THE REMINGTON NYLON 66 WAS PLASTIC BEFORE PLASTIC WAS COOL.

Remington Arms Company introduced its .22 LR caliber Nylon 66 rifle in 1959. Until Remington discontinued its manufacture in 1987, the Nylon 66 remained the epitome of high-tech rimfire rifles.

Even today it has a host of admirers. The Nylon 66 remains an excellent firearm both for shooting and collecting. It's fun to shoot and quite accurate, and exists in several distinct variations -- all of which are still quite reasonably priced.

Remington's design goal in creating the Nylon 66 was to build a traditionally styled rifle out of new and cost saving space-age materials. The design and engineering team led by Remington chief designer Wayne E. Leek succeeded beyond all expectations, creating a rifle that for almost three decades defined "high tech" in the firearms field.

The term nylon 66 refers to the DuPont synthetic material, also called Zytel, out of which almost the entire gun is made. The rifle's forend, receiver and stock are made entirely of two pieces of nylon, first cemented together and then bonded under high heat and pressure to form one piece. Many of the gun's smaller parts - such as the trigger and trigger-guard, operating handle for the bolt and the manual safety - are also made from nylon.

Nylon was an excellent material to make gun parts out of. It's strong, light, highly resistant to temperature extremes and, perhaps most important of all, self-lubricating. All these properties of nylon 66 made this rifle one of the most reliable .22 rimfire models under extended use.

A few parts were steel: the barrel, the bolt, the thin cover over the receiver, the sights, the sear and firing pin, and various springs. The outer magazine tube (concealed in the buttstock for improved appearance and greater protection) was made of brass, because this part required less strength than steel owing to its enclosed location but might be susceptible to rusting. All in all, the Nylon 66 remains a brilliant design -- a classic.

31 Flavors

While Remington made very few changes to the Nylon 66's design during its 28-year production run, they did offer a number of variant stylings. The standard model, and by far the most common today, was the "Mohawk Brown" model, so-called because of its dark brown stock material and blued steel parts.

This was first into production and Remington continued to offer it throughout the manufacturing run. Its dark brown color scheme looked quite traditional, which appealed to many shooters who liked the idea of a low-maintenance, high-tech rifle without an outlandish appearance.

A "Seneca Green" Nylon 66 also appeared in 1959. Like the Mohawk Brown model this variant also used blued steel parts, but the balance of the gun was bright green. Most shooters of the late 1950s simply weren't ready for something that unusual and Remington had trouble selling this model.

The company discontinued the Seneca Green Nylon 66 in 1962, making it today the rarest Nylon 66. As a result, Nylon 66 collectors favor the Seneca Green model above all others, to the tune of a collector's premium of about double the value of a Mohawk Brown model.

The other major Nylon 66 variant was the "Apache Black" version. Introduced in 1962, this replaced the Seneca Green and remained in production until 1984, though not in the numbers of the Mohawk Brown model.

The Apache Black Nylon 66 featured glossy black-nylon parts and a bright, polished chrome-plated receiver cover and barrel. This is a very attractive rifle and one in excellent shape can command a collector's premium of about 30 percent more than a Nylon 66 in the standard Mohawk Brown color scheme.

These three were the major Nylon 66 variants. Remington introduced several minor variants as well. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Remington Company's founding in 1816, the company made a 150th Anniversary Nylon 66 in 1966 with a special logo on the receiver. Today this model is worth slightly more to Nylon 66 collectors than the Apache Black model.

Ten years later Remington introduced a Nylon 66 Bicentennial model, a Mohawk Brown version with an inscription on the receiver cover. The "Black Diamond" Nylon 66 used a black decorative diamond on the forend instead of the usual white diamond. A Nylon 66-GS, short for "Gallery Special," fired .22 Short only, while the standard Nylon 66 fired only .22 LR ammunition.

Invest In Plastics Young Man

Remington also created several rifles based on the Nylon 66's construction but with mechanical changes. These included the Nylon 76, a lever-action variant made from 1962 to 1964 in a choice of brown or black.

The Nylon 77, made in 1970, fed its ammunition from a five-round detachable box magazine made of black plastic, instead of the standard Nylon 66 rifle's tubular magazine. Switching to a different magazine system involved quite a number of changes in the design, most notably to the stock, the bolt and even the rear sight.

