Q
I just lucked on to a Remington Model 720 which has an entirely different action to the current Model 700. My sample is in .300 H&H Magnum and wears an old Bausch & Lomb Balvar scope. What can you tell me about the origins of this rifle?
– Claud Andrews
A
The history of the Remington Model 720 began after the end of World War I when Remigton had tens of thousands of M17 Enfields on hand in various stages of completion. Rather than consign them to the scrap heap they sporterized them and in 1921 began offering them as the Remington Model 30. During the ’20s and ’30s the Model 30 evolved into a more sophisticated rifle and was offered in calibres other than .30-06. In 1941, the most refined of the Enfield-based Remingtons, the Model 720 was introduced, but production ceased when America entered World War II. After the war, the Model 720 was listed in the catalogues of 1946 and ’47, but hunters bought very few. It was dropped in 1948 when the greatly simplified Model 721 was introduced, to be followed two years later by the Model 722. These were upgraded to become the Model 700 in 1962. I’ve only ever seen two Model 720s – one owned by Harry Reimal who managed at the Shooter’s Home in Sydney and one that I bought while managing Carl Falk’s Tradin’ Post in Grafton back in the early 1960s.
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