Merle "Mike" H. Walker (December 5, 1911 - March 6, 2013) was a designer of firearms and cartridges, an engineer employed with

Remington Arms Remington Arms Company, LLC was an American manufacturer of firearms and ammunition, now broken into two companies, each bearing the Remington name. The firearms manufacturer is ''Remington Arms''. The ammunition business is called ''Remington ...

for 37 years, and a leader in promoting the sport of

benchrest shooting Benchrest shooting is a shooting sport discipline in which high-precision rifles are rested on a table or bench — rather than being carried in the shooter's hands — while shooting at paper or steel targets, hence the name "benchrest". Bot ...

Design and engineering

He is noted as the designer of the Remington Model 721, Model 722 and Model 700. The Model 700 has been called "the world's most popular bolt-action rifle." Walker developed various cartridges while at Remington including

.222 Remington The .222 Remington or 5.7×43mm (C.I.P), also known as the triple deuce, triple two, and treble two, is a centerfire rifle cartridge. Introduced in 1950, it was the first commercial rimless .22 (5.56 mm) cartridge made in the United Stat ...

.244 Remington The 6mm Remington rifle cartridge, originally introduced in 1955 by Remington Arms Company as the .244 Remington, is based on a necked down .257 Roberts cartridge (itself a necked-down 7×57mm Mauser) using a .24/6mm bullet. Known for a combi ...

(later renamed

6mm Remington The 6mm Remington rifle cartridge, originally introduced in 1955 by Remington Arms Company as the .244 Remington, is based on a necked down .257 Roberts cartridge (itself a necked-down 7×57mm Mauser) using a .24/6mm bullet. Known for a combi ...

), and

6mm BR This is a list of firearm cartridges which have bullets of a caliber between and . *''Length'' refers to the cartridge case length *''OAL'' refers to the overall length of the cartridge Measurements are in millimeters then inches, i.e. ''mm ...

. Walker also held patents, including one in 1950 for the trigger which went into the Remington Model 700. That trigger has been associated with misfiring for which he proposed a solution. He was also involved in inventing button rifling.

Benchrest

Walker played a role in founding th
International Bench Shooters
and was its first president.

References

1911 births 2013 deaths American centenarians Men centenarians {{US-engineer-stub