Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Seven year old kid gets his dream rifle...

...albeit 59 years later.

When I was seven my father used to take me to a local range to shoot in the NRA Junior Marksmanship program, that was bullseye shooting at 50 feet with .22's from prone. I have no idea what make of rifle I used, I think it was some "behind the kitchen door" rifle Dad brought back from my grandparents' farm in NC. It was a single shot where you loaded the breech, closed the bolt and then had to manually pull back the cocking piece as a separate step. Being a scrawny little kid that was always hard for me to do and I never did like that rifle. Anyway, looking around, the cool kids all had these rifles with a beehive bolt that cocked automatically and most of them had a peep sight. The adults and some of really high end kids had Olympic style receiver sights and globe front sights, probably on Winchester 75's or 52's. Those were all way out of reach for even my dreams but I always thought those beehive bolt rifles were just too cool for school.

Been shooting peep sights a lot these past few years, which works fine with my old eyes as long as the front sight is out far enough. I started looking at Winchester 69A's or Remington 511P's with factory peep sights and long 25" barrels but those old, simple single shots always stayed in my mind. Recently I was browsing Guns International and a 510P caught my attention since it was in really great shape . An online dealer had bought some fellow's collection and it held a bunch of nice .22's in very good to excellent shape. One of those things where someone buys rifles, shoots them some and then puts them away for 50 years. So I called up the dealer, gave him my credit card number and yesterday picked this up from the local FFL transfer guy.





The barrel code puts DOM at November of 1961, they stopped production of these in 1962. It has some small compression dings here and there but there is no wear in the bluing at all and the stock finish is in excellent shape, no wear, cracks or that whatchamacallit condition where it frosts and glazes over, even the bolt case hardening is still showing nicely. It's definitely been shot but very well maintained. Took off early from work this afternoon to sight it in and try some different ammo and it did not disappoint.

The rifle as shown weights 5 pounds 7 ounces. Trigger pull is about 5 pounds (almost the weight of the rifle) which I understand is not uncommon for these but it breaks cleanly so no excuses there. A real plus is that long sight radius, 29 3/4" of it. I used the larger aperture that was in place when I picked up the rifle, in hindsight for best target work I should have switched to the smaller one that serves as the elevation locking screw but still did okay.

After sighting in to be dead on at 100 yards (calculated trajectory) I tried some 10 shot groups at 25 yards with Winchester Super-X, CCI AR Tactical and some Wolf Match Target. The upper left group is Winchester Super-X and measures .585". Then I got real sloppy with the sight picture, trying to focus on the aiming square and then the front blade instead of just keeping the front blade in sharp focus. The strung out groups are the obvious result, pretty pathetic. Upper right is CCI and lower left is Wolf Match.





So then I buckled down, rested my eye a bit and tried again. This time I kept the front sight in sharp focus and did a bit better. Upper left is Wolf Match, 10 rounds into .339" and the upper right is CCI AR Tactical again. The lower two are combinations of two and three shot groups to get sighted in. The rifle definitely likes the Super-X and Wolf ammo but is so-so with the AR Tactical, which is fine since I have a goodly stash of the Winchester.



Set a 4" ringer out at 75 yards to see what the rifle would do with a 6 o'clock hold. It turns out the sight in was a tad high but that's not too bad for seven shots.



It seems as the shooting world gravitates to precision chassis rifles and ultra long range I am gravitating more and more to the older, simpler designs. This 510 definitely qualifies as "nothin' fancy", in fact it was considered an economy rifle even back then and writers of the day would bemoan the stamped parts and such as sure evidence of the end being near. But it's all walnut and steel, no plastic anywhere, and that peep sight is a pretty neat little affair, simple but effective and the adjustments are easy to use. And while a lot of rifles are capable of incredible accuracy these days, those old .22's could and still can lay'em in there with this old shooter being the real limiting factor.

Another thing that was brought back to me today was how relaxing it is to lay an open box of bullets on the bench and take out one at a time, load it into the breech and fire. It's fun to rip off a 10 round burst from a semi-auto but it was also nice to go back to a time when a single box of .22 bullets was a big deal so you'd proceed at a measured pace and try to make each and every shot count.

That is a great story and a very nice rifle. Happy you finally realized the dream.

Yes. Great story and it's neat to eventually fulfill ones dreams. Good score there.

Cool rifle!

Neat old rifle. I picked up a similar rifle last fall, mostly for the upcoming shooters in the family to learn on. Meantime, grouse beware!

I meet a guy at a local flea market last summer,he said he had an old 22 at home,he claimed his dad brought it back from WWII lol.He said he hadn't shot since he was a kid.He wanted $50. for it.I called him a week or so later,it was a nice Remington 521T with a peep,also had a real nice 510 smooth bore.It was a good day

really nice!

I ran across a 510-p the other day, someone sporterized the stock, peep missing, and had an old scope on it.

Congratulations on fulfilling your dream. Cool story.

Cool!!!

My first gun was a 511. Still in my cabinet and still my favorite.

I was in the Boy Scouts, and needed a rifle for my Merit Badge. Dad was not a hunter, so he asked a good friend Art Von who once wrote for Field and Stream for a "loner". Turned out to be a Winchester Model 52. I cried when it finally went back. Didn't really even know what it was at that time.

Good looking rifle and a great write up.

Thanks for sharing it.

Jim,
Had a few of the Remington -P rifles (341(?)-P, 511-P & 550-P) think the sights are awesome.
Getting rid of them was one of those "what the hell was I thinking" moments.

You are probably aware that there is a second arperture that retains the elevation adjustment.

Enjoy,
Jerry

Jerry, yes, that's one of the cool features of the sight. I switched out the apertures last night, those graduations made it very easy to return everything to the original positions. We're going to have drizzly rain changing to rain/snow all weekend and well into next week so will have to wait and see what next weekend is like to try that smaller one on paper. One thing I noticed was that the original owner or someone had filed on the front sight to reduce it's width at the top but left it kind of peaked looking. It seemed to have a funny shape when viewed through the larger aperture the other day but I thought it just might be a trick of late afternoon sunlight coming in from the side. I found an OEM sight on ebay in excellent shape with a good square profile and will replace the one on the rifle now. That should match up better to the square aiming points I use.

Closeup pics magnify things and make them look dirtier and worse than they are, plus they bring out stuff you didn't see when taking them so don't ask me what that gross little fuzzy thing is. It did come out okay. This pic does show the nice case hardening on the bolt.