Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Rem Nylon 66

The Rem Nylon 66 may be my favorite .22LR. The Rodney Dangerfield of .22 rifles. I have more than a gun cabinet full of them, picked up over the years in the $60 to $120 range. My grandkids burn up bricks of cheap .22 ammo through them. I have never seen one miss a shell and their accuracy is always good. I smile to myself as I read about the way more expensive .22's on the forums. These may be the ultimate hunter/plinker. Life is good.

If you love em that's all that matters......Enjoy..........Hillbilly.

I think that the tube-feed Nylon 66s are great, but the clip fed 77 and 10-C were less so because of their "iffy" plastic magazines. Nylon 66 with SN 21147xx was my 1st rifle, found under the tree on Christmas 1969. I've probably shot 20K rounds through this rifle without any trouble. The only ammo that wouldn't feed well in it was some of that wax covered Russian Junior-brand ammo in the seagreen boxes. With any good grade of ammo, the Nylon 66s were darned close to 100% reliable.

If the Nylon 66 had been made in stainless it would have been more weather-proof, but they worked well enough such that Remington made over 1,000,000 of them and then sold the stock molds to FIE/CBC in Brazil.

JEff

I've owned three of them over the years. All were very reliable and they are tough but I wouldn't have used the word "accurate" to describe any of them. Marlin semi's were/are considerably more accurate on average, though not as tough or reliable.

I have been shooting 50 years now and waited to by my first 66 until about two years ago...a nice Apache Black. A few weeks ago I had a chance at a Mohawk Brown and was given a good deal on it.

Only problem with these rifles is because of the receiver cover flex I've never see a one that will hold zero with a scope for very long. But for their intended purpose they are great guns...

Bob

I have 77's and 10-C's and the mag clip feeds are not as reliable. Same with my 76 lever and 12 bolt. But the 66's are a real shooter. They won't shoot as accurate my old Mod 60 Marlin (Micro Groove?), but it jams about once or twice every tube full. My 66's do not jam with good ammo, period.

Coon hunters here used to carry the 66's on their back with a twine string sling, because they were so light. A back packers .22LR dream.

I have never scoped one.

Yeah, they are great little rifles. I have a Black Diamond and a regular Mohawk brown with the white diamond. Though they are not tack drivers, they are sufficient for small game and tin can fun.

Jeff,
Do you know anything about the quality of the FIE "copy" of the 66? I came across one for sale recently but didn't buy because I wasn't sure (plus it was pretty beat up).
Been trying to find a decent "user" 66 but the "collectors" seem to have driven the prices beyond reason.
Thanks

It is my understanding that the FIE Nylon 66s were made on the Remington equipement and that they are a 100% true copy. I question that part, as I have wondered if the screws were metric specs instead of SAE. If the price was right, like under $150, and it was in good shape, I'd give the FIE Nylon 66.

I know that I'm getting older, but it seems like just a couple of years ago you could buy really nice Nylon 66s for under $150, but I'm sure not seeing them these days.

JEff

My experience as well, and had one whose reciever cover was so out of line with the bore a scope could not be mounted to ever zero. That said, my experience mirrors that of the others here. Great reliable and fun guns x 100. Love my 10/22's, but might add another Nylon 66 to the mix if I get a good deal on one someday. Grandkids will be old enough to shoot one in a couple of years, might make a good starter 22 for them.

I bought mine in the mid- 60's
I counted change out of my dresser tobacco can and went to a new store called "K-Mart " and brought it home.
$60 or so....
Having tack driver bolt guns with 1" scopes, it frustrated me trying to scope it!

The other thing I didn't care for?
One had to count rounds as you loaded it ( or fed it from a tube , like at a shooting gallery ).

If you loaded one too many, you had to dump 'em and re-load.

Best thing I did with it?
I gave it to my brother for Christmas and went out to buy a brand new rifle. A Ruger 10/22 Sporter!

..we are not "getting old"...just "more experienced"....

And you ae correct...up until about 4 years ago I never saw a 66 over $200.00...now I never see a decent one under $225.00. The Mohawk Brown one I bought a few weeks ago was priced at $250 but the dealer let me have it for $190.00 OTD. It had a small cheap 3/4" tube scope on it that once zeroed lost its zero in about 10 rounds. I was shooting at some shotgun shells on a bank and could watch the impacts getting lower and lower beneath the shells. Pulled the scope off and it's now a fine shooter...

Bob

Jeff,
Thanks for the info. The one I looked at was in rough shape, but appeared to be exactly like the 66 in every way. Not sure the quality of the materials they used was the same though.

Shot a lot a rounds out of my best friend's 66 when we were growing up. Same issue others mention with the scope mounting not being real consistent.
We had over 100K rds through the thing when a I got the brilliant idea to tear the gun down and totally clean it as a favor for my buddy. After I found all the little nylon ball bearings that fell out, got it back together and proudly presented it to my buddy......and he was not thrilled. Turns out this was only the second time it had been cleaned & it had functioned flawlessly up to that point. Took us a couple hundred rounds to get it dirty enough to quit jamming and I never tried to clean it again!

don't forget that you can take the disconnector out and it'll fire full auto!
Then your countin ammo A LOT

It is probably a good thing that I did not know that when I was a teenager!

John

I don't scope them and we don't clean them. I once read that they are self lubricating with the nylon.

I remember that Remington had an older fellow that sat at the shows back in the day and would make a picture of an Indian Chief with a head dress on a sheet of copper with someone reloading his rifles. I think that he shot over millions of rounds through those 66's.

My original Nylon 66 had a 3-6x Weaver V22 mounted on it shortly after I got it. Since then it has had a variety of scopes mounted on it, but it is curretly scope-less and not in the commonly used rifle rotation.

JEff

I took one apart to clean the thing. THAT will never happen again. Don't do it, trust me.

Ha! I learned that the hard way when I was a teenager.

Nowadays somebody likely has a video of how to reassemble a Nylon 66 on on YouTube, but no such luck 20 year ago. I finally got the rifle back together, but I was close to giving up several times!

John

yeah, who was the guy that shot something like 10,000 hand tossed wooden block with one? And he missed ..4?