Anyone know what on the barrel?

[dan belisle]

I had a chance to inspect that one yesterday - from closed bolt face to muzzle brake front end is 19.5" - then actual barrel muzzle is 1.35", inside, back from that front edge of the "brake". So that barrel appears to be 18.15" from closed bolt face to crown. However, it appears that might be a home made "brake" - bore hole through the brake was circa twice the diameter of a .308" bullet (I did not measure that) - can see through the slits on the sides - look right through - so, must be cut through at more or less 90 degrees to bore centreline. An acquaintance describes that as recipe for a "loudener", not a brake. About worse found - with flashlight - appears that one "pin's hole" is drilled through into the rifling - do not see the other hole inside that rifling - might be full of crap or might not have been drilled through. That "brake's" body that is "pinned" may also be soldered to the barrel - has what appears to be bead of solder around the "brake's" rear end. We were unable to confirm whether that was threaded or not. As per the OP owner - does not do much at all to reduce felt recoil - we found several reasons why that might be so.

Auction pictures showed the safety "knob" to be round - probably metal - not the angled rectangular plastic original - with the barrelled action removed from the stock, it appears to be an original Rem 788 trigger (identical, except for larger attachment screw, to other right handed one that I have here). Is nice checkering done on wrist and forearm. "Checkered" steel butt plate with "widow's peak" was done fairly well.

Modifying 788 triggers used to be fairly common, I have done a few myself to make them adjustable (still have the drawings of how to do that here somewhere). Replacing the safety knob isn't too difficult either. Perhaps just a owner modified 788 carbine. 308 was the most common chambering for those. - dan

 

[Potashminer]

One more update - yesterday, we managed to remove that 308 Win barrel and installed a 19" 243 Win barrel that I had used circa 1980 to build up a deer rifle for my wife. Surprised hell out of me - snugged that barrel up, and the bolt closed on GO gauge, but would not close on NOGO gauge - did not need any machining, at all, to hit correct head space. Rear sight holes not TDC - more like 1 o'clock when viewed from rear, but OP says he is okay with that. And, bonus - appears the jig held the recoil lug in position "good enough" that the newly "re-barrelled" action more or less slipped into the previous epoxy bedding, without much fuss. The former epoxy bedding within the barrel channel was apparently scraped out enough - so a shipping card (thin cardboard perhaps 0.007") wrapped around barrel, slides through from forearm to recoil lug without contact - so we think that replacement barrel might be "free floating" now.

From looking at it, I think the original owner's epoxy bedding process did not use tape on bottom, sides or front face of that recoil lug. Whomever that was, had "bedded" the chamber area of that original 308 Win barrel and was also largish section of epoxy bedding near the forearm tip - the epoxy in the barrel channel has all been scraped down (I think) so there is no longer any contact ahead of the recoil lug - is possible that there is crud or something holding the front end of action to be raised a smidgeon - that would also explain the free-float on the barrel - but is now time to shoot it and see what the targets tell us.

To be seen how well our work shoots - that is up to OP - might be more choices and more fussing to come. Is several (3 or 4) old targets here with 3 shot and 5 shot groups well under 1" at 100 yards - from that barrel - to be seen if we got it all together similar to what I did with that barrel, circa 40 years ago. At the time, I did not know different, and had used Brownells AcraGlas (the original stuff) to bed the thing solidly from rear of receiver tang, all the way forward to the stock's fore-end tip - that may or may not turn out to be significant in how this thing shoots. My reloading notes, from back then, say I was using mostly Speer 85 grain SPBT and Hornady 87 grain Spire Point Flat Base bullets - I do not know what the OP will be able to find to try. We looked here at some .243" 55 grain Nosler Ballistic Tips that I have here that I load for our Grandson's 243 Win for practice - I know a friend used to load Speer 105 grain in his - I chose to stock up on 95 grain Nosler Partition for my own 243 Win rifle - so is some choices to be made, yet.