Remington 700 quality

[Trickymissfit]

Even with all the bashing the remington 700 is still the most proven rifle out there and the most copied action. Are they all perfect?? No . When you build way more rifles than anyone else there is going to be more with troubles than others. There's alot to like about a rifle action that is so simple and effective.

actually the most proven rifle would be a 98 Mauser without the slightest second thought. The next ones would be the Marlin 336 and the Winchester 94. After that I'd think of a MK. V. Weatherby
gary

 

[Trickymissfit]

Agreed. A beautiful design indeed but being on top is the worst reason to take your pedal off the gas pedal. Triggers like gravel, flimsy hollow stocks and poor accuracy are not an engineering design problem. That's corporate culture and it goes from the top all the way to the janitor. The idea that being the most successful should exempt them from producing high quality is counter intuitive. When was the last time you heard someone say "It'll be a cold day in hell before you pick up a Remington that wasn't a tack driver" or "You never find a Remington for sale cause nobody's willing to part with it".

Don't get me wrong. They're not junk. The people making them just aren't up to the job of producing them.

alot of why the don't shoot goes back to process engineering. Remington does not take care of it's tooling, and seems to have no interest in doing so.
gary

 

[T3-OleMan]

I have two Remington 700's and ..................................................................Rifle 2 (.243 ADL bought brand new in 2012) is a 'decent' gun. Same as above, it's not free-floated. The no-drop plate is kind of a pain for hunting and I'm getting 1.5-2" groups @ 100 yards. I haven't spent enough time developing a load for this gun....so testing is on-going.

Both rifles need to be bedded and free-floated. I guess for a $400 you can't expect much more than what I'm currently getting. I think some stock work will help them both tremendously for accuracy.

INFO: Read a post on here back in Jan 2012 about another old fart {like me}getting a .223 or .243 cause of a bad shoulder and it rang my bell.........Dang, I'm older than dirt, still 10' tall & bullet proof, but odds are I better plan ahead. After $$ analysis, Youth model 700 ADL-3x9 scope_ with New "X" trigger 20" tube-9.125 twist_ .243 was clear choice for my lightbulb3 YO GranDaughterlightbulb, and my type of hunting. Wally World is only one inside of 100mi in stock so for $397.00 it came home. My GUN shop advisor said his 6mms did not like anything over 95gr. So, I based on his knowledge alone, mandated that 80gr TTSX and 80gr GMX would be our HUNTING ammo. Get it now or they will stop making it!!!!
10 Boxes of each along with 2 or 3 of all 10 or 12 other bullet & Mfg. types made- 100grs down to 58gr Vmax. We have a life time supply of ammo as well as Lee collet die set and gobbs of bullets (primers & powders are a given-from 338WM stash). I was so dissapointed comparing my first 700 vs my {$575}Tikka T3-338WM SS lite when I bolted the 700 first time-but I got what I paid for -OR DID I??????

Then I saw this 700VS in .223, and just had to have it. It was a rock solid 4.25" rifle with hand loads! I thought it was just me, and loaned it to a couple very well known bench rest shooters, who called me up to ask how I managed to get 4" groups? there were major bedding issues. I rebuilt it from one end to the other, and ended up The barrel was so rough it tore up patches. The bolt seated on a burr that was over .06" tall! The chamber was cut at an angle and .007" off center. Andwith a 20" barrel (lost about 75fps). It now shoot in the fours (as in .45"). I like the rifle, but also should have been in the trash can from the get go.
gary

THE Question: Based only on Gary's experience with his .223 and my .243 ADL still un-fired, should I take mine to a gunsmith and have him scope it out to see what I have and find all this out before I fire IT????????
1.) Would this give better response from Rem for warranty work if needed???
2.) What might I expect to pay a gunsmith to do this while I wait-dream-on If possible????
3.) Can't afford to spend ANY more $$ on this project!!!! But, might need to have a look just to know early & know why????

Feedback please!!!!! Cause I may not fire it for 10 years from now?????

