Jerry Miculek’s First Rifle Was a Remington Nylon 66

(Image: Screenshot from Jerry Miculek’s Nylon 66 video)

It’s no secret that I love the old Remington Nylon 66 rifle. It’s a uniquely-designed semi-auto 22 LR rimfire rifle engineered to take advantage of DuPont’s Nylon material, because DuPont owned Remington Arms at the time. Click here to read why I think the Remington Nylon 66 is the ultimate plinking rifle.

In the short video below, we see Jerry Miculek fondling and playing with his very first rifle, which just happens to be — you guessed it — a Remington Nylon 66. He paid $44 and change for it in the late 1960s after working hard all summer long mowing lawns and working for his great uncle Charlie.

Jerry certainly shares my fondness for the ol’ 66:

“It’s been indestructible… I can’t tell ya how many trips in a swamp and how many things I’ve shot with this and how many hours I’ve spent on the range with it. Been really a fun gun; indestructible.”

As Jerry notes, professional shooter Tom Frye used 3 Nylon 66 rifles to set a record by shooting 8 hours a day for 13 days at 2.5″ x 2.5″ x 2.5″ wood blocks thrown up into the air. He shot at 100,010 blocks and only missed 6 times; the three rifles were only cleaned 3 times during all that. This means each rifle was fired more than 11,000 times between cleanings on average — and if each rifle saw equal use, they digested about 33,336 rounds apiece.

Jerry has two Nylon 66s in Mohawk Brown, one with factory sling and a handgun scope (he used a handgun scope for its long eye relief) mounted far forward; he says he thinks he beat Jeff Cooper to the “scout rifle” concept.

On the range as he loads his first-ever rifle, Jerry tells about the only time it ever malfunctioned:

“I had it so dirty the bolt didn’t close and it blew the extractor off… so after I got home and washed it with the hose and sprayed a little WD40 on it, it was ready to go (I had to put a new extractor in it).”

As he runs a few shooting drills, Jerry proves he’s just as fast as ever and pretty accurate too… even if the sights are just a blur to him. Nice.

And of course, his Nylon 66 didn’t have a single hiccup.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.