Interesting idea... but not for me.
Remington has come up with their new Model 7615 "tactical rifle."
It's got some very strong points: Pump action to salve the fears of a city council that might be afraid of giving "machine guns" to their officers. Ammunition and magazine compatibility with officers carrying AR15/M4/M16 rifles. Handy light weight, reliable action. It comes with sling swivels, which is good.
Some would say that the adjustable stock is a big plus.
I'm going to say.... not so much.
If I were to get one of these rifles, the very FIRST things I would do to it would be to put a standard old oil-finish wood buttstock and fore end on it, and change out those horrible short-radius sights for a receiver peep sight that probably would cowitness with a quality glass sight.
The beauty of a good pump-action repeater with a wood stock on it is that it looks to the citizenry like Andy Griffith just pulled it off the wall behind his desk. It doesn't look "tactical," which is a plus. A man with a well-sighted in 7600 or 7400 is not giving up much of anything to a man with an "assault rifle," but he has the advantage of stealth. That's worth a lot, when you're trying to get along with your community, rather than cow them into living under your boot.
And what's the point of a pistol grip on it anyway? It can't be fired one-handed with a pistol-grip. It's not necessary to help attenuate the recoil of the "mighty" .223 cartridge.
I'd like them to make one of these in the 7400 platform (semi-auto), again with wood stock.
So, if you're listening, Remington: Good idea with the magazine compatibility, but it needs better sights and a less "tactical" stock. Oh, and let's make sure it has decent accuracy, okay?
That is all.
Labels: Gripes, police, public service message, rifle
posted by Matt G @ 7:13 PM
19 Comments:
You know, this rifle screams only one thing to me:
TACTICOOL.
I never did understand the point of a pump action rifle to begin with. If you are shooting those types of distances (in the case of the .223, short-to-medium), fast, repeatable target acquisition is paramount. Something that even the most novice shooter would find easier to acquire in a SEMI-AUTOMATIC. It's not rocket surgery.
I do agree with the compatibility with AR mags to be a plus. However, I think that Beretta filled this void first with the Rx4: .223/.308 semi-auto (though I hear the .308 may not happen. Bummer) on an all-synthetic with room for rail-added goodies.
Still, you make a commanding point about wood. Wood retains some of the innocence of The Good Ole Days, while synthetics give off the "evil black" vibe.
I think Remington has a flop here, if you ask me.
tweaker
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bloody sodding Blogger software.
Remington already has a wood-stocked, less intimidating version of the 7615.
It's called the Ranch Carbine.
http://tinyurl.com/2dvjgl
I agree with you about the stock and fore end. I thought it was available with the standard black polymer stock.
I believe their selling pitch is that it handles exactly like the 870 shotgun.
A rifle is for providing support from a distance. If you are going in close, you take the shotgun.
In either case, any good shooter can demonstrate that you can cycle a pump faster than a semi-auto cycles itself. That is the reason people giving shooting demonstrations usually use a pump. There is no way they could break 7 clays thrown at once with an auto.
While I do see your point, georgeh, I must disagree.
I give you the Beretta Xtrema2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6bKbqSdNEc&mode=related&search=
I defy ANYONE to move a pump that fast.
Having read LawDog's take on it, however, this rifle does make a great deal more sense now, so in that sense I stand corrected.
tweaker
"In either case, any good shooter can demonstrate that you can cycle a pump faster than a semi-auto cycles itself. That is the reason people giving shooting demonstrations usually use a pump. There is no way they could break 7 clays thrown at once with an auto."
Absolutely false.
An utter myth, which I believed for years.
Go to a tactical shotgun match sometime, and find your myth exploded, like I did. I can hold my own with an auto against good guys with pumps. Good guys with autos simply destroy good guys with pumps.
You'd have to see it to believe it.
The thing about a pump is that they get a very fast (not fastest, but still very fast) repeater rifle fielded that otherwise would not be allowed by administrations that neither understand nor care about the difference between "semi-automatic" and "automatic." They simply know that both sound deadly, and don't bother them with details-- Request Denied.
I'm good with quality lever actions being fielded in such departments, too.
But slides are faster than levers, and semi-autos are faster than slides. (By rather small increments, granted.)
Nice thing about slide actions over a pump, also, is that they don't need clearance underneath to operate.