 

[Mike 338]

T3-OleMan,

A gunsmith will be happy to look at it but if he's honest, he'll tell you to shoot it if you want to know if there's a problem. That's my advice too. It's like asking your mechanic to go down to the dealership and check out a new car. He'll do it and charge you but someone's still going to have to drive it to tell you if it's O.K. Almost all factory barrels have machine marks and tiny pits. You can see this by sticking a piece of white paper in the ejection port, shining a good flashlight onto the paper (light reflecting back up the tube) and looking down the bang end of the barrel with a magnifying glass (barrel must be clean). You can only see an inch or two but it'll give you an idea of the condition. Also, some rough barrels shoot fine.

A gunsmith may or may not have a bore scope. If he does, hell clean the barrel. Cleaning is maybe $30. To take a look at things, I wouldn't pay over $45.00 but he probably won't tell you anything you don't already know. I'd shoot it, clean it, oil it and stick it back in the box. Most or many rifles are shot at the factory. The barrels are fouled when you buy them.

In ten years, your grand daughter will be 13. It's a fair bet she'll bet she'll be discovering friends, fashion and boys. She might be into hunting but it's not everyone's idea of a good time. Hope it works out.

 

[projp]

Bought a 700 BDL from Cabelas in 300 WM last month. Cases stuck and had to use a good thumping with my hand to extract. Thought it might my be my hand loads so I went way down to min loads...still sticks. Shot two different factory loads, could barely get them out. Cabelas sent it to a local gunsmith and he ran a reamer through it and polished the chamber.
Don't they pre fire Remingtons at the factory? This problem should have never made to to the sales counter.

 

[Mike 338]

Bought a 700 BDL from Cabelas in 300 WM last month. Cases stuck and had to use a good thumping with my hand to extract. Thought it might my be my hand loads so I went way down to min loads...still sticks. Shot two different factory loads, could barely get them out. Cabelas sent it to a local gunsmith and he ran a reamer through it and polished the chamber.
Don't they pre fire Remingtons at the factory? This problem should have never made to to the sales counter.

Marlin Firearms to was sold and moved to the Remington Facility. There was intense scuttlebutt of cutting corners and that they ceased test firing at the factory. They were putting out lever actions with such bad barrel droop (misalignment of barrel to action / pointing down) that it was visible to the eye. Rather than ceasing production and rectifying the problem, they still flooded the market with these duds. That was only a sample of the flood of complaints about quality. You could read about it for days. One guy said his barrel pointed so low, he had to make a shim for his rear scope mount from a county highway sign. I took my new Marlin to a gunsmith who was able to fix the gritty 8# trigger ($$$) but told me to just send it back to the factory for all the other problems. I did and they replaced the barrel, breech and did something to the action to prevent the incessant jamming that spoiled one hunt and interrupted another. I haven't shot it since I got it back because I was so disgusted with trying to rectify the problems with that rifle that I got a Win 70 and have been spending my time with it.

According to "Marlington", there's no problems with quality and everything just fine. Yeah, sure.

Long story short... Remington seems to have a corporate culture that's crumbling like Rome. Most companies were filled with people that had a sincere desire to excel and be the best. But little by little, smooth young puppies filled the management ranks and twisted more and more until it is no longer possible to do a good job. It does however translate well to the bottom line... for now. Eventually management runs on the edge and mines out the profits for themselves until one day, they look up and it's all going to hell and all they can do is point fingers at each other or deny, deny, deny. They've failed to reinvest in tooling and have a work force that doesn't care anymore. It used to be the enemy of some gun makers were slick layers. Now it's their own executives or at least within their own walls.

