I've always liked the pump action. Easy to use, simple to make, fast shooting, light weight, and reliable. They can use box mags. I've never understood why the don't catch on much beyond .22 rifles, shotguns, and a few remington models. I mean, a 10 mm pump action that used glock mags would be a nice handy rifle wouldn't you think?

Is it that when you start looking at pump action, you just figure a semi-auto in the same thing would be better?

Actually, pump actions have been illegal here ever since Hungerford, and were banned in the same piece of legislation that took out our semi-autos.

Probably something to do with some actions being able to fire by just pumping the action while holding down the trigger. 

Yeah. And normal lever actions, too.

Oh, and semis and pumps in .22 and smaller.

I'd rather have a pump-ation AR.

I'd rather have a pump-ation AR.

A refugee from california had one of those back in the mid 90s and I got to mess with it.  No sir.  didn't like it.

The pump action remingtons like the 760 or 7600 or whatever were popular with a lot of guys who shot a lot of trap or did a lot of bird hunting with 870s.  My dad hunted with guys who swore by those guns.  Some were blazing quick with a pump too.

I'd wager that they're not popular with the target shooting crowd because the pump action would be extremely awkward in most of the standard shooting positions - prone, sitting, kneeling - where the non-firing hand is supporting the weight of the rifle, and that weight is then resting on the elbow.  If you're all slinged up, working the action would be a major pain.

Semis and bolties don't have that issue.  (Yeah, you have to come off the sight with a bolt, but your basic position is still in place.)

Took my first deer with a 7600 in 308, it was a beautiful gun

Some good points. I've seen the 10 round mags fore the 760 and 7600 series, but I've heard they had some reliability problems. My dad's 760 .308 mags were interchangeable with my 7600 in .243 which makes sense since the cases are the same.

The trigger on my 7600 is heavy. I wouldn't call it mushy, but I did have dreams about that gun where I couldn't pull the trigger cleanly in my dream so subconsiously at least, I knew the trigger wasn't good.

I really think the pump in .22 is about the perfect plinking and hunting rifle. I also have a remington fieldmaster pump .22 and it is a prairie dog killer. Very reliable too. I'd could shoot it almost as fast as my friend's 10/22 and I didn't have the fouling and jams he did. No recoil allowed you to keep your sight picture and not break your stance.

Would people buy a .308 carbine that was light, took pmags, had a flat top continuous rail, free float barrel and was a pump action if the price was under $700?

I have a 7600 and it's a great rifle. Fast, light, and as reliable as an 870. Given the right aftermarket support they could be fun guns to accessorize. Here's what I'd change. Float the barrel and make a top rail system, offer threaded barrels, 10 round or more mags,  beef up the bolt and reciever for higher volume fire and heat dissapation, and improve accuracy.

There's a .223 version of this rifle that could take AR mags if I recall. I'd rather have an AR in 5.56, but chamber it in .308 and make it pmag compatible and I'd buy one tomorrow.

I thought the 7600 already had a floated barrel?  That's what Remington's website says anyway.  I have an older 760 in .35 Remington.  That barrel is not floated (still plenty accurate though).

Also, FWIW, the 760 has a pretty good trigger.

I thought the 7600 already had a floated barrel?  That's what Remington's website says anyway.  I have an older 760 in .35 Remington.  That barrel is not floated (still plenty accurate though).

Also, FWIW, the 760 has a pretty good trigger.

your right it does. I was describing what I'd do to make a pump gun with more tactical applications that could be used for hunting as well.

Can't forget the Colt Lightning!



I've always liked the pump rifle.  As a boy we had Winchester 61.


(not ours, just a random internet picture)

We called it 'sideways sally' because it would key-hole all the time.  It wasn't very accurate.  It's barrel was in such rough shape it just sounded different from all the other 22s, I figure it was letting a some gas pass around the bullet.

See, my Grandfather bought it used at a farm sale when he was a lad of 14 or so, in the middle of the great depression.  He would hunt jackrabbits with it.  (They used be as thick as locusts here, but were all but wiped out)  You'd get a few penny bounty from the government for every jack in addition to a the meat.  He'd hide the gun in the fields and go to any farm foreclosure sales.  Back then the rules of hospitality were such that even if your farm was bankrupt and the bankers were forcing you to sell off every possession you had, you were expected to feed your 'guests'...i.e. the people who would bid on your the bank's goods.  So the farm-wife would hand out bun sandwiches and glasses of water to all who were there.  Of course the idea was you'd only invited the people who were honest buyers, and those were the only ones who expected to get fed.  So Grandpa could hide his rifle and pretend he was there with plans to buy.  And sometimes he DID buy a tool or so that his Dad's farm needed, but if he had his rifle he'd have been chased off as simply a guy looking to get a free meal (which he was, but in reality that meant he'd skip the meal at home leaving more for his brothers and sisters.  Tough times for all parties involved make what is morally right and wrong not be so clear)

Anyways he'd buy the cheapest 22 cartridges he could find, by the handful not by the boxful.  This was often off-brand 22 short cartridges which had to be single-loaded as the'd not feed well out of the magazine.  There were frequently squib loads and when that happened he'd have to use a long piece of stiff wire to drive the bullet back out of the barrel by just tapping on it a few thousand times.  That's why the barrel is so rough.

In the 1910s and 20s it really seemed like pump action rifles were getting quite popular (along with more modern lever actions like the Savage 99) guns like the Remington 14 for the deer woods and PLENTY of pump action 22s.

I've always wondered if the depression years put some stigma on this design in the eyes of people for the next 20-30 years, and if that had anything to do with them fading away.

I used to say I'd love it if someone reintroduced the Lightning modernized up a bit, in 357 or 44 magnum.  Same basic gun just don't bother with the case-hardened finish and the metal butt plate, basically modernize it the way a lot of lever actions are.  

Some Israeli firm came out with the 'timberwolf' which I was really excited about but when I actually laid eyes on it I was not impressed.



oh well, maybe someday there will be another company who has a better eye for lines who can just take the basic lightning design and modernize it and charge about the same as Marlin does for their lever action rifles.

I believe Col. Cooper wrote about a pump action .223 in South Africa that took standard magazines, a solution to their prohibition against civilians with semis.