Windham WW-15, Remington 7400 and Remington Model 81
Once again we see a
lot of heated discussions and all kinds of opinions regarding the so called
“Modern Sporting Rifles” and weather the average citizen or legal resident of
the United States of America should continue to have the right to own and use
such firearms.
Depending on who you ask, the Modern Sporting
Rifles are seen under many different color shades, from evil tools generally
referred to as “Assault Rifles”, to nothing more than another step in the
evolution of the (detachable) magazine semiautomatic rifle, which in the most
popular form are civilian variations of the ArmaLite Rifle-15 or AR-15 designed
by Eugene Stoner in 1956. The design
was sold to Colt in 1959 and adopted by the United States Air Force in 1960.
Sometime later, in 1964 the United States Army adopted a slightly modified
design as the Rifle, Caliber 5,56mm,
M-16.
But the story of the Modern Sporting Rifle is much
older. Right at the turn of the Twentieth Century it came to light by the
genius of no other than John Moses Browning, the most prolific firearms
designer in history. In 1900 John Browning patented the design of a long-recoil,
magazine fed, high power, semiautomatic rifle, and in 1905 it became available
to American sportsmen as the Remington Autoloading Rifle. In 1911 the name was
changed to Model 8, and with minor cosmetic modifications it became the Model
81 Woodsmaster in 1936.
And the Remington Model
8 was not the only magazine fed, semiautomatic rifles available in the early
years of the Twentieth Century. My copy of the Arms of World – 1911: The
Fabulous ALFA Catalogue of Arms and the Outdoors shows no less than a
dozen different semiautomatic carbines in rifles, in as many
different calibers!
The Remington Model 8 was available in four
dedicated calibers: 25 Remington, 30 Remington, 32 Remington and 35 Remington,
and later the 300 Savage was added to the Model 81 to provide 30-06 level
power, or almost. When you consider that the main competition was Winchester
lever action rifles, the Remington calibers provided similar ballistics to the
Winchester 25-35, 30-30, 32 Special and 38-55. The 300 Savage is the parent
cartridge to the 308 Winchester and have almost the same ballistics.
Both the Model 8 and 81 had colorful stories,
and a lot of that didn’t come from the big woods where over one hundred
thirty-five thousand high power magazine fed semiautomatic rifles brought deer,
bear and other animals to the table of the early Twentieth Century Sportsmen.
During the Great War, the French Aéronautique
Militaire Used the Model 8 in 35 Remington in small quantities and later
during the Great Depression a certain Texas Ranger Captain named Frank Hamer
used a modified Model 8, also in 35 Remington (the most popular caliber in the
model) to put an end to the criminal careers of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.
Frank Hamer’s rifle was modified to take a “high capacity” detachable twenty round
magazines by the Peace Officers Equipment Company of St. Joseph, Missouri.
In 1933, in response to the Kansas City Massacre
the Federal Bureau of Investigation bought a number of Model 81’s both in 30
Remington and 35 Remington.
Of course Winchester Repeating Arms Company
would not allow Remington to play alone in the autoloading rifle market, and
they introduced the Model 1907 in 351 WSL and later the Model 1910 in 401 WSL
(Winchester Self-Loading), and just like the Remington Model 8, the French, now
the Army, pressed the Model 1907 into military service during the Great War.
From 1935 on Winchester offered a special “Police Rifle” variant, with among
other features, a high capacity detachable magazine.
So what we see is that both military and police
organizations adopted a rifle that was create for hunters to feel their needs,
but limitations on power, range, durability and cost, aligned with the typical
conservative mindset of the military decision makers, prevented these designs from
becoming standard infantry rifles.
Also, we should remember that the bolt-action
rifle was not popular in this country until the doughboys returned home from
World War I and wanted to hunt and shoot with the same or similar rifles that
they used in the trenches of Europe, the 1903 Springfield and Enfield Model
1917.
In a similar way we would see semiautomatic
rifles become more popular after World War II, with Remington replacing the
Model 81 in 1955 with the Model 740 (which was available n the popular 30-06
and 270 Winchester calibers), Winchester introduced the Model 100 (in 308
Winchester) in 1961 and Browning BAR Sporting Version in 1967, which was the
first semiautomatic rifle to be able to handle magnum calibers, like the 7mm
Remington Magnum and 300 Winchester Magnum. And just as a reminder, there are
“high capacity” detachable magazines avail for the Remington 740 and its
successors.
So, why is there so much passion about the
current Modern Sporting Rifle? Maybe it is a question of aesthetics. All
magazine fed semiautomatic rifles prior to the AR-15 pattern rifles looked
somewhat like a conventional bolt-action rifle, having the same overall profile
and wooden stocks.
But should we judge an object by its appearance
or by its intrinsic functionality? While the ArmaLite Rifle based designs may
look aggressive, out of place in the Great Outdoors, threatening to some, or
just plain ugly, their functionality is no different than that of rifles that
have been with us, and used by many of our great grandparents, grandparents and
parents for the last one hundred and thirteen years. Actually, except for
caliber, they are not that different from the ever-popular Ruger 10/22 or many
other detachable magazine semi-automatic twenty-two rifles. And just like any
other firearms, AR style rifles are tools, as good or as bad as the people
using them.
Although I tend to be a very conservative
sportsman, preferring side-by-side shotguns and even double rifles for most of
my hunting, because of all the discussion going on, I decided to try an
ArmaLite based Modern Sporting Rifle as my next deer rifle.
I elected to have a light, compact rifle built
in a caliber with proven ballistics for deer sized animals, and what center
fire rifle has killed more deer than almost all others put together than the
30-30 Winchester? The only problem was that there are no AR’s in that caliber,
but there are certain calibers that are readily available in the AR platform
with similar ballistics, and among them I selected the 7,62x39mm (which is the
intermediate cartridge that is used in the famous or infamous AK-47 rifle and
SKS carbine.)
The reason for my choice is that 7,62x39mm
ammunition is plentiful and economically priced, having slightly better
ballistic performance than the relatively new 300 Blackout.
My rifle started as a Windham Weaponry WW-15,
and then the furniture was replaced by Timber Creek Outdoors parts, and a Patriot
Ordnance Trigger System replaced the original trigger. An excellent Leupold
VX-R 2-7 scope 30mm tube with an illuminated reticle topped everything.
In a recent test, the rifle performed flawlessly
and the recoil is minimal. And since the stock can be easily adjusted for
different lengths of pull and virtually ambidextrous design, this rifle is
almost the ideal tool to introduce new people to shooting. Besides deer
hunting, semiautomatic rifles are ideal for hog hunting, where very often the
hunter has the opportunity to shoot multiple animals.
It is important that
we all keep in our minds that we are privileged on having the choices and
opportunities that we have. We can hunt with bow and arrow, a flintlock musket
that was the same gun as the Continental Army carried, or we can elect to use
the so called Modern Sporting Rifle, with a designed similar, but not the same,
as the current primary infantry rifle of the United Stated Armed Forces. And if
we allow that choice to be taken away from us, what else could we lose?
Browning BAR, Ruger Mini-14 and Ruger 10/22
Note: This article was first published in MICHIGAN'S HOOKS & BULLETS MAGAZINE, May/June 2018 issue. Visit them at www.hooksandbullets.com