 

[Trickymissfit]

Marlin Firearms to was sold and moved to the Remington Facility. There was intense scuttlebutt of cutting corners and that they ceased test firing at the factory. They were putting out lever actions with such bad barrel droop (misalignment of barrel to action / pointing down) that it was visible to the eye. Rather than ceasing production and rectifying the problem, they still flooded the market with these duds. That was only a sample of the flood of complaints about quality. You could read about it for days. One guy said his barrel pointed so low, he had to make a shim for his rear scope mount from a county highway sign. I took my new Marlin to a gunsmith who was able to fix the gritty 8# trigger ($$$) but told me to just send it back to the factory for all the other problems. I did and they replaced the barrel, breech and did something to the action to prevent the incessant jamming that spoiled one hunt and interrupted another. I haven't shot it since I got it back because I was so disgusted with trying to rectify the problems with that rifle that I got a Win 70 and have been spending my time with it.

According to "Marlington", there's no problems with quality and everything just fine. Yeah, sure.

Long story short... Remington seems to have a corporate culture that's crumbling like Rome. Most companies were filled with people that had a sincere desire to excel and be the best. But little by little, smooth young puppies filled the management ranks and twisted more and more until it is no longer possible to do a good job. It does however translate well to the bottom line... for now. Eventually management runs on the edge and mines out the profits for themselves until one day, they look up and it's all going to hell and all they can do is point fingers at each other or deny, deny, deny. They've failed to reinvest in tooling and have a work force that doesn't care anymore. It used to be the enemy of some gun makers were slick layers. Now it's their own executives or at least within their own walls.

the first hint that all was not well at Marlin was with their 39's built by Remington. Prior to that they were built by one old man who was around seventy years young. Then we start to see the price steadilly climb for used Marlins while the new ones rot on the shelves. In otherwords the word's out on the street.

To fix Remington, the first thing you have to do is move the plant at least 1000 miles away. Then completely retool with all new engineers and managment. But just as importantly, you have to setup a staff to keep the place up and running. That includes engineering and maintenance. Right now it's not so hot up there in New York. Being as Remington is a military supplier, I've always kinda wondered who they bribed in the GAO to survive a P.A.R. Audit. This ain't a looking over the books thing, but something very serious that often will last a week or two. They will examine every aspect of the place, and have the right to do the same in any corner at the place. In otherwords it covers the complete operation, plus anything that has Remington's name on it.

gary

 

[Mike 338]

I was in a big box outdoor store today. I asked the guy behind the gun counter what he had in 243. He started with Remington. I just said "no thanks, I'm not to keen on them anymore". He said, "I don't know what's going on with them lately. I sent back more Remington's than everything else put together".

I think of Remington like I would an x-wife (which I don't have). I can't spend any more time hoping they get on the right track. I've moved on. What's cool is there are now all kinds of gun makers tripping over themselves to manufacture more accurate, reliable and affordable products on the market.

It make's perfect senesce to me... we buy our TV's from Japan, our rifles from Europe and everything else from China. In return, they buy our land, debt and future. The important thing is our leaders (corporate & otherwise) get that yacht before they're asked to leave.

 

[westcliffe01]

I have 2 Remington rifles. My first rifle was a 700 "Classic" in 8mm Mauser. Like someone else wrote here, this was a 5MOA rifle from the factory ! Trigger was 8lb. Read all about adjusting it, but the trigger springs had been changed after the lawsuit and it was impossible to get even a 3lb trigger and be safe. So I bought a Shilen trigger for less than $100 and it was perfect from the get go. All I had to do was transfer the safety lever from my old trigger.

Despite the new trigger, it was still at least a 3MOA rifle. I looked into pillar bedding the very nice looking stock, but I have never done this before, so I didn't want to mess it up. So I went with a laminated stock from Stockys. The new stock was cut for a heavy barrel so it was automatically free floated. It also had a good decelerator pad, the factory one had the plastic but pad, hard as rock. With the new stock, if I work really hard at it, it will shoot MOA. This was a gun that I paid $750 for used (although I believe the owner never shot it). The 8mm Mausers are pretty rare birds.

