Remington 700 quality

[Homer Oz]

G'Day Nick,

Not sure if you can participate in IPSC "Practical Rifle" over there?
That has to be the best Range Type practice you can get, for other competitions and hunting related situations!!!

I've been participating in IPSC (Practical Pistol, Rifle & Seedgun)) , for over 30 years now and it is one of the best educators in How to Shoot, going around!

Hope that helps

Thank you for the kind Christmas Wishes!

Doh!
Homer

 

[diderr]

I bought a 700. Good gun if your willing to stick over $1000+ into it. I'm planning on building another custom rifle and I'll base it off a 700. only thing stock will be the action.

 

[Trickymissfit]

I bought a 700. Good gun if your willing to stick over $1000+ into it. I'm planning on building another custom rifle and I'll base it off a 700. only thing stock will be the action.

honestly, if your going to build a rifle off of nothing but the action, you'd be better off buying a custom action. Many are similar to Remingtn 700's with a lot of improvments. Savage also sells right bolt left port actions that you can build off of as well (about $650). By the time you take the Remington action and true it up, your about where a custom action starts out. The Savage actions will be in the one and one half thousandth range right out of the box, and that's plenty good enough for 98% of us. I wish I could buy custom 1885 actions!
gary

 

[Rmitch223]

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f19/my-favorite-rifle-rem-700-243-win-107120/

 

[Sully2]

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f19/my-favorite-rifle-rem-700-243-win-107120/

Im with ya! Got one in 22-250; 243 and 260....all in the VLS trim ( laminated wood stock) Heavier than hell but laminated and true.

 

[scotsgun]

Rem 700s can be sweet shooters but the problem is that they require work to get there. When you calculate the extra components and time, you're easily talking Tikka or even Sako money. I do own a reminder 700 vsf in 22-250 but the dealer had to discount it in order for me to take it. My Sako 75s and 85 have had absolutely no work done on them, are sweeter to shoot and are manufactured to higher tolerances.

 

[Trickymissfit]

you take a basic Remington 700 action that you find on a donor rifle for about $450, and toss the rest out it out. The action will cost you another $150 or more to true it up (it's crooked!). Rebarrel it for about $500 with a good blank. Buy a trigger that will cost you anywhere from $100 to $300, and then restock it for another $400. Your looking at $1500! Or you can order in a Savage Precision Target Rifle for about $1700 ready to shoot. Odds are better than good the Remington won't shoot with the Savage right out of the box. Or you can spend about $700 for a custom action and go thru the same deal, but probably shoot better than either of the other two. Or you can buy a Savage target action and build a rifle off that for a little less money. The stock work is gonna cost you about the same no matter which way you go. The barrel will come in about $100 dollars cheaper or maybe even slightly less. The Savage target trigger is extremely good. I'd go the custom action route and try to keep it all under $2K, but you could do the Savage for well under $1600 using one of their target actions, and maybe $1800 with a Tom Merideth stocked rifle (the best stocker around). I've seen one Precision target rifle in the flesh, and it was shipped with a .150" three shot target using off the shelf Federal 6BR ammo. Trigger was roughly 10oz. to 12oz. out of the box. You gotta spend a lot of money to shoot that well out of the box ($1725 to be exact). But the downside with them is that they only come in a short action.
gary

 

[RemingtonMagnum]

I still like remington always have. But thier new xmark triggers are garbage not a fan of those.

 

[Trickymissfit]

I still like remington always have. But thier new xmark triggers are garbage not a fan of those.

gotta be better than the one it replaced! I went thru two in my 700, and then ended up replacing them altogether with a 1978 trigger assembly. It could still be better, but for a hunting rifle it's good enough.
gary

 

[azsugarbear]

After years of urging from me, a good friend of mine decided to get into LR shooting. After reviewing his needs and expectations, we felt the 300 RUM was the best cartridge for him. He had a budget of $2500 for everything, so I steered him towards a Remm 700 Sendero. I told him to stay away from the lower end Rem 700's, but felt the Sendero would do right by him.

The first problem he ran into was the trigger. It would not adjust below a 5 lb. pull. The second problem was the rifle would not feed commercial ammo from the magazine. Customer Service was deplorable! At first, they would not even talk to him, but only a rep from the store where he bought it. After returning the trigger and getting it back twice with no change in the pull, Remington stated that it was "within spec" and that they were done with that issue. The feeding problem originated from the fact that the wrong follower had been installed. Instead of getting him the right one, they told him to try bending the spring, etc.

Finally, after spending $1,200 and ten months of time, he was able to speak with a reasonable person in Customer Service. He feels that he is now being heard and is on the way to resolving these issues. I can see running into some of these issues when buying a lower end, basic model 700. But not when you are buying one of Remmy's flagship rifles. So how does it shoot? We will finally get to find out in about 2 more weeks.

