A naturally large tree, Summer Rambo is very vigorous, upright-spreading, cold hardy, and productive. It is a precocious bearer, but does strongly tend to biennialism and heavy crops should be thinned well and early. It is somewhat resistant to fireblight and susceptible to scab. This tree is a triploid, and two diploid varieties should be present for full fertility.

Summer Rambo is a very large, attractive, squat apple. The skin is green-yellow flushed and striped red, and the cream-colored flesh is breakingly crisp and very, very juicy. It has an excellent aromatic, subacid, vinous flavor, but it does not store well, becoming mealy a couple of weeks after harvest. From Old Southern Apples by C. L. Calhoun: "Summer Rambo is an old French apple which, until World War I, was very popular in Maryland and Virginia and states further north and west. It reportedly originated in the early 1600s in the French village of Rembures in Picardy, and was being grown in England in 1665. It has been in this country since colonial times. . . . The apples can be picked while still green, for frying, pies, and outstanding applesauce."

It is no coincidence that this apple shares a name with the hero of the movie franchise that started with First Blood; David Morrell, who wrote the novels that these movies were based on, says that his wife arrived home with some Rambo apples right at the moment he was trying to come up with a name for his protagonist.