The second was a used 700 SPS varmint in 223 with the 26" 1:12 barrel (about 10lb). It came with an aluminum optics rail and a *** chinese mill dot scope on high rings ??? I stripped all that crap off and put on a steel warne rail, loctited to the receiver (which I do on all my rifles). Then Warne Maxima steel rings and my Nikon 3-14x42 Monarch scope. In that shape, first trip to the range, it shot 2-3MOA. The trigger was nice (I was surprised by that, but it may already have had a trigger job) but not accurate. So I removed the stock and found that the plastic stock was distorted and applying lateral pressure on the barrel, and of course it was not free floated.

A 3/4" hardwood dowel and some 40 grit belt sander paper and a couple of hours work had the barrel channel straight and clear of the barrel. The stock was distorted close to 1/8" so one side of the fore end came to a knife edge after the free floating, but I just left it that way. One has to free float by quite a bit, since the heavy barrel puts a lot of load on the fore end and it will bend slightly, so I clear by about 3/32, not by the dollar bill standard.

With that work, the rifle then shot 0.5MOA very reliably and has been my go to gun for Coyotes. However, with the 1:12 twist I have been limited to 55gr bullets and I have been shooting out to 350 yards where those bullets get blown around an awful amount so have been longing for "something better". Barrel replacement in a 700 is a relatively expensive business and it appears that one will never recover the investment, and after all the "tweaking" I decided on my next gun to see how things were with Savage.

So a couple of weeks ago, a Savage 10 Precision Carbine came up for sale (unfired) in 223 with a 1:9 twist, so I jumped on it. I did nothing to it except mount the optics rail and the Nikon Monarch 4-16x50 which had previously been on the 8mm Mauser. 1 magazine for sighting in at 25 yards yesterday (strong wind and falling snow at close to freezing temperatures). I didn't even have to apply any lateral correction to the scope, just dial in the elevation.

Then to 100Yds and first fired 4 shots of 55gr Hornady TAP ammo. 1st shot was 4.5" high, so dialed that down, next 3 were in less than 1/2". Then loaded up some 75gr HPBT Match ammo to see how that went.

Do I need to say more ? Getting any Remington I have bought to this point has always taken work. With the Savage it just works.

I have not had a 308 rifle and have just bought a TC Icon in that caliber so will report my findings once I have it. Just the fact that it has a receiver integral optics rail saves me $100 compared to a Remington or Savage. I don't know what is up with TC, it seems like they have stopped production of the Icon since no store has had any in stock in 308 since last year in November and they have even dried up on Gunbroker. The one I bought has a bad scratch on the wooden stock, but I will either fit a synthetic stock or paint it anyway since my rifles are not safe queens.

 

[Mike 338]

westcliffe01:

That Savage looks like a sweet shooter. They should all do that.

The Icons seem like they should be great shooters too but other than an obscure article or two, nobody's say'in much. It would be good to hear how you like yours.

Weird how you can't find an Icon anywhere???

 

[Trickymissfit]

I have 2 Remington rifles. My first rifle was a 700 "Classic" in 8mm Mauser. Like someone else wrote here, this was a 5MOA rifle from the factory ! Trigger was 8lb. Read all about adjusting it, but the trigger springs had been changed after the lawsuit and it was impossible to get even a 3lb trigger and be safe. So I bought a Shilen trigger for less than $100 and it was perfect from the get go. All I had to do was transfer the safety lever from my old trigger.

Despite the new trigger, it was still at least a 3MOA rifle. I looked into pillar bedding the very nice looking stock, but I have never done this before, so I didn't want to mess it up. So I went with a laminated stock from Stockys. The new stock was cut for a heavy barrel so it was automatically free floated. It also had a good decelerator pad, the factory one had the plastic but pad, hard as rock. With the new stock, if I work really hard at it, it will shoot MOA. This was a gun that I paid $750 for used (although I believe the owner never shot it). The 8mm Mausers are pretty rare birds.

