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Let’s talk about hipsters for a moment. They generally have very productive jobs and have above average income yet dress like homeless people, all in the name of irony.
They criticize things for being mainstream and brag about liking things “before they were cool”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ripping on hipsters. I’ve been a hardcore nerd since I said my first word as a baby (“condominium”, for those who are wondering) so it would be hypocritical for me to criticize a fringe culture.
I bring up the culture because I have a feeling that this review is going to get VERY hipster. So put on your grandpa hat, don’t shave for a while and grab your scarf and skinny jeans. Today, we’re talking about the Remington 597.
Remington 597
So if you want a semi auto rifle chambered in .22LR, what do you get? If you said the Ruger 10/22 then you are SOOOO mainstream. Everyone gets the 10/22. As far as the internet is concerned, the 10/22 is the only .22LR rifle there is. Nothing else exists. There is no reason to look any further. Feh, sellouts. Hidden in the gun store equivalent of the independent music section you might find a Remington 597. This is Remington’s answer to the 10/22 and, for all intents and purposes, it’s a pretty decent answer. It’s a semi-automatic rifle chambered in .22LR. It runs for about the same price as the Ruger 10/22 (around $200, give or take). You can get either 10 or 30 round magazines. It’s light and accurate. The rage of fire is good. For all intents and purposes, it is just as good as the Ruger.
Let’s talk about the scope a bit more.
Normally, I’m a bit wary about bundled stuff like that. For the most part, you usually get some generic tube with some plastic at both ends that they jokingly refer to as “glass” and the crosshairs are drawn on with a sharpie marker.
In this case, it’s not too bad.
I don’t know if I would recommend this scope if it was sold on its own but it doesn’t fall into the “better than nothing” category either. I think the best way to put it is “It works absolutely awesome with this gun”. It holds zero perfectly and it’s nice and clear. It also came with some yellow tinted slip on protectors.
Blah blah blah segue into the tests…
By The Numbers
Ease to Breakdown: 3/5
There is no “field stripping” this gun. It’s a process and it takes some work. Tools will be needed, swear words will be spoken. The factory trigger is also strangely delicate. During the reassembly, I accidentally bumped one of the pins in the trigger and it fell off rendering the gun unusable. I didn’t find this out, however, until I had it all back together and did the function test. So then I had to break it down again and slip the pin back into place. It was annoying. Still, I’ve had worse (looking at you, Hi-point). At least with this one I only needed a screwdriver and some needlenose pliers. No hammers necessary: 3 out of 5 hats.Maintenance: 3.5/5
Once it was apart, cleaning wasn’t too big of a deal. Any gun chambered in .22LR is going to be filthy beyond all reason so some extra scrubbing is to be expected. A rifle BoreSnake for .22LR was able to take care of the barrel easily. Getting the grime out of everything else was easily taken care of as well. For such a tiny round, there aren’t many tiny spots with this rifle. I only had to break out the cotton swaps once to get into a tight area. As I’ve mentioned before, keeping a .22 gun clean is best described as a Sisyphean task. This gun at least makes it a bit easier to push the boulder up the hill. 3.5 out of 5.Reliability: 3.5/5
When the 597 was originally released, it came with plastic magazines. Not polymer, mind you, actual plastic. The reliability, or lack thereof, was notable…to say the least. Shortly after, they switched to all aluminum magazines and the problem was solved. Now the only reliability issues come from the .22LR itself. The .22LR round is a double edged sword. It’s cheap so you will shoot a lot. Shooting a lot gets the gun dirty. When the gun gets too dirty, the .22LR doesn’t have enough umph to power through the grime and the gun’s reliability takes a nosedive. I’ve yet to find a .22 that didn’t follow that pattern. The big question is “how long until the inevitable?” With the 597, it seems to start having problems at about the 100 round mark. At that level, you might get one every other magazine’s worth. At the 300+ mark, I was getting one issue every magazine. Keep in mind, I used the crappiest, cheapest, most embarrassingly bad ammo I can get my hands on and most of failures were probably a direct result of that. As I said in the last .22 I reviewed, I feel a bit weird judging the reliability of a gun who’s ammo is notoriously unreliable. Is it the gun’s fault? I can’t think of a single problem where I can say 100% for sure it wasn’t the fault of the ammo. The fact that it got worse as I shot more prevents me from saying it was 100% the ammo’s fault. I’ve stewed over this score for more than a week. 3.5 out of 5Safety: 4/5
It’s got a manual safety on the trigger guard and that’s about it. Now, it’s harder, in the grand scheme of things, to injure yourself with a rifle. Most accidents concerning rifles come from breaking rule numbers 1, 2 and 3 (and sometimes 5) and the injured party is usually someone other than the person holding the gun. Traditionally, every rifle has only had one manual safety switch or button. There are sometimes internal safeties but even those are kind of rare. To be honest, I may have to rethink my test guidelines for rifles as we get farther into the Year of the Rifle. In the meantime, a single manual safety on pistols has usually warranted a 3 out of 5. Considering that I take similar guns into account when coming up with the score, I can’t penalize it for having the exact same safety mechanism as 98% of the market. Still, since there are a small number of guns with slightly better safety stuff, I’ll rank this one at a 4 out of 5.Poor Technique: 5/5
The .22LR platform is a great way to learn how to shoot a rifle. This gun is very stable, the trigger is very nice and when the ammo behaves, it shoots like a dream. There’s not much more I can say on it. 5 out of 5Starter Kit: 4/5
It comes with a scope and a magazine. As I said before, the scope is a lot better than many bundled scopes I’ve seen in the past and, the mere fact that it comes with a decent scope puts it way ahead of the competition. It does, however, have the dreaded “single mag syndrome”. Compared to the rest of the market, it’s not bad. 4 out of 5Accessories/Upgrades: 4/5
If you look at the 10/22, which most consider the gold standard, the list of accessories is almost absurd. You can get kits that will make it look like at AR-15. There’s kits that can turn it into a replica of just about any movie gun. While there isn’t the crazy amount of accessories for the 597, there is a very respectable market out there. Everything from new stocks to drop in triggers to barrels and more is available. Give it a few more years, if Remington doesn’t go crazy and ruin the gun mind you, I could see the accessory market for this gun give the 10/22 a run for its money. Even now, it’s catching up. 4 out of 5Parting Shots
I’ve noticed that, as I’ve written this article, I keep using words like “not bad” and “pretty decent, considering” a lot.