NOTE: This would be an excellent reason to consider NOT putting 30 round magazines in these rifles, except as a reload; they stick out too much underneath.
I like the Ranch Rifle, except...
it doesn't come with sights (That's okay-- I'd have to fix any of the sights on the other versions, anyway...), and
it's high-polish blue. I'd rather it be parkerized.
"the recoil of the mighty .223" is one of my favorite phrases. I use it all the time.
(Though MonkeyHusband is a major recoil slut. I can't shoot most of his rifles. They hurt.)
My cimean lady friend, a 55g load out of a 7.5 lb rifle is really, REALLY easy on the shoulder.
Seriously. We're talking about a bullet weighing about 1/3 of the standard .30-06 load, with only a coupla hundred more feet per second. It's basically a glorified varminter load.
Not with a bang but a wimp. (errrrr...)
Well, there was a time, "back in the day," when the "pump gun is faster than an autoloader" declaration was at least arguably true. For several decades, the only autoloading shotguns in common use were all based on the Browning long recoil system -- Browning Auto-Five and Remington Model 11, plus a few others. A well practiced shooter with a slick Winchester Model 12 or an Ithaca 37 could indeed blast off five rounds more quickly than one using the long, double-shuffle auto.
With the advent of the gas operated autoloader, this all changed. A clean, properly lubricated auto could beat even a good man with a pump. I'll admit, though, that in cold weather and any grime or TOO MUCH lube, my old 1100 slows noticibly. When the Benelli and its descendants arived, though, it was no longer even a close thing.
I'm not entirely opposed to the Remington pump .223 - - not that I'll rush out to buy one. The foggy-headed administrator reasons that Matt ennumerates are indeed valid. Also, it appears that any cop trained on the ubiquitous Remington 870 shotgun is ALMOST already trained on the 7615 carbine. And the carbine is actually easier to load and unload safely than the tubular magazine shotgun.
I really can't see why Remington offers the 7615 Ranch carbine without any sights, while they are available on the longer-barrelled Camo Hunter rifle. Looks to me as if the Ranch Carbine wood furniture would easily fit on the Tactical Rifle. Me, I'd add an aperture Ghost Ring rear sight before mounting any kind optical sight.
One final point: I'd bet the Remington pump can be sold for leff money than a .223 autoloader - - Colt AR15 or Ruger Mini 14.
JPG
A year or so ago, our friend Byron Quick found a ridiculous deal, and bought two new 7400's in the excellent .35 Whelen caliber-- one for himself and one for our friend John Shirley.
As a truck gun or woods hunting rifle or just all-around everything rifle, a man could do a LOT worse, from Alaska to Florida, from the hunting field to the police cruiser.
If I were a local police chief trying to equip cruisers with patrol rifles and keep the featherbrained administrators from freaking-- especially in bear and moose country-- I'd have bought one for each car.
If I hadn't had a bette handle on what would have gotten me in hot water with the Missus at that time (we were in a tight), I'd have given in and bought one myself, for my own self.
(Woops! They were 7600's, not 7400's. Trombones, not 'lectric.)
We had one of the 7600 Patrol Rifles in .308 for a while back when I worked at the Armory. It had the same receiver-mounted ghost ring sight as you'd get on a pimped-out Scattergun Tech 870, and much was made in the literature of it having nearly the exact same manual of arms as the 870, which all cops can operate in their sleep...
I was joking, Matt. I shoot the .223's and the .308's, he shoots the 7mm, the .458 Lott, the .338 Lapua, etc, etc. My AR is one of my favorite guns. And "the recoil of the mighty .223" really is one of my favorite phrases. Facetiously speaking, of course.
You know, MG, it's hard sometimes to catch inflection over the black-and-white page made up of startled electrons herded through copper wire and liquid crystal...
Thing is, Tamara, the manual of arms for it is still more complicated than most any auto, except that it's easier to go from "cruiser safe" to "go-time."
I'll be sure to send the electrons that announce forthcoming sarcasm first from now on. My apologies.
(By the way, I am a chick. And by default, that means that I expect you to read my mind. And I will sulk if you don't get it right.)
MG, I get that part-- I've been married for 9.5 years, reasonably successfully.
Thus, I should have remembered to start my response to you with an apology. I'm sorry that I forgot that, ma'am. Won't happen again. :)
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