The second was a used 700 SPS varmint in 223 with the 26" 1:12 barrel (about 10lb). It came with an aluminum optics rail and a *** chinese mill dot scope on high rings ??? I stripped all that crap off and put on a steel warne rail, loctited to the receiver (which I do on all my rifles). Then Warne Maxima steel rings and my Nikon 3-14x42 Monarch scope. In that shape, first trip to the range, it shot 2-3MOA. The trigger was nice (I was surprised by that, but it may already have had a trigger job) but not accurate. So I removed the stock and found that the plastic stock was distorted and applying lateral pressure on the barrel, and of course it was not free floated.

A 3/4" hardwood dowel and some 40 grit belt sander paper and a couple of hours work had the barrel channel straight and clear of the barrel. The stock was distorted close to 1/8" so one side of the fore end came to a knife edge after the free floating, but I just left it that way. One has to free float by quite a bit, since the heavy barrel puts a lot of load on the fore end and it will bend slightly, so I clear by about 3/32, not by the dollar bill standard.

With that work, the rifle then shot 0.5MOA very reliably and has been my go to gun for Coyotes. However, with the 1:12 twist I have been limited to 55gr bullets and I have been shooting out to 350 yards where those bullets get blown around an awful amount so have been longing for "something better". Barrel replacement in a 700 is a relatively expensive business and it appears that one will never recover the investment, and after all the "tweaking" I decided on my next gun to see how things were with Savage.

So a couple of weeks ago, a Savage 10 Precision Carbine came up for sale (unfired) in 223 with a 1:9 twist, so I jumped on it. I did nothing to it except mount the optics rail and the Nikon Monarch 4-16x50 which had previously been on the 8mm Mauser. 1 magazine for sighting in at 25 yards yesterday (strong wind and falling snow at close to freezing temperatures). I didn't even have to apply any lateral correction to the scope, just dial in the elevation.

Then to 100Yds and first fired 4 shots of 55gr Hornady TAP ammo. 1st shot was 4.5" high, so dialed that down, next 3 were in less than 1/2". Then loaded up some 75gr HPBT Match ammo to see how that went.

Do I need to say more ? Getting any Remington I have bought to this point has always taken work. With the Savage it just works.

I have not had a 308 rifle and have just bought a TC Icon in that caliber so will report my findings once I have it. Just the fact that it has a receiver integral optics rail saves me $100 compared to a Remington or Savage. I don't know what is up with TC, it seems like they have stopped production of the Icon since no store has had any in stock in 308 since last year in November and they have even dried up on Gunbroker. The one I bought has a bad scratch on the wooden stock, but I will either fit a synthetic stock or paint it anyway since my rifles are not safe queens.

you got off easy with your .223! I bought a new 700VS a few years back, and it literally was a four and a quarter inch gun with hand loads! I worked with it for about three weeks, and some guys I know said to let them see if they could make it shoot. A couple weeks later they called to ask how I got it to shoot four inch groups.

A buddy of mine (a gunsmith) and I tore the gun down to see what was goung on inside the stock. The stock was strait, but the aluminum bedding block was junk. We did a chamber cast and I marked the bad plces in the barrel. The chamer was cut about .007" off center and at roughly a seven degree angle to the barrel. The chamber was completely junk, and the barrel wasn't much better. We chucked the reciever up in a lathe and did a look see. It actually wasn't all that bad, but with a couple of exceptions. The barrel thread had a lot of taper cut in it, but otherwise was very strait. The bolt was seating on a very large burr. The bolt face was within .0005" or maybe even less. The shoulder was out about .0015". I squared up the shoulder and deburred it at the sametime. Then recut the threads to where they ended up being about .015" oversize. The barrel ended up having 1.5" (roughly) cut off the big end and 3.5" off the muzzel. The throat was so bad that you tore up patches, and the muzzel wasn't a lot better. I ended up with a 20" barrel. I ended up relieving for aluminum in the forend, and then pillar bedding right thru the aluminum.

