The Goose
NES Member
Last week I picked up a Remington 597 VTR .22 LR. I was looking for a semi auto plinker/fun gun that would be fun to shoot. I did a little research and I will say that the VTR got mixed reviews, a lot of love/hate stuff. Some folks said it was a jam o matic, very ammo sensitive and a general pos. Others loved it and described it as very reliable and dead nuts accurate. Obviously in the end I bought it. Mostly because I liked how it felt and looked. Now off to the range with a brick of CCI standard .22LR.
The first 5 – 6 mags I got a failure to feed every 2 – 3 shots. Pretty disappointing. Gradually it got better and after about 100 rounds it functioned flawlessly for another 100 rds. Once it was running OK it was fun to just pop off rounds as fast as I could. I sighted in the scope at 75 yards and it was easy to shoot 1” – 1.5” groups rapid fire. My best group with slow deliberate fire was a 10 shot ½” group. Pretty good for a plinker. Again I will repeat that it was just darn good fun.
Now for the really down side. It appears that someone at Remington wanted to jump on the .22 tacticool band wagon so they screwed a bunch of stuff onto an existing sporting design. They would have been better served dropping the original action into a black stock. Instead they designed a rifle with the most convoluted and complicated takedown that I have ever seen. To take it down for a thorough cleaning you start by taking off the two side panels on either side of the action. Each panel is held on by 6 hex screws. That’s 12 freaking screws just to get the panels off. Then the barrel shroud screw is taken out and the shroud removed. The rear stock is then removed and then the pistol grip. At that point one is referred to the original 597 manual where the actual takedown begins. A pin is driven out to drop the trigger assembly. Two screws at the back of the receiver are removed, then the guide rods, guide rod springs and bolt can be removed. This is not a rifle for anyone who is nervous about taking a gun apart (or putting it back together). It took me over an hour to get it apart, clean it and put it back together. Undoubtedly it will be better next time, but oh my God!
The VTR will work for me. I will likely polish the guide rods and the bolt for smoother and more reliable functioning. I own a fair number of firearms and this will be put in the rotation so to speak. So it will not be fired on a weekly basis once the newness passes. However, if this was someone’s main range gun it would be a bear to keep clean. I still like this rifle and look forward to experimenting with different ammo and finding out just what it is capable of. I do think that there are probably much better choices out there for a semi auto .22. JMHO.
The first 5 – 6 mags I got a failure to feed every 2 – 3 shots. Pretty disappointing. Gradually it got better and after about 100 rounds it functioned flawlessly for another 100 rds. Once it was running OK it was fun to just pop off rounds as fast as I could. I sighted in the scope at 75 yards and it was easy to shoot 1” – 1.5” groups rapid fire. My best group with slow deliberate fire was a 10 shot ½” group. Pretty good for a plinker. Again I will repeat that it was just darn good fun.
Now for the really down side. It appears that someone at Remington wanted to jump on the .22 tacticool band wagon so they screwed a bunch of stuff onto an existing sporting design. They would have been better served dropping the original action into a black stock. Instead they designed a rifle with the most convoluted and complicated takedown that I have ever seen. To take it down for a thorough cleaning you start by taking off the two side panels on either side of the action. Each panel is held on by 6 hex screws. That’s 12 freaking screws just to get the panels off. Then the barrel shroud screw is taken out and the shroud removed. The rear stock is then removed and then the pistol grip. At that point one is referred to the original 597 manual where the actual takedown begins. A pin is driven out to drop the trigger assembly. Two screws at the back of the receiver are removed, then the guide rods, guide rod springs and bolt can be removed. This is not a rifle for anyone who is nervous about taking a gun apart (or putting it back together). It took me over an hour to get it apart, clean it and put it back together. Undoubtedly it will be better next time, but oh my God!
The VTR will work for me. I will likely polish the guide rods and the bolt for smoother and more reliable functioning. I own a fair number of firearms and this will be put in the rotation so to speak. So it will not be fired on a weekly basis once the newness passes. However, if this was someone’s main range gun it would be a bear to keep clean. I still like this rifle and look forward to experimenting with different ammo and finding out just what it is capable of. I do think that there are probably much better choices out there for a semi auto .22. JMHO.
