Remington 783

antelopedundee

internet bum
Just got one of these in .243 Win. Anyone have any comments about or experience with the thing, good, bad or otherwise? I'll hang up and listen.
 
Bought the gun for my wife to use to try her hand at antelope hunting. It was on sale at a local farm supply/outdoor store for $299 + tax and that included a "scope". Took them a couple weeks to bring one in. Seems to be a light compact little thing.

A quick caveat would be that I haven't fired any of my centerfire rifles in a few years and was a little rusty. I'm not even close to benchrest quality to begin with. Also, I'm a portsider. The LOP and trigger were weird for me since I have Jewell, Shilen or Neil Jones honed triggers on my other Rem 700s. Sad to say that I still have a small degree of flinch that I've never been able to fully break.

Took it to the range today. Had some Winchester factory ammo with 100 grain power points. A plus is that the fore-end accommodates a Harris bipod. The "scope" a 3 x 9 x 40 reminds me of a Walmart clearance Tasco for $7.99 and supposedly is bore sighted/collimated at the factory. I have a Nikon Buckmasters II [$130+] or Leupold VX-1 [$180+] in 3 x 9 from Bass Pro picked out as possible replacements.

At 50 yards the first shot was "on paper", but about 4 inches low and 5 inches left of point of aim [POA]. The second shot was within 3/8" of the first. No idea what the "clicks" are on the thing, but with 4-5 more shots, I was able to get it close to POA. Moved on out to 100 yards and got it around 3" high and maybe an inch right with about an inch and a half group. Decided to call it quits at that point.

Still tough for me to get used to the shorter LOP, it doesn't feel natural at all. The trigger seems weird with that little floppy thing in it, but the pull didn't seem excessive maybe 3.5 lbs as a SWAG.

At this point with the gun being a total stranger to me, I'd say it has potential. Certainly seems to be adequate enough to smoke an antelope out to a couple hundred yards.

The 2 shots marked 7-8 are likely fortuitous. Another scope adjustment produced the last 3 shots high and right. Shooter influence was likely a factor too.

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Back out to the range this morning. Nice morning, cool with little or no wind. Fiddled with the elevation and windage adjustments first. The center group marked 1st was the first 3 shots. Ammo was Winchester factory. Fiddled with the scope adjustments some more and got lower left group marked 2nd. Another adjustment gave 3rd. Final adjustment with a new lot of ammo gave upper right group 4th. Probably as good as I'll get from it. No reason IMO to get a different scope either.
If I was an antelope on the Mountain Valley Cattle Company ranch near Douglas, I'd be afraid, maybe even very afraid.

I see Remington is offering a $40 rebate on these. If they were available in .25-06 I'd probably snag another one. The Mills Fleet n Farm store down the road has them for $309.99

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It is really a good gun which deserve to be collected.
 
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It is really a good gun which deserve to be collected.

I just picked up some Federal "Non-Typical Whitetail" [must be new] ammo for $16.99 a box. Will give them a try after I get back from Labor day vacation.

I can always pull the factory bullets and re-seat a different brand.
 
Finally went out yesterday and tried the Federal Non-Typical Whitetail ammo. If I was on my game, it shot a bit worse than the Winchester brand. However still good enough for the critter that it will be used on. For what I can get Winchester for at WallyWorld, it wasn't a big savings. Looking at the target diagonally from lower left to upper right, the groups look about 2 inches. The outlier in the lower left marked flier/fouler I'm not sure of since I didn't have a spotting scope.

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As an aside we were in the Yellowstone area a couple weeks ago. Best pic of the trip. Was taken between the East entrance to YNP and Cody, WY. Tried for a broadside pic, but just as the wife snapped it he jumped.

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Today is Bon Voyage day. Headin to Wyoming to see how it works out. Good lucky Randy. I'll honk as we go through Newcastle tomorrow.
 
Well schon of a bisht.

Put a new scope on it and in removing the old one, one screw on each of the two rings was loose. Not earth shattering in or of itself.

So today I went to the range to site R in. I thought I'd use that round with the squished primer [from the factory ammo thread] as a fouler. BEEG MISTAKE. It went poof with a little smoke, but didn't fire. Never had a problem with less than perfect primers before. The case head was smoky, but that's not the worst of it.

I now have a screwed up gun. The bolt won't close and I can't get it out. It's stuck in the receiver/action. I can move it back and forth but that's it. I expect that the bolt is full of primer crud. Soooooo, any ideas before I contact Remington? It may be one of those where it's cheaper to buy a new gun than to pay the cost of shipping it back and forth for repairs.

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Well schon of a bisht.

Put a new scope on it and in removing the old one, one screw on each of the two rings was loose. Not earth shattering in or of itself.

So today I went to the range to site R in. I thought I'd use that round with the squished primer [from the factory ammo thread] as a fouler. BEEG MISTAKE. It went poof with a little smoke, but didn't fire. Never had a problem with less than perfect primers before. The case head was smoky, but that's not the worst of it.

I now have a screwed up gun. The bolt won't close and I can't get it out. It's stuck in the receiver/action. I can move it back and forth but that's it. I expect that the bolt is full of primer crud. Soooooo, any ideas before I contact Remington? It may be one of those where it's cheaper to buy a new gun than to pay the cost of shipping it back and forth for repairs.

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"Less than perfect primer???"

That primer is in there SIDEWAYS!
 
Exactly what is wrong? Will the bolt function or is it stuck in place? If stuck in place, will it operate such that a few pecks on the bolt handle with a wooden mallet might open the chamber? If you can get the bolt open a cleaning rod will get the case and bullet out...perhaps leaving you a messy chamber.

DO NOT POINT THE RIFLE AT ANYTHING OR ANYBODY WHILE WORKING ON IT!!! PUT ON A STEEL SUIT THAT COVERS EVERY INCH OF YOUR BODY AND DO THIS IN THE DESERT MILES AWAY FROM THE NEAREST PERSON!!!
 
Exactly what is wrong? Will the bolt function or is it stuck in place? If stuck in place, will it operate such that a few pecks on the bolt handle with a wooden mallet might open the chamber? If you can get the bolt open a cleaning rod will get the case and bullet out...perhaps leaving you a messy chamber.

DO NOT POINT THE RIFLE AT ANYTHING OR ANYBODY WHILE WORKING ON IT!!! PUT ON A STEEL SUIT THAT COVERS EVERY INCH OF YOUR BODY AND DO THIS IN THE DESERT MILES AWAY FROM THE NEAREST PERSON!!!

The loaded round is out of the chamber as you can see from the pics. I pulled the bullet and threw the powder out onto the lawn. The best way to dispose of sour or other unwanted powder is to spread it on the lawn like fertilizer. The bolt moves sluggishly in the action and I can't move it forward enough to close it or back enough to remove it. It's likely pretty crudded up inside in the same way that it would be from a perforated primer, only worse. Since the flash hole was blocked, there was no way for primer flash to reach the powder. Weird thing is that round didn't extract, I had to tap it out.
 
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Sounds like the extractor is stuck out a bit and/or damaged. Maybe some bit of crud jammed under it. that would pretty much match your description of bolt limited movement
 
Seems to me that if the bolt opened far enough to get the case out it would come out of the action with a bit of persuasion.
 
Sounds like the extractor is stuck out a bit and/or damaged. Maybe some bit of crud jammed under it. that would pretty much match your description of bolt limited movement

That was it. Fixed now thanks to Randy. The round was chambered such that the primer faced the extractor and when fired, popped it out. Rotated 90 or 180 degrees, it would have been mostly harmless. Ready to try R again.
 
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