Because of the loss of nine rounds of magazine capacity the Nylon 77 sold poorly, so in 1971 Remington replaced its five-shot magazine with a 10-shot detachable box magazine, renamed the gun "Nylon 10-C," and in this guise it did well enough to sell from 1971 to 1978. This gun had a final resurgence in 1987, which was the Nylon 66's last year, too.

In that year the K-Mart chain commissioned Remington to build several thousand "Apache 77" rifles with 10-round plastic box magazines and green stocks. Remington was happy to have the opportunity to use up excess parts, and K-Mart was happy to have the rifles, which sold out quickly.

Remington also used the "Nylon 10" designation from 1962 to 1964 for a rifle similar in construction but using a bolt-action, single-shot mechanism. Unlike the Nylon 66, which in most examples was limited to using .22 LR, the bolt-action Nylon 10 could fire .22 Shorts, Longs or Long Rifle cartridges as the shooter desired. Remington also made this Model 10 in an "SB" (smooth bore) variant to fire .22 shotshells.

A bolt-action Nylon 10 modified to a bolt-action repeater configuration with a six- or 10-shot magazine received the name Model 11, and a Nylon 10 repeater using a Nylon 66-type tubular magazine was known as the Nylon 12. All three variants went out of production by 1964.

The Good, The Bad And The Nylon

The Nylon 66's unusual construction material makes the rifle both sturdier and more resistant to weather than the typical .22 caliber rifle. Moreover, given the natural lubricity of nylon 66, there's very little need to use oil on the gun's working parts.

The great enemy of most semiautomatic .22 rimfire rifles is the gummy residue that accumulates after a few hundred rounds and eventually prevents the mechanism from moving. This gunk consists of messy and dirty-burning ammunition combining with gun oil. Because the Nylon 66 requires next to no oil (just a little on the receiver cover to forestall rust), the rifle stays clean longer.

The Nylon 66 has many user-friendly design features that show how carefully Wayne Leek and his design team thought the rifle's features through. The manual safety is a sliding unit located on the tang behind the receiver. Similar to the manual safety used on many shotguns and a number of rifles (notably later versions of Savage's Model 99), the tang safety is an all-time favorite. It fits conveniently just below the shooting-hand thumb whether you're a left-handed or a right-handed shooter.

The Nylon 66 has good iron sights, consisting of a front barleycorn sight atop a prominent ramp and a rear leaf sight easily adjustable both for windage and for elevation. In the event a shooter finds the sights unsatisfactory, the Nylon 66 lends itself to scope mounting quickly and conveniently. Grooves placed on top of the steel receiver cover accept a tip-off mount.

All one needs do to attach a scope is loosen the two mounting screws on the scope mount until the scope slides on the receiver from the rear. Taking the scope off is equally easy just loosen the two screws on the tip-off mount until it can be slid off the rear of the receiver.

The Nylon 66's tubular magazine is located in the butt-stock, so it avoids the ungainly "double-barreled" look of many tubular magazine-fed rifles while protecting the magazine tube against damage should the rifle be dropped. Getting at the tubular magazine to reload it is no more difficult or slower than with the under-barrel types and the magazine capacity of 14 rounds is impressive.

As for the box-magazine variants, while the magazine capacity is less, obviously, magazine changes are quickly and easily accomplished if one has spare magazines on hand. The rifle also includes a useful single-shot feature that allows the gun to be fired without involving the magazine at all.

The Nylon 66 is also light, weighing slightly over 4 Ibs. fully loaded, and so well balanced that even a child can hold it. Despite this, it's no toy: the Nylon 66 has more than enough performance to satisfy a discriminating adult shooter. It has clean and simple lines so it's unlikely to catch or snag. For all its features the Nylon 66 was never expensive.

After Remington discontinued the Model 66, a Brazilian firm called C.B.C. bought the rights to the design and Remington's production machinery and revived the Nylon 66 for almost six years. The Brazilian copy was first imported by Kassnar and called the Kassnar Nylon 66 from 1988 to 1990. Magtech then took over C.B.C.'s Nylon 66 clone importation from 1991 to 1994 as the MT-66. The gun is now out of production.

The Nylon 66 and its derivatives remain fine rifles for shooting, despite the age of the design. The Nylon 66 also comprises a good field for collectors, as there exist a number of variants and all of them are within the financial means of most gun enthusiasts. The Nylon 66 has a graceful appearance and shows good engineering, too. It is a classic and deserves to be recognized as such.