hey zanedclark, thanks for taking the time to share pictures of your 81 with us
Oh and your bolt looks good, the part marked "35" is the extractor and Remington used that one on 35's and 300's. That recoil pad will surely be appreciated at the range!
So the bolt belongs to the rifle. I always thought that someone along the way refit a .35 Remington bolt to the 81. I think I'm going to like this site!
zane
If you have not fired it yet, you are about to discover it will rattle your fillings and that tang sight will bite into your hand. For conventional shooting, I load .300 Savage with lead bullets and just enough propellant to operate the action.
Those I use are 165 grain with gas checks. I cannot say what mold design, but they are spitzer, with much the same nose profile as the military M2 or M80 bullets. I ran into a fellow at a gun show with a box containing over a thousand of them a few years ago, which I bought for the princely sum of $10.00. In the .300 Savage, I use a load of 23 grains of 2400. Mild recoil, and it works the action. That same load and bullet works pretty well in .30-'06 also. Grouping is not as good as using jacketed bullets, but not terrible. I have made up some loads with the same bullet in .30 Remington using 19 grains of 2400, but have not yet fired them. One problem in using them in the .30 Remington is that these bullets must be seated a lot deeper than with the .300 Savage to maintain the maximum COAL, and the loaded cartridge looks strange. My previous experiments with using other lead bullets in the .30 Rem have not been successful (very poor grouping), but maybe these loads will shoot better in my new M8.
I don't know about 220 grain bullets. You may have a bullet stability problem and experience keyholing on the target due to their greater length. But I have successfully used 220 grain jacketed bullets in the .30 Rem. You just have to shoot and see what happens. My suggestion would be to load up only a few for experimental purposes, in case they do keyhole.
Pictures too - Gotta like this guy. Great looking rifle.
Though defensive violence will always be “a sad necessity” in the eyes of men of principle, it would be still more unfortunate if wrongdoers should dominate just men. - St. Augustine
