Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule Deer, and Other Rimfire Nuts; Op/Ex with 5mm Rem???

i have been a little excited lately to hear of the revitalization of the 5mm rem due to the emergence of the centurion ammo by aguila....

the 5mm was the rimfire that i longed for through high school... i had other priorities though, and my dad would only sign for so many rifles... i had to really do some talking to bring home my .17 rem, even though i had it paid for with money made pumping gas...

i'm particularly interested in original opinions of the cartridge, when it was introduced. also interested in experiences gained in those early 70s days, for those who used the cartridge...

and i'm supremely interested in any experiences with the aguila centurion loads... thanks..... john w

Sorry, when the 5mm first came out I couldn't afford one, partly because I already had a .22 Magnum that workd pretty well already. By the time I could afford one, the rifles and cartridges were pretty much dead.

my high school hunting buddy had a mossberg 640K(?) .22WRM... superbly accurate and deadly in his hands... it was a magnificent rifle....



pretty much my story, too...

Me too. Though I remember they were a hit at the time. Way back then it was just considered foolish to spend that much on rifles/ cartridges to shoot gophers with..look at us now with our 17HMRs!
The new centurion cartridges have been selling well here, though the snow is still on the ground, and itll probably be a couple weeks before they get much use, and subsequent feedback...
p.s. Knew a guy back in the day that shot a deer with his 5mm. Not reccomended, but it was head shot, so it fit in the freezer...
Ingwe

They were great guns in the Remington Rifle. They shot tiny one hole groups. Did not hurt the pelts back when there was money to be had on Yotes. Shot quite. Just never caught on. My friend Big Ron still has his, just about had him talk out of it, and then they started up making ammo runns for it. So he talked me out of my ammo.

I've got one and the new ammo has shot very well. Just had the trigger cleaned up and lightened(it was at 7 1/2 lb). Just need to do some more shooting and sight it in.

Glad I have it. Plan to use it on PD's and grounghogs this year.

Steve

hey steve,

is your rifle a 591 or 592???

i have heard several times recently that the 592s are considered to be more accurate rifles, as a rule...

i have contacted several guys with rifles for sale, who own both... they are keeping the 592s, selling the 591s...

My Father bought a Remington 592 when they 1st came out used to keep it in the up-stairs common bathroom, as you could sit on the stool and look out over the orchard from there and catch the odd 'chuck. He bought a quite a bit of blue/white box Peters ammo when he bought the rifle and there was still some of that ammo around when I cleaned out the house in 2005. IIRC, he had a Weaver K8 on that rifle and it was quite accurate with 100+/- yards.

I have read that the 30 grain Centurian load at 2300 fps isn't quite as "good", whatever "good" is, as the original 38 grain Remington/Peters load at 2100 fps.

Jeff

When I heard that Aguilla was going to produce the ammo. I scooped up several of the remington 591M rifles before the price shot up. I ended up trading off the real mint specimens and kept the shooter. The few times I've shot it off of a bench at 100 yds, it has been very windy, but 5 shot groups were still under an inch.

If anyone at Aguilla is listening: Introduce a subsonic 40 gr round and a superfast plastic tip bullet and convince savage and marlin to chamber it and you'll have a slam dunk.

Weagle

The ultimate "armadiller killer"

Savage and CZ had preliminary plans to chamber rifles for the 5mm rem...
both companies abandoned those plans due to the existence of large amounts of the original remington 5mm mag load, which runs at chamber pressures that most single locking lug rimfire rifles don't handle well...

Interesting. In that case I would think that NEF would jump in with a handi rifle chambered for the 5mm mag and they would have the market cornered on rifles, until someone introduced a viable bolt action.

What about the Savage model 40? I know it comes chambered in 22 hornet.

Weagle

johnw,

I only have a 592, so cannot compare it to a 591. I do know that the 592 has a screw that attaches to the barrel, and not the receiver as does the 591. And that the 592 is sensitive to the pressure of the screw.

But I found it easy to find the sweet spot of pressure in my 592, and it is quite accurate with the Centurian cartridges.

I do prefer a clip to a loading tube that the 592 has, but that is just a personal preference.

I think the 5mm is a helluva cartridge, but have no idea as to whether or not in can/will survive commercially. I hope it does.

Steve

I was hot for one when they first came out, by the time I could afford one they were on the way out. I bought one anyway. It was pretty cool. I never used it an awful lot. Finally ended up selling it in the mid-80's and, IIRC, the several boxes of ammo I'd horded brought more than the rifle. Depending on how the economy holds up, the time might be ripe for a comeback, look at the interest these days in high performance rimfires and other things we don't really have a use or a need for... If it were here to stay I doubt that I'd go out and buy a rifle, but I'd be real interested in getting a barrel for my Sako Quad or even my Encore.

It would take a company like Ruger, with a strong bolt gun, to chamber it up and allow it to run at high/original pressures. If they could work with Hornady or CCI to load a decent round that beats the 22 mag for velocity and the 17 HMR for bullet weight, then we'd have something.

As it is, what does a 30 grain at 2300 do that a 22 mag won't do just as well???

IIRC, Savage chambered some 93s in 22 Hornet before the new 40 was introduced.

Jeff

Fills that gap between the .22 mag and the .17 HMR.

.270win vs. .280rem?

i want to take this opportunity to point up the fact that when i opened this thread i directed my query to all, but included Mule Deer particularly, due to his self professed rimfire fascination.

Mule Deer is a pretty highly regarded author on "gunny" type things and has a reputation as an expert. I appreciate the fact that as an "expert", he felt no compulsion to regurgitate what he had read, or heard about the 5mm Rem...
Lacking direct experience, he simply, elegantly, and forthrightly said so...
A straight shooter.....

Johnw: I had a friend that owned one of these 5mm Remington Rifles and we shot it a fair amount.
It indeed was very accurate.
I have another close friend here in Dillon, Montana who is a trained Gunsmith and life long resident of this area.
His father owned a cattle ranch just south of town.
The father used a 5mm Remington to thin the Ground Squirrels in his ranch pastures along the Horse Prairie River.
The 5mm Remington was always in the ranch pick-up.
One day (the story goes!) the father was parked in his pick-up near some willows not far from the river and pastures.
Along comes a herd of Elk including a nice 5x5 Bull!
It was Elk season, Montana has no caliber restrictions on Big Game Rifles and the Elk stopped just 40 yards or so from the father.
He fetches his 5mm Remington and puts ONE shot in the ear area of that Bull!
It drops right there.
Now I was not there and my friend was not there but he got there soon after the incident and helped with the field dressing.
No other "holes" were observed in the huge creature!
NO - I am not endorsing the 5mm Remington for Elk Hunting but I do know they were an accurate and maybe "ahead of their time" little rimfire cartridge.
Thanks should be sent to the folks at Remington who over the decades have made the effort and endured the expense for bringing so many new cartridges on the scene for our enjoyment.
Thanks Big Green!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I have an old trashy 591 ( I guess, the tubular one anyway )it's beat all to hell..I traded a guy a tank of gas at the ranch when he got too far from home in that big desert country and it had an old 2.5 Bushnell scope in weaver mts....I was just going to sell it for $10.00, but I got a half box of shells with it, so shot it at 100 yards...It clustered 5 in the size of a dime, one little hole!!!...Needless to say that I still have it, and its still trashy and beat to hell, and it still shoots tiny, tiny groups. Its not for sale.