Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Remington 783 ???

Here's my goal.......

My 12 year old son has Down Syndrome. He loves the outdoors and wants to go hunting like Dad. I've been looking at the various models of youth/compact rifles at every price point. Going to need about as short a LOP as I can get. The 783 has one of the shorter LOP's out there. Reviews on the trigger are decent. The mag.release.system looks simple. And it's cheap. I'm SURE I'd replace the boxed scope if I bought this rifle. I'd, likely, walk past these rifles 10 times out of 10 were I shopping for myself. Not knowing if my son is going to take to or stay with shooting and hunting, I don't want my initial thoughts investment to be huge.

Thoughts and advice on the 783 from those who have actually owned and shot one, please ??

As a gunsmith I would recommend against a rifle with a hollow plastic stock for your particular need.
You may find it best to shorten the stock to fit him, and doing that with hollow plastic is a lot more work then doing it with wood, or a wood laminate stock.
You might take a look at the Mossberg offerings. Like the Remingtons, they are push feed rifles and like Remington they are usually very accurate right out of the box. Customer service is good and the cost is low.

https://www.mossberg.com/category/series/mossberg-patriot/mossberg-patriot-hunting/

Excellent consideration. Thank you !! 👍👍

https://www.mossberg.com/category/series/mossberg-patriot/mossberg-patriot-bantam/


"This was last week. The model was a Patriot Super Bantam:

"FINALLY got to play with a Mossberg Patriot. Handled a few in the LGS's but that's it. A friend of my son bought his wife a scoped/combo youth model in .243Win. She is a work away RN who is home only twice a month so the only time to get this set up for season was on the afternoon of day they called me. With any firearm whether new or used I like to spend as much time giving it a going over until I feel it's good to go before shooting it. Couldn't happen this time. I didn't remove the bbl'd action from the stock. Ran a bore snake through it. Got the chamber dry. Lubed behind the locking lugs and in the cocking cam slot. Didn't seem to be an excessive amount of oil in the action but I did wipe down what I saw. Checked the action screws. Checked for fore arm pressure on the bbl and found it not only to be free floated but centered in the bbl channel. Scope was canted a bit and the knurled knobs that hold the rings to the bases weren't tight enough. I removed the scoped rings and found the bases tight (guessing they were loc-tited). Leveled the 3-9x40 scope (didn't think to check the brand) and adjusted it for optimum eye relief after setting the focus for her. Although I didn't measure the LOP of the stock I'd say was in the 12 or 12.5 " range. Bore sighted it. ~45 minutes later after having them standing around watching me I felt it was ready to go. LUCKILY my wife kept them occupied talking. The ammo was Federal Blue box 100gr SP's. I had her dry fire it few times to feel the trigger. NICE at maybe 3.5lbs. I've got an old Outter's Varmint Rest mounted on an old 450 dozer cage. Pretty stable. First shot was ~2" low but dead center for windage at 25yds. Gave the scope 32 clicks up which put her second shot ~.75" low and still dead center on windage. First shot at 100yds was almost dead center inside the 1.5" circle. Four more shots were all within the 3" diameter circle that surrounded the center one. She did GOOD for someone with very limited shooting experience. Just goes to show what a shooter can do with a rifle that fits,has a decent trigger,and doesn't wallop them at the butt end. As for that particular Patriot you can color me impressed. In fact if it's okay with my granddaughter I'll order her one except without a scope as I have one for it."


I just ordered one for my granddaughter.

Very good info.

Is the Patriot a wood stock or synthetic ??

Nevermind. Google to the rescue.......... 😏

I would say, take a look at this one too:

https://whittakercountry.com/product/79783

The Grendel is a good little whitetail cartridge and the fact that it comes with 2 Hogue stocks at that price makes it a really good deal.

I will have a look. Thank you.

I will admit, though, I am looking at something in .243 Win. Not a huge fan of .24's for whitetail. But I do have all the reloading accoutrements.

That was a class act Sir.

Thinking about one in .450 BM.
Need to change that trigger guard though.

Thank you. I do what I can to help out and the plus is I enjoy the heck out doing of it.

Consider a used 77 ruger mkii or Hawkeye . Great “lifetime” gun should be find his passion and you can get all of perhaps more than your money back if it’s not for him. Easy to shorten as well

Used high quality is the way to go imho