Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Model 788 new barrel?

Thanks Filaman. Your thinking mirrors mine - it has all the ingredients except a good barrel. It may not be worth it to some, and even though there's no sentimental attachment to this rifle, I think it will be fun to turn it into a tack-driver, and I'm confident a new barrel will do that. Plus it gives me the opportunity to choose any 308-length caliber/cartridge/twist I want. I'm thinking 6mm Creedmore, 7.5 twist.

That ain't happining. The .222 is one of the most inherently accurate cartridges in the world. In the 50s and 60s it was the Bench rest darling. The .222 Remington is just sweet. The .22-250 is a bit more versatile being it will shoot heavier bullets farther with more energy and you can use it on larger game more reliably but it just can't compete with the .222 in the accuracy department.

Rebore not an option here? With a walnut stock, nice bluing and a Timney I think I'd try saving as much as possible and just sell the Ramline.

I have one in .22-250 and my son a .222. Mine was the old man's, my son's a gift from a friend of my dad's. I've been following this for future reference.

I don't know if I'd chamber a 788 in the CM. I think I'd stick with shorter rounds. While the CM works wonders in a 700 action you might lose any advantage a CM will give you.Also you will be moving up in pressure I think. Now the parent cartridge of the .22-250, the .250-300 might be perfect for it. Or a wildcat the bench rest shooters used back in the day alot was the 6mm International. made by necking down the .250-3000 case to 6mm would be a great choice for it too.

You already showed your colors.
And, for once, that is a positive statement.

You could (dishonestly) trip it, and walk away ok.

But....

If you disclose the junk barrel, it's not worth much.
So, give Shaw a call.
And then enjoy your $900 788 with the barrel you got to choose.

And, enjoy your good sleep and clear conscience.
If doing what's right came easy, and was profitable, more would do it.

A friend "shot out" his long owned 788 22-250.
A gift from his family, he didn't want to alter it,
So he had a bit turned off the chamber end, and remembered it.
Shoots as good as ever. Cheap enough.

But, you may have more tgan throat issues.

I wish my buddy Carl Deaton still made his Deaton's Deep Clean. Best damn Copper Cleaner I ever used. He tried to market it but people didn't have faith in him because he was only a roofer by trade and they they didn't have confidence in him to make such a product and they didn't give his product a chance.

He told me to take my dirtiest most coppered rifle barrel and use my favorite copper cleaner on it. I did. After I used it and shoved three or four patches down the barrel the patches came out white. Absolutely clean, or so I thought. Then he said soak a patch in Deep Clean and run it down the barrel, Leave it for two minutes and run a clean patch through. I did and it came out cobalt blue which is a good indication of copper. It was still full of copper.

I used this when I broke in my .250 Savage. It took about 40 rounds and it almost quit picking up copper altogether. That rifle today when I do my part will shoot inside MOA and sometimes when I'm on my game will shoot 1/2 MOA. Of course it has a Krieger SS 26" heavy sporter barrel with 1:9 twist. I attribute a portion of that to Deaton's Deep Clean. It helped me with barrel break in by removing all copper from the rough spots in the throat and caused it to smooth out fast. If you don't get all the copper out of the rough spots it will make smoothing out the barrel take longer.

This area is a very small part of the barrel and is where the chamber was throated. So even with a lapped barrel it needs a certain amount of breakin to smooth this area out. This area is relatively rather rough in relation to the rest of the smooth finished hand lapped barrel and picks up copper. The copper it picks up will make smoothing it out take longer and may cause it to be relatively rough for the barrel's life if not broken in properly.
That's why barrel makers give you a breakin procedure when you buy a barrel from them.

I wish I had the money to help this guy get it going again. He still has a patented recipe for it locked away but he ran out of funds before he got it off the ground. However, I think if your gun smith will hand lap the whole barrel once it's been chambered and head spaced you probably wouldn't need as much of a break in. I've heard tell some do it like that, hand lap the barrel after chambering it and call it broke in after 5 or 10 shots of cleaning after each shot. I think factory rifles are smoothed out before they put them on the market. Anyway, good copper solvent makes accuracy a lot easier.

Don’t give up one the 788 use jb bore paste or Remington 40x. There is no substitute for the abrasive cleaners. Read this article http://coyotestuff.com/carbon-fouling-removal/

Forty mile,

The 788 has a 16 thread per inch barrel tenon, meaning every “thread” a gunsmith turns it back moves the barrel / throat back ~ .062 inches... Provided there is a decent amount of metal left (the thick part of the barrel before the profile starts thinning down) it should be relatively easy to evaluate how far you need to set the barrel back to get into good (non eroded lands).

If you have a Hornady OAL gauge that pushes the bullet up to meet the lands you can get an idea of how far they are eroded by comparing where it hits to a max OAL with the same bullet..

It’s a bit of work to do gunsmith wise (set the should on the tenon back, then cut the tenon down so the bolt nose clears, then simply run the reamer down the setback amount to get it into good rifling, possibly adjusting the throat to where you want it with a throat reamer)...

BUT it leaves you in good shape with not having to order a new barrel.

If you have a smith do it makes sure to ask him to slug the barrel first to find out if it has any other issues... he’ll likely scope it anyway to see the throat erosion.

Other than that - JB bore paste is your friend.

Pretty sure the 788 is twenty tpi. GD

Spec I looked up said 16 TPI, either way each thread gives a good amount of setback so unless he’s REALLY burned the throat out it should be doable.

IIRC, the 788 barrel threads are 20 TPI and the barrel shank diameter is only slightly smaller than the small shank Savage 110 series, 1.000" for the Remington 788 and 1.055" for the small shank Savage 110 series. I have heard of people installing reworked Savage barrels on Remington 788 actions, but I don't recall having seen this conversion and I don't know how they installed a recoil lug.

In the world of setbacks to restore accuracy via a fresh throat, 1/16 or 1/20 is squat. Half inch or so and now you're talkin'. Any barrel can be fitted with a Savage-style nut. GD

True - but I was hoping the guy got lucky vs. a pdog rifle...

I asked him to see how far a bullet goes to hit the lands, he said out of the case, so it’s very likely it’s going to do the 3/8th to 1/2 setback like you said.

I thought I would resurrect this old thread and post an update. I decided against all logic and conventional wisdom to have my 788 re-barreled. A gunsmith in Twin Falls, ID, who is a friend of a friend, did the work. He installed a Benchmark stainless barrel, finished at 24 inches, with the same contour as the original 788 barrel. I decided to try something a little different and went with .22-250 Ackley Improved. 8 twist. I had him glass bed the original walnut stock. I got it back and it looks great. Bought 100 rounds of Lapua brass, and put together a fire forming load using 55 grain Hornady V-max bullets, Varget powder. Just what I had on hand. I followed Benchmark's barrel break in procedure, which is cleaning with copper solvent after each round for 8 shots, then after 3 or 5 shot strings for a few strings. I'm pretty happy with the results. This is the best 5 shot group (first shot with a clean barrel) at 100 yards, two others were just a little bigger. Pretty good for a fire forming load. Can't wait to see what it will do with formed brass. I plan to get some Redding competition dies. It may be one of the most expensive 788s out there, but if it consistently shoots like this (sub 1/2 inch) I will be happy. Anybody have good .22-250 AI loads to share, with high BC bullets?