By Billy L.

January 3, 2026

I shared a great appreciation of firearms with my father-in-law. When he passed away, several of his guns came to me with the stated intention of them eventually being passed down to my son. One of them was an early model Remington 700 ADL chambered in .30-06. My Father-In-Law bought it used at a pawn shop because it was "too good a deal to pass up" The rifle had a really cheap fixed 4x scope, mounted on top of some "old school" high rise, see-through scope mounts so you could still use the iron sights. It had been shot 'lord only knows' how many times since being manufactured in the early 60's.

Funny thing is, my father-in-law was not a hunter. He just liked guns. I once told him, 'you should let me take that thing home; I'll certainly shoot something with it." The rifle eventually ended up at my house and spent the next couple of decades as a safe queen. When my son got married, he decided he wanted grandpas guns sooner than later so he could enjoy them with me, instead of waiting until after I was dead to get them. I made a deal with him; I'll put a real scope on it, take it hunting this year, and as soon as you get a safe or a locking gun cabinet to keep them in, I'll bring them all to you.

I put a Leupold VX-Rifleman on it, and went looking for some ammo that would group well enough to take to the deer woods. My first choice was Hornady Superformance 150 grain SST's but the gun just didn't seem to like them. I tried Winchester Deer Season XP, Power Points, Remington Core Lokts and Tipped Core Lokts. They all shot "about the same" with the 180 grain bullets producing slightly tighter groups. Then I grabbed a box of 180 grain "American Whitetail" Interlocks from the Fort Bragg PX and a match made in heaven was was found. The rifle shot those 180 grain Interlocks noticeably better than anything else I had put through the gun.

After a quarter century of treating my father-in-laws rifle as a family heirloom, this year (2025) I finally took it into the deer woods. I'd like to round out the story with a picture of a monster buck that I took from an incredible distance with an epic rifle shot. That just isn't what happened. Instead, I was presented with an average sized doe that popped out onto the near edge of the cornfield. My elevated blind was barely 110 yards away from where she stopped to nibble. I thumbed off the safety, the 61 year old rifle bucked in my hands, and the 180 grain Hornady Interlock passed through both lungs. Forty yards later, my father-in-laws Remington 700 was finally a 'veteran' deer rifle. Now I can give Grand Pa's gun to my boy so that he can take it to the deer woods too.