20 or so years ago I came into an original, beater Remington Rolling Block.
It was one of those weird South Amerocan 7mm's that wasn't quite a SAMMI 7x57,
but it was close enough for gub'mit work, particularly in the 'Nanner Republics.
Anyhow the rifle had no back sight and the rifling was gone, about 3" back from
the muzzle. It was weird, cheap and cool as all get out.
The action was shootable if not tight, so me & a gunsmith bud cut it back flush
with the nose cap, which got us some rifling in the end that matters. We then
ran a ball mill across the bottom of a Williams Guuie that matched the receiver
profile, and screwed it on. We did the same up front, carefully calculating
sight heights. I finished the job by hand-crowning the muzzle.
A local bait shop had 15 boxes of Privi Partizan 7mm Mauser, loaded with a
dead-soft 175 grain jacketed round nose. I bought two boxes & a brand new pair
of safety goggles, and headed out to shoot the 'Nanner Republic Speshul' as it
came to be called. Amazingly, two sight adjustments got it on the button at 100
yards, and I proceeded to plant the next five in about 2 1/2 inches. It didn't
belch fire or metal from anywhere it wasn't supposed to, and the mild PP loads
exhibited no pressure signs. Life was good. I ran back & bought 10 more boxes of
that ammo, which was foreign, weird and of course cheap. Nobody local wanted it,
so I git a deal on it.
Over the next 3 years I killed everything you can kill legally in MO with that
RRB. I killed a trotting coyote at close to 300 yards with it. I made the best
running game (deer) shot of my life with it, at about 150 yards. My oldest son
learned to shoot a centerfire rifle with it. We had a mean-as-hell rooster that
tried to spur Erik one day when he was about six; he got his revenge with that
old 7mm.
We shot the old gun hard until it started leaking gas around the firing pin, the
action got looser, and the pitted bore was getting shot out of the muzzle again-
so accuracy was going south pretty fast. i sold it for more than I had n it, and
saw it on an Independence MO gunshop shelf almost 15 years later. I smiled at
looked it over, and then set it back. We had gotten all the good that was left
in it.
