ESHELL....Tell us more about your rifle and scope combinations you have in the picture. I as well am a "fanatic" about heavy barrel 700's and AR's.
Left to right:
M-700 LA 6.5-300 Weatherby, 29" Hart barrel, Leupold 6.5-20x50 (Sid Goodling)
M-700 SA .22-250, 25" Hart Barrel, Leupold 6.5-20x50 (RW & PJ Hart)
M-700 LA 6.5-284, 26" Bartlein barrel. NF NXS 5.5-22x50 (GA Precision)
M-700 SA .260, 26" Broughton barrel, NF NXS 5.5-22x50 (GA Precision)
M-700 SA .308, 26" Rem sewer pipe (but roll marked like an actual barrel), NF NXS 3.5-15x50 (OEM+/-VS)
M-700 LA .30-06 AI, 24" Shilen barrel, Leupold 3.5-10x40 (Bennett Customs)
M-700 SA .243, 24" Schneider barrel, Leupold 4.5-14x40 (GA Precision)
M-700 SA .308, 20" Rem barrel, Leupold 4.5-14x50 (OEM+/-LTR)
AR-10 .308, 20" Armalite barrel, Leupold 3.5-10x40 (OEM Armalite)
AR-15 .223, 20" Douglas barrel, Leupold MK4 10x40, Colt lower, RRA trigger & upper, Bushmaster float tube & gas block (FrankenColt)
AR-15 .223, 20" Colt barrel, Leupold 3.5-10x50 (OEM Colt)
10/22 .22LR, 20" AAC "Cloak" barrel, Leupold 3-9x32 EFR (suppressed FrankenRuger)
10/22 .22LR, 18" (old) "Midway" barrel, Leupold 4.5-14x40 AO (target barreled FrankenRuger)
To my eye, honestly, that looks proportionately like a 20" barrel. You may be right; if you are, my eyes are in more trouble than I thought. There are other problems with the picture, such as the recoil pad being incorrect (as in, missing).
Your eyes are fine and likely better than those of Remington's marketing people.
The forend of the HS Precision made Rem PSS stock pictured is slightly longer than the standard HS Precision made Rem VS forend, making the barrel seem even shorter, and the HS VS stock has a longer forend than the LTR, being nearly midway in length between the LTR and PSS.
If you compare the buttplate/trigger guard positions, then look at the barrels, you'll see what I mean.The two rifles in your pic are positioned similarly and correctly proportioned to each other, and if you compare the ejection port positions (barrel origin points) in your pic, the extra 6" of barrel length of the bottom (PSS) rifle becomes apparent.
Funny you should mention that - mine shoots the Federal 168 gr Gold Medal Match best, too, so your comment about that being a design goal could well be right. I have never tried handloading .308 for this rifle because I doubt I could improve anything.
LOL, same here, my LTR is one of the very few I DON"T load for. Eventaully, I would like to find a good load using the Lapua 155 Scenar, which has a similar BC to the 175 SMK, but can be driven up to 200 fps faster, with resulting substantially better long range drop/drift figures.
At least not with the current scope. I intentionally mounted a relatively low-power scope (Leupold VX-III 1.75-6x), so even dialed all the way up it's not exactly a sniper set-up...might manage slightly tighter groups with higher magnification, not sure.
I had that 4.5-14x40 that's on my daughter's .243 on my LTR (before I somehow got talked out of it) and IMHO, it was *perfect* for that gun. I've had one of the 3.5-10s on it, and it felt pretty good, but I ended up wanting more magnification.
Here's a question for you. I keep thinking I should either replace or at least adjust the factory trigger, but it shoots so well that I figure I shouldn't tempt fate by removing the stock and either replacing or adjusting the factory trigger. Any opinion on that?
The OEM trigger pull can be adjusted to render a very good pull, and a good 'smith can polish the parts to *really* make it nice. Even a skilled hobbyist can make a big improvement if caution is applied. IMHO, leave the engagement screw completely alone and don't set the pull weight below about 2-1/2#. Here is a decent tutorial:
http://www.snipersparadise.com/articles/adjusting_the_rem_700_trigger.htm
Here is another set of instructions with a decent pic, but IMO, just use the pic for reference. The pull can be improved quite a bit while still leaving engagement screw alone.
http://www.snipercountry.com/Articles/Remingtontriggers.asp
I am probably being at best unnecessarily cautious, but too many times I've fiddled around thinking I'd improve something and found I'd take several steps backwards instead...
While I too subscribe to the theory that "if it's not broke, don't fix it", the Remington triggers are usually set massively high and there is definitely safe room for improvement.
As for taking it in and out of the stock, IMHO, don't sweat it. Just make sure the recoil lug is bottomed out toward the rear (stand the rifle on it's buttplate to start snugging up the screws) and that your action screws are evenly torqued. I torque my OEM bottom metal to 50 *inch* pounds and my Badger aftermarket bottom metal to 65 *inch* pounds. I have several extra HS short action stocks, including a PSS stock, two LTR stocks and a VS stock that I have swapped my LTR action around in and eventually put it back into an LTR stock and the accuracy and point of impact was never affected, only the handling and feel.
The consensus is that the HS stocks with their aluminum bedding blocks shoot well as is and even better when skim bedded, but I haven't bothered with skim bedding mine. The only rifles in the above pic that are bedded are the 10/22s (barrel channels) and the .30-06AI. If you did elect to bed your's, once you do, I would then suggest trying to leave it together to maintain the best fit.