 

[jkupper]

I guess I have been one of the lucky ones. I own 3 Remington 700's and all three of them are lower end models (1 ADL and 2 SPS's). All three guns have been good to me. The ADL trigger guard is plastic, and has a crack, but other than that they have been very reliable. I have found at least one load that shoots 1/2MOA or less in all three as well. Maybe I have been fortunate to not purchase a 700 that was made on a Friday afternoon. I will completely agree with many of you who say their service SUCKS! I have tried to ask some general questions and the replies were unsatisfactory to say the least!

 

[azsugarbear]

I have been a longtime Remington customer. Still own several, but all of them were made some time ago. I bought a model 7 in .243 about 4 years ago. I sent more than 100 rounds down the tube trying to come up with a good hand load. Never would group better than 1.5 MOA - most of the time it was 2.0 MOA. Finally took it in to a gunsmith. Bad barrel. Replaced it with a Brux - now shoots 105 gr. Bergers lights out.

Rather than re-adjust my scoped .243 for a 70 gr. varmint round, I bought a low end Savage in .243 (Axis model). This was to be a beater or truck rifle dedicated for varmints. It groups every bit a well as my custom Brux, turning in .5 MOA when I do my part. That is what I used to get from Remington. I believe Remington still turns out shooters, but you can no longer rely on their out-of-the-box accuracy reputation. That has been taken over by Savage. It will take some doing for Remington to earn it back - but I don't even think they are listening.

 

[Trickymissfit]

I have been a longtime Remington customer. Still own several, but all of them were made some time ago. I bought a model 7 in .243 about 4 years ago. I sent more than 100 rounds down the tube trying to come up with a good hand load. Never would group better than 1.5 MOA - most of the time it was 2.0 MOA. Finally took it in to a gunsmith. Bad barrel. Replaced it with a Brux - now shoots 105 gr. Bergers lights out.

Rather than re-adjust my scoped .243 for a 70 gr. varmint round, I bought a low end Savage in .243 (Axis model). This was to be a beater or truck rifle dedicated for varmints. It groups every bit a well as my custom Brux, turning in .5 MOA when I do my part. That is what I used to get from Remington. I believe Remington still turns out shooters, but you can no longer rely on their out-of-the-box accuracy reputation. That has been taken over by Savage. It will take some doing for Remington to earn it back - but I don't even think they are listening.

the last Remington 700 I bought shot a little over 4" for five shot groups. Shop said I was nuts and gave it them to try their hand with, and they couldn't get it better (I was using hand loads). So they let some benchrest shooters try their hand with it, and about two weeks later asked how I was able to get 4.25" groups out of it?

The barrel was so rough it tore up patches! About that time I read how Bill Calfee checks out barrel blanks and did it to the 700 barrel. It had tight places and loose place all up and down the barrel. That's when I should have sent it back, but I'm hard headed as hell! Did a chamber case and I knew where to start! The chamber was .007" off center and angled at about 7 degrees going into the throat. The muzzel had a distinct bell mouth cut in it. I figured I could cut the bell mouth part out and shorten the big end a little but. The do a rechamber. Boy was I wrong! I ended up cutting about 1.75" off the bigh end, and 4" off the muzzel end. I finished out with a 20" barrel. Mr. Pindell loaned me a .223 N.M. chamber reamer that he was was a good one. I then take the reciever into work and recut the threads and trued it up to where it had about .001" compound error (the threads looked like pipe threads!). I kinda have a 700 with a mid shank action. (I think it's 1.125"-18tpi) I never touched the bolt lug seating surface, and really didn't check it (should have) I did check the bolt and it was very good all the way around, but did clean it up a tiny bit. That's when I blued up the bolt lugs and checked the contact area. There was none! The bolt was seating on a very large burr that was over .06"!! So I chucked the reciever up in a Brown & Sharpe #13, and dusted the bolt seating area and removed the burr. Now I can cut the chamber. Came in near perfect. Then upon inspecting the stock I see nightmare number two. That aluminum bedding plate was warped all over the place. But I was lucked out in that I found a ball end mill that was about .005" smaller than the reciever diameter. Recut it and made a lap out of steel to finish the bedding plate to size. While I had it in the vise I also drilled it for pillars just to be sure. Then I made pillars out of steel that fit the reciever very well. Get it all put together and the first group I shot was about 3/4" with factory Hornaday varmit loads. Boy was I happy. Later on I got it down into the .45" range with 55 grain Vmax bullets. I did have a constant fight with the trigger and saftey, and everybody finally gave up on it. Ferris gave me the 1978 trigger that he had built for another rifle.
never again!!
gary

 

[Nomosendero]

A couple of months a go I was visiting some customers in Southern MO. & stopped by a gun shop. They had a new M700 Mil Spec in 308, it had 10th Anniversary on the barrel (don't know if that's sign.) and I bought it for $999.00. It is very smooth. I have ordered a scope and will be shooting it in a couple of weeks. I hope it shoots.

I have a lam. stock Sendero (they did that a little while) in 300WM & it kicks butt, amazing actually. I have an old ugly wood stocked M700 that is does very well.

I also have a regular Sendero that started in 25-06 that did not do as it should, I had Kirby true rec, skim bed, crown & rechamber to 25-06AI, it is the bomb now!

We shall see on that Mil Spec