Assembled the rifle, and did a few more bedding tweeks (recoil lug area mostly). The rifle shot 3/4" the first group. But was a bear to shoot. The trigger would try to freeze up during travel. Doug looked it over and did some polishing here and there. Felt better, but still locked up on occassion. Another guy looked at it and said it was a "J Lock", and throw it away. I was given a 1978 trigger that Ferris had rebuilt. Gun is shooting .45" groups. I lost about 75 fps, and tightened my groups by almost four inches. You kinda expect a rifle to shoot fairly well out of the box (say an inch for a .223), and really don't need to have to rebuild the thing. Now I have a 541 that's driving me nuts, and honestly I can't figure out where to start with it. Yet I have another 541 that will shoot a minute of angle at 100 yards without all that much effort. So here we go again
gary

 

[7stw]

Well, I suppose i' ll jump in here, and stir the pot a little more. I have a closet and a gun cabinet full of Remingtons. These are older ones, made before they forgot how to make guns. I just bought a CDL, in 7 RUM. I could not get it to shoot worth a ****. No matter what I did, it was un responsive. I even tried it in one of my sendero stocks. It still would not shoot consistently. I tried all bullet weights, nothing! It found another zip code ! I will not buy any NEW ones, but the older ones are still a good value. I just picked up a mid to late ninetys LSS, in seven mag. Man that does this thing shoot! That CDL looked great, the fit and finish were decent LOOKING, but that ia where it stopped. The good ones are few and far between these days, and that is sad. But, I will say this, when they were putting out GOOD rifles, nobody could touch there accuracy. And , IMHO, they still make the best platform for custom rifles. All of mine are! No more new ones for me, but I gravitate to them in the used but not abused rack. Sad, sad, sad, ....to some of us, Remington is like apple pie, and Chevrolet. Where have all the good times gone?

AIM SMALL, MISS SMALL. gun)gun). 7 STW

 

[westcliffe01]

There certainly seems to be a huge variation in the quality of the Remington Barrels, which includes the chamber and throat. It sounds like a tap is used to cut the threads in the receiver, instead of cutting them with a single point tool on the lathe.

On mine, the 8mm fouls noticeably quicker than my 223. When cleaning the 223 which at 26" is the longest barrel I own, it has very low friction and needs very few patches before they come out clean and with no change in resistance. The 8mm typically needs a bore mop first, then some copper remover, then some more #9 and finally some Remoil followed by a dry patch. My one DPMS is similar to the 8mm barrel in that it needs more work to clean and then with the operating system, there are a lot more components that have to be stripped and cleaned and re-lubed.

I think the Remington 223 and the DPMS in 7.62x39 will be getting sold shortly. I already have a superior replacement for the Remington bolt gun and the DPMS in 7.62x39 will be getting replaced with an SKS. In reality the "functional equivalent" of the DPMS will be my Galil in 223 which I should shortly have sorted out. I have to say that with the poor quality receivers and shoddy assembly methods in use at Century Arms, you really have to love to Golani to put up with what it takes to make one of those misfits work. They make Remington look like saints.... On my rifle, they parkerized the inside of the bore, since they forgot to "plug" it when they parked the barrel / receiver. Then the receiver was out of spec, forcing the barrel out of position with a too shallow chamber, so they ground the back of the bolt lugs to make it fit, instead of fixing the chamber or receiver.

When I had the barrel replaced, it needed a replacement bolt, which came out of the surplus bin (at a smith that specializes in Galils). As we later found out, that bolt had been machined on the face that contacts the cartridge by 40-50 thou, altering the relationship of the round to the extractor... With the result that my rifle cannot eject its brass... So now, on the 3rd bolt, it looks like the extraction and ejection will work, but I may have to fix the chamber again.... As I say, they make Remington look like saints...

 

[Bill56]

I bought my first Remington rifle late last fall. I don't know if this qualifies exactly in this discussion (hey, I'm a newbie), but it's a 5R Milspec in.308. It has just a crummy piece of glass on it right now and I've only gotten it sighted in at 100 yards.

But.. it is sub MOA for both myself and a buddy of mine. For me, a 7 shot group in an approx. .7" group. My friend put 3 shots into a .75" group. Just my 2 cents...

Bill