Would you buy current M700?

Few years ago I was at a local gunsmith that is known for building match rifles. Customer had brought in an unfired 40x from the Remington Custom Shop to get it set up for competition

He had just started to put on the barrel wrench to take off the factory barrel when the phone rang. As he answered the phone, he noticed that the barrel was turning off just from the weight of the wrench

Said it was the last new Remington he would do. Old ones yes.

No, I' would not buy another Remington 700 again.

I have two Remington 700s (221 Remington Fireball and 17 Remington) and one XR-100 (223 Remington). None of them were lousy but all three have gotten new triggers and have had a fair amount of stock work done to them. All three shoot acceptable accuracy now.

I bought a Savage Model 12 in 204 Ruger that shot well out of the box. The Remington 700s are just too much work and cost compared to other comparable rifles.

js8588 said:

Nope. I'll never trust a company that put out rifles with death trap triggers for decades.

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This, plus all the random piss poor quality issues you hear about here and on other forums (cfullgraf's story above made me go ). Yes, it's online and you get the disgruntled people and for every bad story there's probably a dozen good stories. But, honestly, how many bad stories do you hear about Savage? About Tikka? And they sell just as many guns, so they have just as many opportunities for screw-ups, yet you just don't hear the stories. Compound that with the dollars Remington asks for? Screw them. Yes, they are an American company. But so is Savage. Go buy from them.

It depends on the price and the circumstance.

I would love a right-handed 700 in 7mm Rem mag, my Dad gave me his 1980's era unfired L-H 700 BDL and I like the cartridge/rifle combo. They just seem to go together like bread and butter.
Sadly I have no use for a left handed rifle, so if the deal of the century came along on a nice righty 700 BDL (or equivalent) I would do it. Other than that...

Yes I have, and it is currently waiting for the Devcon epoxy bedding that I poured into the stock to dry. I purchased a M700 in 35 Whelen, I would have preferred a M70, but the Remington rifle had a 24" barrel, most of the rifles out there have 22" barrels, and it was in stock. I have found once these things are out of stock, the prices rise.



I did take it out and shoot it and was not pleased with the accuracy. It could be me, or it could be the rifle. However function was perfect, it went bang on each and every round. My experience with factory rifles is that factory bedding is awful. This 6.5 Swede M700, you can clearly see with the second target picture the action sliding in the stock. Factory bedding is quite loose, and for whatever gonzo reason, Remington beds the action with a pressure point in the fore arm. I always clear the pressure point because I have never had an example where the rifle shot better with a pressure point on the barrel, or where a rifle shot better when the barrel made contact with the stock.








This is the same rifle bedded, barrel free floated. By the standards of the internet, I could claim the bedded rifle as a sub MOA shooter. See, 0.60 MOA at one hundred yards, three shot group.



One of the secrets of in print gun writers and internet posters claiming 1/2 MOA lever actions and the like, is small group size, because if you increase the group size, you inevitably get a larger group. So, with a five shot, not a 1/2 MOA rifle. Maybe it was me, there is a lot of me in this. Not all of it good.




I shot a ten shot group at 300 yards that was under five inches. Not bad for a lightweight sporter rifle.





I am hoping that the glassbedding of the 35 Whelen makes the thing shoot straight. Glassbedding and free floating barrels has changed a number of anchor weights into lovely rifles, I am hoping this one turns into a butterfly. There is nothing about the 700 action I consider "flawed", I just prefer a claw extractor and I just prefer the M70 action. I am glad Remington put a big thick recoil pad on the thing, any rifle pushing a 225 grain bullet 2400 to 2500 fps kicks!

My experience with 700s is that one from the two from the late 90s were good, the one I bought in 2010 was horrible, and the most recent ones ive looked at were pretty nice, and showed none of the issues the one from 2010 had. These guns were manufactured within the last year or two.
Ive read alot of complaints about remington triggers, and ive seen one fire when the safety was taken off. Round went into the ground as my buddy follows the muzzle control rule religiously. When i took the rifle apart the whole mechanism was rusted and gunky. While i cant say that a different design wouldnt have kept that round from firing, i can say i trust the new and old triggers when cared for properly.

To the B14 copy. I feel it fixes some of the annoying things about the 700 design. The bolt release being moved to the side of the action an simplified is a plus. The simpler trigger design is also a plus.

