up different brass, but like for the Arisaka I got a couple of years ago, I'm going to just suck it up and buy the right brass. Baud knows I've formed enough 7.65 Mauser from .30-06, and cut extractor grooves in .38 Special to make 9mm Largo, back in the days when neither were available.

My ancient Lyman cast bullet handbook has some interesting loading data for the .30 Remington. Lyman's velocities are unrelated to the official velocity of the cartridge; according to the foreward, they loaded for best accuracy, not for highest velocity. Since the cast bullets were often substantially different in shape from the original bullets, the Lyman reload velocities were also different. But that doesn't explain why they show the .30 loaded faster than .300 Savage and .308 Remington... I've read that the bore diameters of the .30 caliber Model 8 tended more to .307 and .308, which might explain some of it. Generally, cast bullets like to be a tighter fit in the bore than jacketed bullets.

TRX
August 30, 2013

It's finally here! The FFL called last night and said it was in, and he was all excited about it. He'd never seen one either.

It's exactly like what it looked like in the pictures. Someone did a nice job of rebluing. There's a small dent on the bottom of the magazine, otherwise the metal is all perfect; no sign of previous rust or pitting. The stock has a few dings, but heck, it's almost a hundred years old...

I'll order the brass and dies next week.

Oh, and it really is as small as it looks in the pictures! The barrel is 22".

TRX
August 31, 2013

I saw it when reading up on the rifle, but it just slid by without registering.

All Model 8s are "takedown" rifles.

Remove the forearm screw, then unscrew the barrel assembly from the receiver/stock assembly. The bolt that holds them together has a convenient folding lever already pinned in place - fold it over, turn 180 degrees, fold it the other way; no tool needed. Not exactly the quarter-turn lock of movie rifles, but it's quick enough.

I always wanted a takedown rifle. And now I have one.

Vertical bolt lugs and hammer fired, too.

Okay, I retract my snide comment about the military not using the design. The sheet metal cover over the barrel spring would be easily damaged by a soldier using the rifle as a pry bar. (which is why so many military rifles had wood all the way to the muzzle; hard to hide it then) A big dent would probably foul the operation, plus after enough rounds the barrel would get awfully hot inside the tube. Also, the reciprocating barrel with the sights on the tube put an upper limit on accuracy; hunters didn't have any problem, but it probably wouldn't have gone over real big at Camp Perry.

update: serial number is in the 34xxx block, which would mean it was made in 1914. It's 99 years old!

TRX
September 19, 2013

The problem with a long recoil action is that the front of the barrel must be supported. Plus there has to be room for the pogo-stick spring. Remington used a tube, giving the rifle a "bull barrel" look sort of like an old German Commission rifle.

A while ago the Voices presented me with a "concept" of a PPS43-styled rifle in .223 or 7.62x39, using the Browning long recoil action supported by a ventilated handguard like the PPS. .223 matches closely to the .25 Remington, and the x39 to the .30 Remington, so you could just swipe the naughty bits out of a roached Model 8.

I was mildly intrigued by the idea of a sorta-PPS with a 50-round Galil mag and a locked breech, but the Voices are long on "concepts" and never contribute to funds or labor, so I rolled over and went back to sleep...

TRX
September 21, 2013

Hmm. The bolt assembly has a lot of cuts, but they're all comparatively simple. I still have to take mine apart to check out the barrel extension.

So far, I don't see why Remington limited the rifle to 38,000 PSI on the original chamberings, and the .300 Savage they added later is also a low- pressure round.

Note that the .30 Remington shoots a heavier bullet than a 7.62x39, at a higher velocity, at 3/4 of the pressure. I could like that cartridge a lot, if I could get some freakin' brass...