Remington 700 quality

Would you buy a Rem 700

  • Yes

    Votes: 555 74.5%
  • No

    Votes: 190 25.5%

  • Total voters
    745
Well, I just sent my new M700 LSS 300 Win Mag back to Remington. 4" groups @ 100 yds wasn't going to cut it. Factory fodder and hand loads. Old time honored brew that has served me well in 3 other 300s of mine and 2 others I load for. A Winchester,a Ruger, and Remingtons. Now I know each rifle has to be worked with to find that sweet load,but this thing just won't cooperate. My guess the barrel was chambered on the wrong end. All barrels with the exception of the better hand lapped blanks have a big and a small end. If the small end is put at the muzzle, all is well. If not,problems arise. I'm confident Remington will set things to right,and not be all summer about it. I hope! Down around 90 days to Elk season and the 300 needs to make the trip. Fingers crossed.:cool:
 
Well, I just sent my new M700 LSS 300 Win Mag back to Remington. 4" groups @ 100 yds wasn't going to cut it. Factory fodder and hand loads. Old time honored brew that has served me well in 3 other 300s of mine and 2 others I load for. A Winchester,a Ruger, and Remingtons. Now I know each rifle has to be worked with to find that sweet load,but this thing just won't cooperate. My guess the barrel was chambered on the wrong end. All barrels with the exception of the better hand lapped blanks have a big and a small end. If the small end is put at the muzzle, all is well. If not,problems arise. I'm confident Remington will set things to right,and not be all summer about it. I hope! Down around 90 days to Elk season and the 300 needs to make the trip. Fingers crossed.:cool:

Good luck Otter,keep us poster as to the outcome. Wish they would make them like they did in the 80's. Had a friend that bought a new 700 police sniper model and the chamber was buggered up bad. A fired case would come out of the chamber with a bulge in it. It looked like a small egg on the case. Of course Rem. had to make it good as the deformation was very visible. Keep us posted. ........ SEMPER FI!
 
Will do buddy. The only other time I sent one in was back in the early 90s. I had a new M700 Mountain in 7-08 that had a short neck in the chamber. Had a little radius at the mouth of it too. I figure the reamer had the end buggered up and they missed it. I'll give them credit. A week and a half door to door. All was fine after the fix it job. I just never could warm up to that rifle though. Likely the same fate awaits the 300. I like that warm and fuzzy feeling about my rifles. Hard to do after a trip back to the factory. Shame too. That LSS is a Looker! Feels good in hand too. We'll see I guess. Maybe she'll come back a sub MOA hummer and we"ll have a real love affair. Maybe I'll tie up a tomato to it. Oy!
 
Will do buddy. The only other time I sent one in was back in the early 90s. I had a new M700 Mountain in 7-08 that had a short neck in the chamber. Had a little radius at the mouth of it too. I figure the reamer had the end buggered up and they missed it. I'll give them credit. A week and a half door to door. All was fine after the fix it job. I just never could warm up to that rifle though. Likely the same fate awaits the 300. I like that warm and fuzzy feeling about my rifles. Hard to do after a trip back to the factory. Shame too. That LSS is a Looker! Feels good in hand too. We'll see I guess. Maybe she'll come back a sub MOA hummer and we"ll have a real love affair. Maybe I'll tie up a tomato to it. Oy!


My question is this. If you already HAD ( or still have) 3 other 300Mags...why buy another one?

If you are in love with this one ( except accuracy of course) send it to a gunsmith and have him yank the barrel off of it and install size; caliber; brand barrel that will shoot fine for you
 
I've had a Remington 700 ADL chambered in 30-06 since 1974. After a lot of rounds, both handloads and factory I had it rebarrelled and bought an after market stock from Stocky's. It was accurate in the original configuration. It generally seemed to shoot best with heavier bullets. I could put three 220 grain bullets through a ragged hole at 100 yards and 180 grain weren't far behind. I got a chronograph in 1993 and found that velocities with most loads were about 200 FPS lower than what the manuals said they were. I had known from when I first started loading that the throat on the rifle was long. I've been told that the long throats were common on Remington rifles, but never checked a lot of rifles to prove or disprove this. I had the rifle rebarrelled with a Shilen barrel 26 inches long. My loads from the old barrel will not chamber and I have to seat the bullets deeper. The gun shoots lighter bullets more accurately than the old barrel but it wasn't inaccurate with the lighter bullets in the old barrel. The gunsmith said he'd never seen a 30-06 barrel that was as worn as the old barrel on this rifle. This may be the result of a lot of shooting. The first four or five years I had it we used to shoot nearly every weekend and that rifle was my favorite so a couple boxes every time we went was normal. I can't say much about a new Rem. 700 but I was well satisfied with this one
 
My question is this. If you already HAD ( or still have) 3 other 300Mags...why buy another one?

If you are in love with this one ( except accuracy of course) send it to a gunsmith and have him yank the barrel off of it and install size; caliber; brand barrel that will shoot fine for you

I've been talking to a gunsmith the last month or so about building a rifle for me. I'll give Remington a crack at fixing their product first. If I'm not happy with it when it comes back,it may end up being a 7 RM .
 
