My entrance to the rabbit hole

Decades ago I bought a Remington 788 from a guy who acquired it in an estate sale. It had a Hart bbl and was chambered in .223 improved. He didn't want to mess with any of those "danged wildcats" so I bought it for less than the cost of the bbl. It has one of the nicest bedding jobs I've ever seen. I've done no work to it other than putting a timney trigger in so I can't claim any credit for it's performance. Its put together so tightly that if i seat a bullet too long and pull it accidentally a couple granules of 844 will prevent it from going into battery. The twist rate is 1:14" so it's limited to 52 gr or less bullets although it shot ok with 55gr Bart's (I don't think they're still available).
Initial fire forming was very promising, 53gr sierra HP over 24.7grs of wcc844. I was pleasantly surprised at groups around .5". Eventually I settled on 52gr Berger fbhp over some h322 in Lapua cases. CCI 450s were my choice of primers. I did all the benchrest tricks, turning the necks, uniforming the primer pockets and flasholes. Everything about this combination is wrong. Rear locking lugs and the extreme spread from 322 shouldn't work, but it did.
I know before I sit at the bench if I'll shoot well or not, it's almost a zen-like thing for me. I could never be a serious competitor in the bench rest game because on a bad day I can't shoot for shit. Another zen-like thing is I can see in my mind the path of the bullet before firing. Sort of like bowling, you know a strike when you release the ball.
Anyhow, this thing shoots in the high .1s on a good day. My ex-brother in law tried it and said " Not only could I castrate a fly at 100 yards, i can choose which testicle I'm going to take out first."

I screwed up in 88, traded in a 700 BDL bull barrel 223 with a wicked scope for a Colt AR15A2 heavy barrel

Sigh……..how stupid am I

Those 788's are wicked shooters. A buddy picked one up back in 90 in .222 with a cheap 3-9x scope on it. That thing shot like a dream. One of our shooting games was to put a piece of meat out in the summer and shoot the yellowjackets that came in to feed. We usually did it with .22's at 50 yards or less and we were seriously competitive about it. If you hit the yellowjacket it was +1 point. A miss was 0 points and if you hit the meat with the bullet you lost a point. One day he pulled out the .222 and we put the meat at 100 yards. He shot the wings off the first 3.

His brother had a 788 in .308 that I borrowed to shoot some long range practice. Bone stock except the iron sights had been removed. After getting it sighted in and one the paper at 600 my first 3 shots were in the 10 ring. Accuracy dropped off after that as the barrel heated up. If I had let it cool it probably would have cleaned the target. Shot it out to 1.000 and it did the same thing. I was always looking for one in 7mm-08 for deer hunting but they were impossible to find.

Yeah, the 788 just flat out worked. One weak point was the magazine. The profile of the 223 imp didn't play well with them. Mine is pretty much a two shot, one in the chamber and one in the magazine. I've tried bending the lips to accommodate the case but with no success. Old replacement magazines are few and far between and expensive when you could find one.
I have done a little bug splatting by smearing a touch of syrup on the paper.