Re: Remington\'s Quality Issues......Please inform me.
Mind"crime"...
What "Stren" has done to Remington IS a crime.
I used to be a Remington wholesaler, and retail dealer... and always loved them. And I have a rack of Remington varmint rifles.
In 1980, I bought a 308 VS and it was BEAUTIFUL... a very high gloss polish and bluing on the receiver and barrel (with no buffing ripples)... the bolt and action were smooth and slick. The bolt fit the action with no play. I was fool enough to sell it in a minute of "I gotta have something else".
I have bought 5 Remington rifles since '92, and 4 are gone and good riddance. 3 were PSS's and were dogs, the forth was a VS, and it was poor.
The 5th, my most recent M700 addition, is a .221 Fireball "Classic" that I bought three months ago. I have always loved the cartridge and wanted a light weight "Walkin' Varmint rifle", cuz all the others are 15+ pounds.
Here's what I got... the checkering on the right side of the pistol grip doesn't fill out the pattern. On the left side, the checkering is just light lines scratched on the finish, and the tops of the "diamonds" are flat and glossy. While this is a pain in the ***, I can fix them with a checkering tool... but -
The bluing on the receiver is two different colors.
There are tool marks on the outside of the receiver that were there before polishing and bluing... they should have been polished out, but the polishing job is so poor, that there are places where the finishing belt never touched the receiver, and the first rough polishing marks are in plain sight.
The barrel has FOUR loose places... after a good cleaning, when you push a tight patch through the barrel, you can feel the resistance change FOUR times in 24"
I glass bedded the action and floated the barrel.
When I shot it, the barrel was poor, and shot oblong groups, stringing from 10 o'clock to 4 o'clock, regardless of the load. Groups ran from 2" to 3".
Now, before you say "Maybe he can't shoot", let me assure you that I have 45+ years of shooting, including a few years of benchrest.
Unfortunatly, the concept "Send it back to Remington" is a waste of time and postage... Remington will do nothing. I have tried this in the past (as have others) and Remington will do nothing.
Remingtons standard is 2" at 100... plus if you adjust the trigger, your warrentee is void, unless you let them sell you a new trigger!
On the site I spend most of my time on, there have been about 100 people complaining on new Rem 700's over the last 4 years, and NOBODY has said that they got a new Rem and it was beautiful. The best you can expect is that it will be "OK", and it goes down hill from there. They will fix almost nothing, they will not replace bad barrels, and will not fix it if you have adjusted the trigger, unless you aggree to buy a new trigger... about $135-$175 installed. ****... you can get a Jewel for that, or a Timney and $100 change back.
On the otherhand... on the same website, there was only ONE complaint about a Winchester (Stealth), the fellow sent it back to Winchester, and Win appologized profusely and said he could have a brand new (hand inspected) rifle, OR... all his money back, including his shipping expences.
Remington is having very bad times... most of the repair people at Illion NY have been fired, and now when you send a gun to Remington for repairs, they send it out to small gun shops around the country to have it repaired, and when you get it back, the return address on the box will say "Joe's guns and Outboard Motor repair" or some other jerkwater shop in the swamps.
That's the way it is... the .221 fireball is off to Darrel Holland for a new barrel.
For a inexpensive "walking" rifle, it will be around $600 to fix it and make it right, so now I will have a $1,200 "walking Varmint Rifle"... Puke!!
Had I known what I was in for, I would have bought a used 10+ year old M700 and built the .221 myself... it would have been cheaper, and better.
CatShooter.
[ 01-06-2003: Message edited by: CatShooter ]
