I bought a Rem 540XR on Gunbroker for $525. It's perhaps a little high, but it came with a hooked butt plate, stock weights, a palm rest of sorts, and a Lyman MJT rear sight, a Merit adjustable target aperture and Lyman 93 front sight.
The rifle looked better in person than it did in the GB pictures, once it as cleaned up. It had a little bit of leading in the bore, but nothing serious, and the bore was otherwise in excellent condition.
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However, pressing the safety forward would not disengage the bolt stop so I had to remove the stock to manually pull the bolt stop down to release the bolt. The problem was obvious with the stock removed as the original trigger had been replaced with a Timney trigger. The slot in the safety lever was not long enough to allow it to go far enough forward to press the bolt stop all the way down. About 10 minutes of careful dremmel work to lengthen the slot and three trial fit attempts had it working like it should.
The Timney trigger is quite nice, but I have no idea how it compares to a stock 540 XR trigger. It's a positive or a negative, depending on how you look at it.
The Lyman sights are old school but I had the same set on my Savage-Anschutz 64 Match, and I like the 90 MJT. With a little tweaking it can be a very good rear sight. I eventually added an adapter to my Annie's 90 MJT to use European rear aperture, and added a small o-ring to remove the slight bit of wobble that is otherwise present in the aperture holder.
I also bowed to the realities of middle aged eyes and replaced the Lyman 93 with an 18mm Gehmann front sight and adjustable aperture to give me a little more flexibility in getting the perfect sight picture. I've played around a bit with 1.5x magnification but I'm not a real fan.
In any event, I screwed in the Gehmann rear aperture from my Annie a put the Gehmann front sight on the 540XR and bore sighted it.
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It was a little breezy today at the range, with a wind that varied from 3 to 8 mph while changing from a full value 9 o'clock wind to a half value wind from the rear quarter. I put 10 rounds down range lubing the barrel, warming things up and getting the sights more or less on target at 50 yards.
Then I started looking for lulls in the wind and put 5 shots downrange and got an ok group:
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However, I'm not much of a bench rester and what I do is normally with round bottom stocks and the flat bottom of the 540 didn't sit all that well on the bag on my front rest, so I decided to mount a level on it. I use a level on my Annie that is supposed to clamp on the 11mm rail, but I modified it slightly to fit on the forward scope block, where it then appear to sit just under the front sight. I borrowed the rear block off my Annie and moved it to the front position on the 540XR. The screw was the right size as was the curve on the underside of the block, but the hole spacing is different. However, one screw is plenty for this application, at least in the short term.
![Image]()
![Image]()
With a level ensuring the angle of the sight over the bore was consistent, I once again started waiting for lulls in the wind and shot another group. This one was much better, although it still shows a little lateral stringing from the wind:
![Image]()
I shot a coupe more groups that looked pretty similar and then moved the front sight and rear aperture back to my Annie and repeated the process for comparison purposes. It's hard to tell with the effects of the wind, but I'm thinking the Remington 540XR shoots just a wee bit better.
That said, the bolt is smoother on the 64 than it is on the 540XR. The stock on the 540XR fits surprisingly well. My 64 Match was such a poor fit for me that I re-stocked it. The laminated wood stock, being about half glue by weight, was also heavier, and I noticed this again with the 540XR as it is comparatively light. I wasn't thinking I'd have much use for fore end weight, but now that I've held it off hand the reason for the weights is obvious.
I have a NOS 540XR butt plate headed my way, but the adjustable butt plate systems on the two rifles are compatible so for today's shoot I just moved the butt plate on my Annie's stock back and forth.
I'll take it out again tomorrow and shoot it prone, sitting and offhand and see how it does.
-----
Edit: I found sight blocks and screws.
The rifle looked better in person than it did in the GB pictures, once it as cleaned up. It had a little bit of leading in the bore, but nothing serious, and the bore was otherwise in excellent condition.
However, pressing the safety forward would not disengage the bolt stop so I had to remove the stock to manually pull the bolt stop down to release the bolt. The problem was obvious with the stock removed as the original trigger had been replaced with a Timney trigger. The slot in the safety lever was not long enough to allow it to go far enough forward to press the bolt stop all the way down. About 10 minutes of careful dremmel work to lengthen the slot and three trial fit attempts had it working like it should.
The Timney trigger is quite nice, but I have no idea how it compares to a stock 540 XR trigger. It's a positive or a negative, depending on how you look at it.
The Lyman sights are old school but I had the same set on my Savage-Anschutz 64 Match, and I like the 90 MJT. With a little tweaking it can be a very good rear sight. I eventually added an adapter to my Annie's 90 MJT to use European rear aperture, and added a small o-ring to remove the slight bit of wobble that is otherwise present in the aperture holder.
I also bowed to the realities of middle aged eyes and replaced the Lyman 93 with an 18mm Gehmann front sight and adjustable aperture to give me a little more flexibility in getting the perfect sight picture. I've played around a bit with 1.5x magnification but I'm not a real fan.
In any event, I screwed in the Gehmann rear aperture from my Annie a put the Gehmann front sight on the 540XR and bore sighted it.
It was a little breezy today at the range, with a wind that varied from 3 to 8 mph while changing from a full value 9 o'clock wind to a half value wind from the rear quarter. I put 10 rounds down range lubing the barrel, warming things up and getting the sights more or less on target at 50 yards.
Then I started looking for lulls in the wind and put 5 shots downrange and got an ok group:
However, I'm not much of a bench rester and what I do is normally with round bottom stocks and the flat bottom of the 540 didn't sit all that well on the bag on my front rest, so I decided to mount a level on it. I use a level on my Annie that is supposed to clamp on the 11mm rail, but I modified it slightly to fit on the forward scope block, where it then appear to sit just under the front sight. I borrowed the rear block off my Annie and moved it to the front position on the 540XR. The screw was the right size as was the curve on the underside of the block, but the hole spacing is different. However, one screw is plenty for this application, at least in the short term.
With a level ensuring the angle of the sight over the bore was consistent, I once again started waiting for lulls in the wind and shot another group. This one was much better, although it still shows a little lateral stringing from the wind:
I shot a coupe more groups that looked pretty similar and then moved the front sight and rear aperture back to my Annie and repeated the process for comparison purposes. It's hard to tell with the effects of the wind, but I'm thinking the Remington 540XR shoots just a wee bit better.
That said, the bolt is smoother on the 64 than it is on the 540XR. The stock on the 540XR fits surprisingly well. My 64 Match was such a poor fit for me that I re-stocked it. The laminated wood stock, being about half glue by weight, was also heavier, and I noticed this again with the 540XR as it is comparatively light. I wasn't thinking I'd have much use for fore end weight, but now that I've held it off hand the reason for the weights is obvious.
I have a NOS 540XR butt plate headed my way, but the adjustable butt plate systems on the two rifles are compatible so for today's shoot I just moved the butt plate on my Annie's stock back and forth.
I'll take it out again tomorrow and shoot it prone, sitting and offhand and see how it does.
-----
Edit: I found sight blocks and screws.
