Welcome to another tale about a firearm I found interesting as a kid and now have the money to procure! Check out the shop, and check out the YouTube channel. Remember to use coupon code “holidaycheer” to save some dough!
I suspect many of us have that one thing we saw as a kid and just couldn’t get it out of our minds. For a lot of guys it was probably a car. Like Mike Lowry’s (Will Smith) Porsche 911 Turbo flying through 1990’s Miami in the 1994 film Bad Boys or Detectives Sonny Crockett (Don Johnson) and Ricardo Tubbs (Phillip Michael Thomas) flying through 1980s Miami in a 1972 Ferrari Daytona Spyder. Give me a minute, I need to think of one outside of Miami.
Maybe, instead of cars, it was iconic watches. Maybe a Rolex as worn in Apocalypse Now, the Omega Speedmaster from Apollo 13, or the Breitling Chrono Avenger from Blood Diamond. Perhaps the calculator watch from Back to the Future stuck in your brain permanently and now you can’t live your life to the fullest until you can do math on your wrist.
Like many men, have no idea what thing would have stuck in the female brain. I will use this era of equality and equity to my advantage and just assume its the same stuff. Like the pink Corvette from Barbie or the notebook from The Notebook.
Editor’s note: Spencer has not seen the notebook. He did watch Barbie.
The 1968 Mustang GT from Bullitt! Steve McQueen drives a distinctive, green 1968 Mustang GT as Detective Frank Bullitt through the streets of San Francisco. I knew I could think of a movie that takes place outside of Miami.
For me, that thing has mostly been represented by dozens of “hero” guns from movies and television shows. The Smith & Wesson 645 from Miami Vice seasons 3 & 4, the Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun and P7M13 and the Beretta 92FS from Die Hard are obvious examples. There was one gun that stuck in my brain, and its from a History Channel series called Tales of the Gun.
One of the tales from Tales of the Gun revolved around the hunt for Bonnie & Clyde, the infamous bank robbers from Prohibition Era America. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, along with their crew, the Barrow Gang, ran roughshod over the country. They robbed so many banks and committed so many murders that a law enforcement task force was commissioned specifically to hunt them down. One of the men who was tasked to this particular force of lawmen was Texas Ranger Frank Hamer.
Even before Chuck Norris made the Texas Rangers a household name by round-house kicking every scoundrel between Mexico and Oklahoma, the Texas Rangers were legendary. Frank Hamer was supposedly retired, but he hopped right back into the action when asked to hunt down Bonnie & Clyde. On this manhunt, Ranger Hamer brought with him a Remington Model 8.
By the time Ranger Hamer and his crew had caught up to Bonnie & Clyde, the two of them had killed at least a dozen people and the members of their gang had killed many more. Their gang ranged all over the country, and killed The task force figured out where the outlaw duo was headed, then lay in ambush along their route. As the car rounded entered the ambush zone, the posse opened fire.
In one version of the story, Ranger Hamer stood up from his concealed position and fired two quick shots into the speeding automobile with his Model 8, killing both outlaws instantly, then calmly sat back down. In another version, a different Texas Ranger named Oakley fired the shots, but only struck Clyde before the rest of the posse fired. Whoever fired the first shot doesn’t really matter, because the rest of the posse let loose with a shitstorm of automatic rifle, pistol, and shotgun fire that tore apart the Ford the two outlaws were driving in.
Either way, apparently the Model 8 fired the opening shots in the salvo that killed two of the most notorious outlaws in U.S. history.
Introduced as the Remington Autoloading Rifle in 1905 , the rifle was met with success in the American Market. In 1911, the name was changed to the Model 8 and in Europe, the rifle was produced as the FN Model 1900. In 1936 the name was changed again to the Model 81 “Woodsmaster,” and was produced with some improvements under that designation until 1950. After the Model 81 was discontinued, the Woodsmaster nameplate was re-used for the later Remington 742 and model 750 rifles.
After seeing the History Channel episode that showcased the Model 8, I knew I needed to have one someday. I kept my eye open for examples, but had to satisfy my craving by using the “Autoloading 8” in Battlefield 1.
One day while I was stationed in Massachusetts, I was scrolling a local gun store’s used listings on their website. To my surprise, they had not one, but two Model 81 rifles for sale. I immediately hopped in my truck and drove to inspect. When I got to the store, both were in excellent shape and chambered for the same cartridge, .300 Savage. I considered buying both, but seeing as they were identical I opted to just buy the one in slightly better condition.
My Model 81 is a standard grade rifle, chambered in .300 Savage. Original Model 8s were chambered in .25 Remington, .30 Remington, and .35 Remington, with .300 Savage being added to the Model 81 lineup in 1940. Judging by the date stamp on the receiver, my Woodsmaster was produced in November of 1945, making it an octogenarian at the time of writing!
I’ve now had my Woodsmaster for a few years, but this past fall was the first time I really got an opportunity to try it out. .300 Savage is not the easiest to come by, and when I do find the ammunition it is usually around $60 for a box of 20 rounds! Compared to the .300 Savage’s more “modern” contemporary the .308 Winchester at $25 per box, it was not necessarily feasible to go target shooting.
This year for Minnesota’s whitetail deer season, I wanted to take the Model 81 out into the woods. To do so ethically, I did need to take some time to make sure I could hit what I was aiming at. Off to the range I went, with $120 worth of ammunition in tow (2 boxes).
First, I made sure the sights were reasonably accurate. I fired a five shot group, a whole magazine, at a 10-inch target 50 yards downrange. I hit the target with all five rounds, satisfying my concern whether the 80-year-old sights were dialed in. Since the Model 81’s self-loading action and open sights make it a good candidate for taking fast shots in thick brush at close range, I moved a target to 25 yards and practiced shooting snap-shots. I hit five-for-five in this experiment, and figured I was probably ready enough for deer season.
Since I still had ammunition left, I figured I would try out the Texas Ranger method of stamping out bank robbers. I set up one more of these half-sized USPSA targets I bought at the local Fleet Farm as if they were sitting in a speeding 1930’s Ford Automobile. Possibly a little wider, as I did not bother to figure out how wide cars were back then.
According to legend and my earlier paragraph, a Texas Ranger fired two shots, striking either just Clyde or Bonnie and Clyde. With the half-sized USPSA targets at 25 yards in the rough approximation of a 1930’s Ford, I shouted “Freeze, bank robbers!” and fired two shots. My first attempt I hit paper Bonnie in the clavicle, and hit paper Clyde in the face. I was fairly surprised at this result, as I don’t practice shooting rifles with iron sights too much, and the Model 81’s sights are antiquated by any measure.
Satisfied I could ambush either 1930’s gangsters or 2020’s whitetails, I brought the Model 81 out with me to the Northern Minnesota woods. I first hunted with my old Ruger .270 that I have hunted with since I was 12, then switched to the Model 81 later in the weekend. Over the course of opening weekend, I saw a lot of deer, and shot one with my Ruger. I did not see any big enough to shoot when I was carrying my Model 81.
That’s okay, most of the reason I come to deer camp is to spend time with family, close friends, and nature. I don’t mind freezing my D&Bs off in a tree stand or sitting in a ground blind so long as the company is good. This was the first time I hunted with my Dad and both my Brothers in at least five years. I would have hunted with a slingshot and marshmallows to capture that opportunity.
I’ll probably bring the Model 81 on other hunts, if only to carry something different in a world of plastic stocked, mass-produced hunting rifles. Its fun for me to pick up an old rifle, one of wood and steel and careful craftsmanship and pay homage to the way things used to be.
Cheers to another one. Thanks for reading and catch us next week!
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