For BC....the Calfee 37

Leemic

New member
Friend Bill Calfee...


After all this time, after I took several looks at the photo of you and Mac that you posted in the "Fred's equip, Rooster" thread.....


I noticed, for the very first time, that I am sitting at the bench behind you.... with my 'Black Widow' custom Calfee 37..... sitting on the bench with it's ugly "preying mantis" home-made bipod. One very fine-shooting rifle.... a WINNER, in the right hands (not mine).

Folks, pardon the poor quality of the pic here (the original was a Polaroid)...



Your friend, Lee McFarland

PS- That was just the second RFBR rifle I had ever shot.... and after doing so, I just HAD to buy it from Mac.
 
Last edited:
Friend Bill Calfee...


After all this time, after I took several looks at the photo of you and Mac that you posted in the "Fred's equip, Rooster" thread.....


I noticed, for the very first time, that I am sitting at the bench behind you.... with my 'Black Widow' custom Calfee 37..... sitting on the bench with it's ugly "preying mantis" home-made bipod. One very fine-shooting rifle.... a WINNER, in the right hands (not mine).

Folks, pardon the poor quality of the pic here (the original was a Polaroid)...



Your friend, Lee McFarland

PS- That was just the second RFBR rifle I had ever shot.... and after doing so, I just HAD to buy it from Mac.

Howdy Lee,
Cool! Thanks for posting that, and the pic. I'm a Remington 37 fan. I've pestered Bill about 37's numerous times, to the point I almost feel bad about it......almost! There was some excellent info he posted about 37's on the previous version of WWA, which is not available anymore. If you don't mind, please tell all you can remember about that 37. It would be cool if Bill got to talking about it in detail as well. I've got a lot to learn, and I like learning.

What barrel did that rifle have? What trigger? How did it shoot? Talk about that bipod, too, if you don't mind, it's interesting. I keep reading Bill's comments about shooting from a bipod vs. a one piece rest on the different pistol threads, and am thinking about what kind of bipod to use to maximize the potential of a rifle.

In short, anything you can think of to post about that rifle, as well as 37's in general, please post about it.

Take care,

Greg
 
Friend Lee McFarland

Friend Bill Calfee...


After all this time, after I took several looks at the photo of you and Mac that you posted in the "Fred's equip, Rooster" thread.....


I noticed, for the very first time, that I am sitting at the bench behind you.... with my 'Black Widow' custom Calfee 37..... sitting on the bench with it's ugly "preying mantis" home-made bipod. One very fine-shooting rifle.... a WINNER, in the right hands (not mine).

Folks, pardon the poor quality of the pic here (the original was a Polaroid)...



Your friend, Lee McFarland

PS- That was just the second RFBR rifle I had ever shot.... and after doing so, I just HAD to buy it from Mac.

Friend Lee McFarland:


That's a neat memory......and kinda freaky that your 37 was in that picture of Mac.........

The 37 Remington is an interesting rimfire target gun...........

When Remington brought it out, they made sure they did the ignition right........37 Remingtons, like 52 Winchesters are PAS ignitioned...

The 37 is actually a kind of mid lock-up, horizontal, locking lug action...........and being semi-flat bottomed, round action with a flat bottom, they are extremely stiff...........

Another thing Remington did was to rotate their horizontal locking lug arrangement slightly to the port side of the action.......

They also made sure that the firing pin was centered between these slightly port side, horizontal locking lugs, which causes the firing pin to strike slightly off center of the true 12:00 position..........this equalizes the off-set firing pin thrust........

One thing a lot of folks forget, is the fact, that unlike a centerfire where the firing pin tip is on the centerline of the breech bolt, on a rimfire we strike completely off center of the centerline of the breech bolt...........

I believe this is one factor that makes PAS rimfire ignition so consistent, as compared to SAP rimfire ignition.....matter of fact, I know it is.

Thanks for posting that picture......

Your friend, Bill Calfee
 
Howdy Lee,
Cool! Thanks for posting that, and the pic. I'm a Remington 37 fan. I've pestered Bill about 37's numerous times, to the point I almost feel bad about it......almost! There was some excellent info he posted about 37's on the previous version of WWA, which is not available anymore. If you don't mind, please tell all you can remember about that 37. It would be cool if Bill got to talking about it in detail as well. I've got a lot to learn, and I like learning.

What barrel did that rifle have? What trigger? How did it shoot? Talk about that bipod, too, if you don't mind, it's interesting. I keep reading Bill's comments about shooting from a bipod vs. a one piece rest on the different pistol threads, and am thinking about what kind of bipod to use to maximize the potential of a rifle.

In short, anything you can think of to post about that rifle, as well as 37's in general, please post about it.

Take care,

Greg

Friend Greg...

The 37 Remington, all of them, are fine, inherently accurate guns on their own.

This particular one was smithed by BC for my Dad, 'Mac-the-Knife' back in the days of shooting BR-50 RFBR. I aquired her in 1992 (had just shot in my first RFBR match in Oct '91).

The trigger is a Canjar, and IIRC, the barrel was a Douglas that Mac had gotten Bill to remove from Mac's first Calfee XP... when he mounted a new Lilja on it.

I do recall that the barrel was cut and crowned at the 'sweet spot' after proper slugging.... to 20.625" Bill's awesome work, of course.

Later tonite when I'm not at work, I will elaborate on that one-of-a-kind aluminum bipod. Making that thing (so that it was stable and level) was a real challenge. I'm certain I could never repeat that.

Friend, Lee
 
Friend Greg...

The 37 Remington, all of them, are fine, inherently accurate guns on their own.

This particular one was smithed by BC for my Dad, 'Mac-the-Knife' back in the days of shooting BR-50 RFBR. I aquired her in 1992 (had just shot in my first RFBR match in Oct '91).

The trigger is a Canjar, and IIRC, the barrel was a Douglas that Mac had gotten Bill to remove from Mac's first Calfee XP... when he mounted a new Lilja on it.

I do recall that the barrel was cut and crowned at the 'sweet spot' after proper slugging.... to 20.625" Bill's awesome work, of course.

Later tonite when I'm not at work, I will elaborate on that one-of-a-kind aluminum bipod. Making that thing (so that it was stable and level) was a real challenge. I'm certain I could never repeat that.

Friend, Lee

Howdy Lee,
Appreciate the info! My 37 was built by Eric Johnson, and still has one of his barrels on it. It is at least the second one to have been on this rifle. It also has a Canjar 37-3 trigger, which I believe is the two ounce trigger. Never measured the pull weight, but Bob Finger confirmed that particular trigger as a two ounce one for me awhile back.

Yep, I'd like to hear about your bipod. Is that a factory stock painted black?

And thanks for the Canjar trigger link!

Take care,

Greg
 
Back
Top Bottom