My wife refuses to shoot a gun after being scared to death as a girl when her dad was teaching her to shoot a 700 in 243 for deer hunting. The gun went off when she clicked the safety off at the bench. He still has the gun and I actually shot a deer with it one year after the scope on my rifle lost zero. He has been talking for years about how that gun is going to be for the grandkids to shoot but I told him under no circumstances is he to let my daughter shoot that rifle until the trigger is replaced.

someguy2800 said:

My wife refuses to shoot a gun after being scared to death as a girl when her dad was teaching her to shoot a 700 in 243 for deer hunting. The gun went off when she clicked the safety off at the bench. He still has the gun and I actually shot a deer with it one year after the scope on my rifle lost zero. He has been talking for years about how that gun is going to be for the grandkids to shoot but I told him under no circumstances is he to let my daughter shoot that rifle until the trigger is replaced.

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To me, it isn't that they had a problem like that, it's that they haven't done anything about it. I had a Ruger that had a safety defect, sent it back and they sent me a new one for free. I'm an engineer working in a manufacturing environment...things get built incorrectly all the time, it happens. But critically, you acknowledge it on your own (doesn't count IMHO if someone has to force that acknowledgement out of you) and you fix it. Between the rifle triggers issues, the R51 issues, various things I've seen on the RP9...nope. No trust there.

If I was buying a 700, it would probably be as a benchrest gun.

In that case, I'd rather have a Savage.

I have 4 Remington 700 rifles. All these rifles shoot from well to extremely well. I have had them all for over 20 years. I think the newer models have degraded in quality and with that said I wouldn’t purchase a new 700. There are to many better options IMHO.

I have a 2016 Rem700v that is of nice quality. I sold my savage model 10 and put the money towards it as the savage could do 1.5" groups with my best reloads on my best day. Not bad at all but not what I was looking for. My Rem 700 on the other hand shoots 1/4" groups @100 yards consistently. My next purchase will be a weatherby vanguard (howa) or a tikka most likely.

I have no problem buying a current model 700 and I have. A nice Milspec. I also got a model 7. Most opinions are that management certainly is an issue at Remington with a possible ship first, fix later mentality. No so the workers that I know. They know quality and they know a reject. Only thing if management says ship the rejects, feeling most won't figure it out, then they ship out.

For the person who's barrel unscrewed with the weight of the wrench, must have been a very heavy wrench. Sorry couldn't help myself, I was not being serious. It just had to be said. A sad show of quality on that one.

2016 Remington model 700 varmint. .308 win with a 26" heavy barrel and synthetic stock.

I have been looking at ADL's in .223 but I just can't rap my head around a 1/12 twist. I prefer the load from the top concept of the 700 verses the magazine. I'm still thinking I want one and at some point in the future re-barreling it to a 1/8.

But, like Jack Benny when a thug tries to hold him up the thug says "your money or your life" Jack stands there contemplating and finally the thug repeats "your money or your life" Jack says "I'm thinking !! " I know, someone is going to ask "Who's Jack Benny" ??

The first rifle I bought was .270 ADL in 1972 with calf money. I was 13 so I’ve had it for 45 years. It has a Walker trigger(adjusted to 2.5 lbs by a gunsmith in the 80’s), is still very accurate and I’ll never sell it. Remington quality was down for a good while but I feel it has gone up the past couple of years. Based on what I saw selling guns at Cabela’s and my store was consistently in the top three for gun sales, Remington quality lately is no better or worse than the other mainstream makers.

That being said I’d rather have a M70, Bergara or Weatherby Vanguard in that order. No real practical reason for it but I like CRF, hence M70 is my number one choice. CZ would have been number two but they discontinued the 550 American. I like Bergara and Vanguard because to me you get more bang for your buck than you do with a M700. Tikka is not on my list b/c I don’t care for DBM’s and small ejection ports, even the T3x ejection port is smaller than I care for. Quality wise I’d own one in a New York minute.

I did buy a Remington 700, specifically the Long Range model in 7mm Rem Mag. With good handloads, it is a real tackdriver. These ladder groups were fired off a bipod, rapid-fire (inasmuch as all five shots were fired in under 2 minutes), and in fact the top group was my last of the day, slightly rushed because the range was closing soon and so i had a whiff of mirage in my scope as i started the group, from the heat build up still remaining from the previous group.



