I am one sick puppy. Well, that's what my wife says anyway.
The Remington 700ML was advertised as "like new" at a very fair price. When I called the guy, it turned out he lives about 40 miles from me just off my route to the hunting lease. So we arranged to meet at an Interstate exit gas station last Friday.
When he pulled the gun out of his truck it sure looked "like new".
My first look at the breech was a shocker. Lots of crud, a little rust, and a
broken off nipple.
Inspection of the bore turned out as I expected. Visible crud - not real heavy, but visible with a little light surface rust. Dropped the ramrod down the bore. YEP, there's a load in there. Got out my thin little flashlight and dropped it down the bore. What I was seeing at the muzzle pretty much continued the full length of the bore.
So I says to the guy, "I thought you said this gun was 'like new'". He says "Well look at it. There's not a scratch on it. The bluing is perfect. This was my dad's gun and I doubt he shot it more than ten times."
Now I didn't know if the guy was out to scam someone, or was just clueless. Then he made the mistake of saying "I have one just like it, but with a camo stock. They shoot great." So
I knew that
he knew the true condition of the gun. For sure he had to know there should be a nipple sticking out of the breech instead of that jagged stub.
"OK", I said, "here's the deal. Your asking price would be fair for a well used gun like this with a clean bore, and more than fair if it was 'like new' as you described it. But it's not like new. It has a rusty bore, stuck charge, broken nipple, and probably a frozen breech plug. If you want to get rid of it I'll give you half of your asking price."
"OK" he says, "I'll take half."
Well I bought the dang thing to have something to play with between now and our 13 November deer opener.
Cleaned the breech area up pretty well at the camp Saturday evening while I was sipping Scotch. But there was no way the breech plug was coming out. Pulled the charge (240 grain XTP, sabot, two powder pellets) and scrubbed the bore with some oiled steel wool. It came out better than I expected.
When I got home Sunday evening I started the
Liquid Wrench treatment on the breech plug. This morning it came out as though it was never stuck. Threads on both the plug and in the barrel are excellent. Drilled a hole through the nipple and removed it with an
Easy Out. The plug cleaned up just fine and the nipple seat threads are sharp and strong.
At this point I learned you can't use just any #11 nipple in a Remington. (No, I didn't know that.) The threads are 1/4 x 28, but all of the nipples I had on hand were too short for the striker to contact. Found some Remington nipples at CAINS OUTDOORS ($7.90 for two nipples &
$10.05 S&H -
DAMN!).
So here's what the breech looks like now.
And here's what the bore looks like.
Actually, when viewed by eye those pits don't look near as bad as the look in the picture. I suspect it's going to shoot just fine. We'll see. But not until the nipples show up.
Yep! I'm a sick puppy. Or, maybe just Semisane.
Rescuing A Remmie
I may end up selling it for enough to pay for the .45 Knight Elite I have coming my way in a week or two, or whenever the guy in Lafayette Louisiana travels in my direction. 
