What in the wide, wide World of Sports is goin' on with Remington 788s lately?
 

I have a safe full of them and like them fine, but the prices of them have gone up from the stratosphere are headed into the sillysphere. A guy I at work has been looking for a LA bolt and I asked him if he had located one yet. He tells me not yet. Then goes on to say that there is one on eBay and it has 12 bids on it, is at $515 and the auction still has a day to go.

I'm not buying that for a minute and he says: Go to eBay and look for yourself. https://www.ebay.com/itm/29502832885...4AAOSwrgZioNt7
Great googley moogley! I wouldn't believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

Leeroy Wisner made a bunch of bolts a while back. IIRC, Jim said they had more time in them than they could get out of them. I think the last loose 788 bolt I bought I paid something like $150 for.

WOW - that price is nuts! There is a guy on Texas Hunting Forum that has the whole 788 rifle with a scope for sale at about $175 more.

A few years back, after looking high & low for a Rem 700 action to build on, I broke down & bought a Rem ADL .308 package rifle (scope & all) on sale for $479+tax. I had a friend very carefully remove the barrel without a scratch. I put the barrel up for auction on eBay starting at $100. The auction ended up at $495! I also sold the junk scope that came in the package for another $50. So I got my project action for free!

BTW: I went back & checked the 788 for sale on the THF. Price was $625 in .223 with Nikon Prostaff 3x9 with mag. SOLD & gone....

That’s insane. My first ever .222 was a 788 and I paid $150 less for the whole rifle at the time. :eek:

Anybody looking for one, George Herold in Waynesboro PA has a shitload of them in stock, about $700-900 range depending on caliber and they are in NICE condition, mostly.


Contact Information
Herold's Gun Shoppe
5 Barnett Ave
Waynesboro, PA 17268
Contact: George E Herold Jr
Title: Owner
Phone: (717) 762-4010

My first 788 in 22-250 was on sale at Big 5 for $99 in ~ 1980. It is in an MPI stock and is on it's second 26 inch Lilja barrel and has a Canjar trigger. It is very accurate and I am pretty fond of it.

FWIW, I had a young fellow who pestered me to refinish a birch 788 stock to look like it did when new. His dad's gun.

Birch stocks are a PITA to get the stain right and so I grabbed a LA 788 stock that was in my bucket o' stocks and went ahead and refinished it the same and did it first. I hadn't done a birch stock in years and wanted his to come out good for him. You have to use pre stain conditioner and rub the stain in and then buff it and then you have to put a few coats of polyurethane on before you can even think about steel wool and sanding between the first few coats is completely out of the question.

I tried to talk him into Tru Oil, but he really wanted polyurethane on it and since I was doing one, I might as well do both. I really don't like doing polyurethane on gun stocks, but he is a nice kid.

Both stocks came out looking quite nice and I decided to sell the one I had. I put right in the description that it had been refinished and had polyurethane and not the two part finish Remington used that has a catalyst in it. I think it got bid up to a couple hundred dollars. I can't remember if I put it up on eBay or Gunbroker. That surprised me, the price that this bolt has been bid up to leaves me gobsmacked.

This one shared a bolt with a 243 for a while, it is the one I paid ~$150 for a bolt for. It was free and the stock I refinished and sold came off it. It had a great 308 barrel that I sold and gave the money to the guy who gave me the barreled action and the Winchester barrel I put on it. Factory 788 barrels are a first rate SOB to get off w/o cutting a relief groove in front of the shoulder first.

Like a lot of things, now days. Price, supply and demand is causing many things to go up in price.
It is not like the old times, we grew up in and remember. So get used to paying more for things, no matter what they are or were. ;)

When I see an auction like this that has a bidder with ZERO feedback bidding up the price, I don't walk away, I run. This has all the markings of a shill bidding scenario. YMMV. Be interesting to see if this item comes up again shortly after the auction ends.

Still have one I'm putting a Shaw 6BR barrel on. Have a Canjar trigger and a Timney so if I ever find one at a sane price I can have second one in whatever. PTG lists new bolts 'soon'. Why pay more than what a 700 goes for? Just bought an SPS .223 for under $600 out the door.

I got my .243 in 1977, I think at a Coast to Coast store with a scope. I don't remember what it cost but it was cheap. My father got his,.243 a few years latter and now they are both mine. They are accurate guns, but I think people are nuts for what they bring now. I was at a family friends auction when he sold off about 150 guns about 15 years ago, and he had a 788 in .222 and an L46 in .222. The 788 sold for $100 more than the Sako.:eek: That's my first Sako.

This is one of the reasons they are generally very accurate.
http://www.saubier.com/forum/picture...pictureid=2278
Another reason is the action has very thick walls. The lock time is among the very fastest as well. At one time they were popular with Silhouette shooters here but the magazine capacity being but three made them a mess unless the magazine was modified. I shot with a guy that held a cartridge between his fingers in his forward hand