That said, i never did find a factory load it liked nearly that much, likely owing in large part to the fact that the rounds have to be loaded WAAAAY over SAAMI max length to get anywhere near the lands. The groups above were .025" off, at 3.430" For reference, SAAMI max for 7mmRM is 3.290"

So, i did buy a 700, and i really like it (once i fitted a Timney trigger and replaced the awful factory mag with a halfway-decent DBM.) That said, i doubt i would buy another. While i cant argue with the accuracy, the fit and finish kinda sucked (the bolt face wasn't very well machined, as the most obvious example), and the factory trigger, while i can't say it's the worst I've ever used, is definitely a major letdown, even without the potential safety issue. I think if someone asked me what i would recommend for a decently made rifle at a fair price point, i would probably recommend Savage, Weatherby Vanguard, or Howa before Remy.

Slamfire said:

Factory bedding is quite loose, and for whatever gonzo reason, Remington beds the action with a pressure point in the fore arm.

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Yes, part of my stock work was removing the Remington pressure point on the forearm. My 17 Remington Remington 700 has a short slender barrel and the pressure point would affect point of aim after only a couple shots on a cold barrel. After free floating the barrel, it takes 5 or 6 shots before the heat starts to affect point of aim. Not Remington's fault but a factor of the the slender barrel.

The rifle makes a good walk about varminter, handy, light weight, but definitely would not pass muster on a prairie dog town.

A bit of clarification on my post #27, I was happy with my Remington 700's as purchased but they had some shortcomings out of the box. They did require some TLC to get them to be at the level of customer satisfaction that should have been equal to the 700's reputation from the past and should have come from the factory. I enjoyed improving the rifles, but now I'm in the "been there, done that" category and do not want to fix Remington's issues any more.

I'm a fan of 221 Remington Fireball and getting a factory rifle chambered in the round was a plus. I still have and enjoy the rifle. The 17 Remington M700 was my first foray into 17 Remington. (Remington offered a 221 Remington Fireball version of this same rifle, kind of wished I bought one when they were available.) I've assembled an AR-15 in 17 Remington since. It is an interesting cartridge. The XR-100 has been a back up rifle for my prairie dog hunts although in more recent hunts, my various 204 Ruger rifles have replaced the 223 Remington XR-100.

I have no plans on selling or replacing the Remington M700s that I have. But, I do not have plans to add any more.

I've been assembling a Savage target action (22 Bench Rest) for my next prairie dog hunt in summer 2018. Ask me again in seven months on my opinion of the Savage target action. (My Savage Model 12 and an AR-15, both in 204 Ruger will back up the new Savage).

Apologizes for being a bit long winded.

Nope ...

No, nor would I buy another older 700. From a design standpoint, I really don't care for the 700, I don't like the extractor, I don't like the trigger, I don't like the safety, I don't like the bolt release and I don't like the brazed on bolt handle. I really don't see how the 700 is better, in any meaningful way, than any number of other rifles I could buy for similar or less money, to include: Tikka T3(x), Winchester 70, Kimber 84, Browning X-Bolt, Howa 1500, Bergara, Ruger Hawkeye, Ruger American, or even (Gag...) Salvage.

I had a 700 Classic from 1994, one of the supposedly good years, and found it mediocre in every way. Not terrible, but not really good at anything. The strongest praise I can muster is to say that it fired pretty regular 1.5" groups with 140gr SSTs, and never blew up in my face.

The one clear advantage that the 700 has going for it is strong market support, but Savage, Tikka and even Howa are starting to get decent levels of support. I'd rather choose my stock from a slightly smaller selection for one of those actions than have the larger selection at my finger tips, but be forever stuck with the pile of 1960's cost cutting measures they call the 700 action.

What Gtscotty said. I just am not a big fan of the overall design. Having said that, I get outstanding service from my Savage/Stevens rifles, esp. those with the accutrigger.

I've only owned a few 700's in my life, and the most recent one (a stainless SPS in .308) was a darn good shooter, but only after I voided the warranty by adjusting the CORRECT screw on the trigger, as opposed to the worthless adjustment screw they tell you to use. Clearly, Remington is being run by lawyers these days.

I might have kept that gun but for the stock. I don't care for 700 stocks. They just don't fit me well. Same is true for their shotguns. I've never cared for Remington pumps for the same reason. Don't fit me. Others may love them.