I've been talking to a gunsmith the last month or so about building a rifle for me. I'll give Remington a crack at fixing their product first. If I'm not happy with it when it comes back,it may end up being a 7 RM .

Otter, if you go to a custom barrel,look at the Bartlein barrel. My .260 Bartlein took a total of 7 rounds to break in and it is a very accurate barrel. It is also a fast barrel. I'm getting 3100+ out of a 120 gr. A-Max with Hogdon Superformance powder. NO Pressure and room for more if i choose but the accuracy with the load i came up with shoots bugholes.

I hope your rifle will shoot good though. These barrels are not cheap but you get what you pay for. Wishing you the best with yours. SEMPER FI!
 
Thanks SargeSniper. I'll keep that in mind. I'm going to have a light rig built for elk and muley hunting. I just haven't decided on which rifle will be the action donor. I have an old 25/06 here that needs a new pipe. Could end up a 30/06 build,or the LSS in a 7 Remmy mag. It would be a whole lot easier if the 300 came back a shooter. Thanks again for the barrel tip,I appreciate it.
 
Thanks SargeSniper. I'll keep that in mind. I'm going to have a light rig built for elk and muley hunting. I just haven't decided on which rifle will be the action donor. I have an old 25/06 here that needs a new pipe. Could end up a 30/06 build,or the LSS in a 7 Remmy mag. It would be a whole lot easier if the 300 came back a shooter. Thanks again for the barrel tip,I appreciate it.

Glad to help if i can. Good luck Otter. .............. SEMPER FI!
 
All barrels with the exception of the better hand lapped blanks have a big and a small end.
I've slugged several factory 30 caliber barrels, including hammer forged, button rifled and broach rifled and none had smaller bore/groove diameters at the muzzle.

Even watched several broach rifled 7.62 NATO barrels made at the government arsenal in Springfield, MA, being air gauged for uniformity. They all were very uniform from the origin of the rifling all the way to the muzzle. While the groove diameter varied a few ten-thousandths between .3077" to .3082" across them individually, each one was uniform to .0001".

Maybe someone should explain to me how a rifling broach, button or hammer-forging mandrel can make a smaller diameter bore at the muzzle than at the breech end. Those tools stay the same size all the way through the barrel.
 
I've slugged several factory 30 caliber barrels, including hammer forged, button rifled and broach rifled and none had smaller bore/groove diameters at the muzzle.

Even watched several broach rifled 7.62 NATO barrels made at the government arsenal in Springfield, MA, being air gauged for uniformity. They all were very uniform from the origin of the rifling all the way to the muzzle. While the groove diameter varied a few ten-thousandths between .3077" to .3082" across them individually, each one was uniform to .0001".

Maybe someone should explain to me how a rifling broach, button or hammer-forging mandrel can make a smaller diameter bore at the muzzle than at the breech end. Those tools stay the same size all the way through the barrel.

you need to read some of Bill Calfee's stuff. He'll tell you right off the bat that he uses about 40% of the new barrel blanks he receives. Also I have seen more than one in my lifetime, and I still own one that I cut off due to this issue alone.
gary
 
If you turn down and profile a straight button rifled blank, it will have a slight taper from breech to muzzle. Are these the ones Calfee's referring to? Do the same thing to a hammer forged straight blank tapering it and the back end will have a slight taper to smaller at the breech end. Cut rifled barrels barely change any amount when turned down.

Finished barrels lapped and gauged from breech to muzzle will have no inside diameter tapers. But the first inch or two of each end will be at different diameters due to the rifling technique used. Good barrel makers mark the ends of their blanks where they need to be cut off to eliminate this problem. Chambering reamers get rid of the back end problems.

Most after market barrels are stamped with data on the breech end. Surely, no body would use that end for the muzzle, would they? And I really cannot figure out how a factory would put a barrel in a receiver backwards; especially when they're hammer forged to desired profile to begin with.
 
If you turn down and profile a straight button rifled blank, it will have a slight taper from breech to muzzle. Are these the ones Calfee's referring to? Do the same thing to a hammer forged straight blank tapering it and the back end will have a slight taper to smaller at the breech end. Cut rifled barrels barely change any amount when turned down.

Finished barrels lapped and gauged from breech to muzzle will have no inside diameter tapers. But the first inch or two of each end will be at different diameters due to the rifling technique used. Good barrel makers mark the ends of their blanks where they need to be cut off to eliminate this problem. Chambering reamers get rid of the back end problems.

Most after market barrels are stamped with data on the breech end. Surely, no body would use that end for the muzzle, would they? And I really cannot figure out how a factory would put a barrel in a receiver backwards; especially when they're hammer forged to desired profile to begin with.

Calfee simply said right out of the box barrel blanks
gary
 
Most after market barrels are stamped with data on the breech end. Surely, no body would use that end for the muzzle, would they? And I really cannot figure out how a factory would put a barrel in a receiver backwards; especially when they're hammer forged to desired profile to begin with.

I worked in manufacturing for 46 years in the machine tool trade. Nobody bats 1000. I've see items on the production line get thru more than one stage of inspection and allow items that should get thru, but do. Stamping the wrong end of a barrel would not be surprising to me. The only way to catch that mistake would be to check the barrel a 2nd time after stamping.
 
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