That’s a perfect summary of this gun: pretty decent.
It’s not the greatest rifle in the world but, let’s be honest, even the absolute best semi-auto .22 rifles aren’t that great in the grand scheme of things.
Even the beloved 10/22 has issues on a regular basis due solely to the fact that the .22LR is just not a quality/dependable round. If you want a dependable gun chambered in .22LR, the only way to do it is to reduce the number of moving parts. This puts the list, in order of dependability at:
- Bolt action .22LR
- Lever Action .22LR
- Semi-auto .22LR
11 Leave a Reply
The 597 was the first gun I bought after I turned 18. It's an ok gun, I still got it. The extractor swap made it run fine on whatever ammo. Would buy another for the kids to plink with now if I saw one for the right price.
This was my first gun after the army. A birthday present from childhood friends. I've put thousands of rounds through it. Even though I own plenty more now, this is still one of my favorites, NOW that I have it figured out. Rule one, only 8 rounds in the magazine at a time. Two, CCI Blaser is the best .22 ammo there is and don't run Remington ammo (at least from before CCI/Federal bought them.) Three, make sure it has the right springs in it. Mine was made with the wrong ones. All that said, it out shoots most 10/22s for accuracy, and everyone that has a 25rd mag doesn't seem to have any problems at all. Honestly, you don't even have to keep it very clean. I went over 1k without cleaning the bolt and it still ran great, as long as I fed it okay ammo (Just say no to Remington golden bullet)
I've had a 597 since '97 and there were many times I thought about getting rid of it but I couldn't. Originally it was because it was a Christmas present from my wife and even though she insisted that I could get rid of it if I didn't like it, but I couldn't. For years this rifle set in the safe and id occasionally take it out just so my wife saw me using it. Then it happened. After getting a polymer mag for it and fine tuning the tension on the bolt rails, I had it! A decent, lightweight, accurate . 22 semi-auto. The more time I spent with this rifle the more I appreciated it. I had a Weatherby MK XXII pre '88 and I never took it in the woods because it was too nice and too valuable. That's when I realized the humble little 597 was the . 22 I loved, nothing fancy but it did everything I wanted a . 22 to do. If you find one, get it, spend a little time learning it's isms and you'll be happy with what you got. First thing to do is get an aftermarket magazine.
I have a 597. GREAT little rifle that has some issues.
When it shoots well, it's an accurate, fun rifle. ...but it has extraction issues even after some MCARBO magazine springs and a Volquartsen hammer and extractor. Both help, but aren't cure alls. It seems to really like a certain box of Federal bulk ammo, and not much else.
I'm not quite sure if there's a permanent fix for the extraction issues, but I'll keep looking cause when it's on a roll, I really enjoy the rifle
I bought my 597 22 lr back in the 90's and have no regrets....keeping it clean as any gun should be kept in my opinion is vital to its performance....you shoot it you clean it....put it away after shooting without cleaning it is just asking for trouble....I've shot probably close to 5k rounds and have never had any trouble.....I shoot whistle pigs(groundhogs) from 50yrds to 150yds with accuracy...again I say shoot it...clean it....
After reading your review, I’m no longer interested in the Remington 597. Geez.
David I'm thinking the same - I now want the marlin 60 tube fed !!!
Want to join the discussion. Am so interested in guns, having grown up with a greener, I would like to explore something better
Rem Nylon 66, tube fed. Much better.
I bought one years ago, perhaps when they first came out. Lightweight, stainless and synthetic were my reasons. I was farming then, and out in all kinds of weather.
It was unreliable. Misfeeds from the flimsy plastic magazine, misfires and extraction failures. I tried to take it back to the dealer but they claimed it was fine. I was pretty sad about it and I sold it somewhere else as soon as I could, as part exchange for a deer rifle.
I still have a 10/22 which is a couple of years older and way better.
The 597 is junk. You are better off with the Ruger 10-22 or Colt M4 22LR Carbine.. Remington has some serious quality control issues. We have had nothing but trigger issues with the 597 GARBAGE RIFLE.