Hi fellows, I'm new here, and thought this thread would be a good place to submit my first comment.
I'm just a country boy who enjoys keeping the riff-raff cleared out of my area with my little varminter calibers.
I have some experience, but not extensively, and my overall favorites have always been from the Remington factory. Mostly from the Custom Shop.
Ironically enough, Remington also provided the worst excuse of a firearm I ever had the displeasure of owning. But that's an entirely different story!
Firearms used to be cheap!
So, never being fortunate enough to be the recipient of Gandpa's hand-me-down tack drivers, I had to learn on my own how to determine when a particular firearm was a good buy, and when it wasn't. As a result, I have owned several quality rifles of various brands and calibers.
Actually, the big companies are doing quite well now (despite the hair-raising prices), but in the late 60's thru 80's, conditions were quite different.
Suddenly their was a big lull after some new legislation that reduced government sponsorship in the shooting sports, and after decades of continuing refinements and production techniques, many of the companies were forced to make unwanted cuts, change ownership, or as in the case of some of the good oldies from the 1800s, forced entirely out of business.
Remington however always remained strong during these times, but the lineup of products being offered was pretty much at a minimum.
Regardless that the old line of standard models were still existent, anything new would have been a real gamble, and wisely, nobody dared to try and beat the odds.
The LIMITED EDITION CLASSIC was one of their better schemes that worked out well for everyone, and to boot, they were assigned to the boys in the Custom Shop to produce.
As stated by all the gun rags at the time, the special edition was intended to only last for 25 years, introduced with a unique caliber every year. They even asked for comments from shooters on what caliber their choice would be.
For the first several years, quality of wood and machining neared C grade custom shop work.
Unfortunately, the last Limited Edition Classic I purchased neither showed exemplary wood, nor the deep glossy bluing of the previous models, even though the price remained somewhat constant over the entire 25 year range.
So now, as back then, there may be some fudging to make sales easily cover the production costs, but the quality of the older lines of Remington products has remained intact. If that ever changes, Remington can likely begin to kiss their NUMERO UNO status goodbye.
Fortunately, all the production methods were perfected in the 30s and 40s, so even a group of monkeys on the production line couldn't foul anything up. That is, unless supervision suddenly decides that some major changes will now be necessary.
