Hi, I am brand new to the Remington owners forum and have a question about a rifle I picked up last week. I have always wanted a 552 Speedmaster, and I was able to find a used one at a local gun shop last week. Upon shooting it, I found that it would not group at all. I decided to break it down completely and clean the gun. After I cleaned the bore with a snake, I held the barrel in the light to inspect the bore. I was shocked to see no rifling, but a smooth bore. That is the reason for no grouping. I took it to a gun smith in town, and he ran a bore scope through the barrel. He told me I had something he had never seen- a smooth bore 22 rifle. I originally thought that the gun may have been shot so many times that it wore the rifling out of the bore. He said that is not the case, and Remington confirmed. I called Remington to verify the age of my 552. It was made in January of 1977. The lady I talked to did some researching and found that Remington did make a few smooth bores for the 552 around that time period for use as a "garden-gun". In another words, it was meant to be used as a barn gun with 22 rat shot ammunition.

I guess my question would be what the gun might be worth since there was a small number of them made with the smooth bore. I would love to find a collector and sell it in order to get one with a rifled barrel. If it's not as rare as I think and not worth much, I will just buy a used rifled barrel and put it on this gun. The gun smith could not believe how beautiful the gun is for its age.

I hope some of the members here can help me out with some useful information.

Thanks, Chase Lancaster

http://i.imgur.com/MWjUP.jpg

Welcome to the Remington Owners Forum Chase !!

"The lady I talked to did some researching and found that Remington did make a few smooth bores for the 552 around that time period for use as a "garden-gun"."


If that lady could tell you exactly how many, you would know how rare it is...my books mention nothing on smooth-bore .22's, so I myself would keep the smoothbore barrel and find another rifled barrel to shoot.

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