drummerboy
Well-Known Member
Morning, guys thinking of buying a friends remington 700 .243 and rebarelling to 7mm 08, what was the best year for the 700? As in build quality and reliability?
Regards Neil
Regards Neil
remington 700
- Thread starter drummerboy
- Start date
Blind Pugh
Well-Known Member
Personally, I would never buy another Remington. Always regretted buying them.
An old Howa would be a better donor. See Brock & Norris
An old Howa would be a better donor. See Brock & Norris
Been very happy with mine, both have plastic stocks also RH with me being LH, just kept them clean inside and out.
Only factory rounds in the .243 with the .270 on home loads.
Re the OP, on YT the US use the action for all sorts of mods.
Tim.243
I'd prefer a Remington over a Howa in the meantime. They are by far not perfect but once put together right very user friendly.
I recently came across two blued remmy actions that an internal crack between the two rear scope mount screws. Have never seen that on any remmy stainless action.
edi
I recently came across two blued remmy actions that an internal crack between the two rear scope mount screws. Have never seen that on any remmy stainless action.
edi
Ronin
Distinguished Member
Liquidsteel Designs in Preston (who are RFD) have a brand new Howa action with Krieger barrel in 7mm-08 fitted in a GRS stock for sale that may fit your requirement
I did the barrel work hence I know it’s provenance
You will find them online or I can provide contact details for them if it’s of interest
I did the barrel work hence I know it’s provenance
You will find them online or I can provide contact details for them if it’s of interest
Blind Pugh
Well-Known Member
Remi & Howa actions are very similar, however............
Remi triggers are poor, Howa on the other hand are two stage, three position safety, & easily tuned. So a min £250 upgrade not necessary.
Remi bolts are not that clever, & a field strip difficult, the Howa is easily stripped and incorporates the M16 extractor apparently.
There is some borescope footage out there somewhere of a Remi barrel, not well made.
As Ronin said above, the Howa in a GRS (Bitfrost preferably if they do it) would be my choice.
Remi triggers are poor, Howa on the other hand are two stage, three position safety, & easily tuned. So a min £250 upgrade not necessary.
Remi bolts are not that clever, & a field strip difficult, the Howa is easily stripped and incorporates the M16 extractor apparently.
There is some borescope footage out there somewhere of a Remi barrel, not well made.
As Ronin said above, the Howa in a GRS (Bitfrost preferably if they do it) would be my choice.
The stocks on entry level models have let both of these brands down in recent years, plus Remingtons have a host of other problems.
Howa has sure as hell got the message, with a massive diversification of OEM stocks in the last couple of years. Legacy Sports copped a lot of flack for the Hogue stocks which may or may not have been as bad as the internet would have you believe (I have two and you've seen the pics of all the game they've taken...). A lot of the stocks they are issuing now are excellent.
Remington on the other hand are still putting out the SPS stocks with their lack of pillars and the horrible pressure points in the forend. Earlier this year an old friend of mine splashed out on four SPS rifles in different chamberings to replace his motley collection of old .303s and 7xWhatevers. All four Remingtons were awful out of the box, needed pillars, bedding, free floating etc to get them to shoot. Even after that the .243 and the .300 Win Mag aren't good enough. Big fight with the dealer came to nought.
So w.r.t. your question @drummerboy, make sure the action and stock are a good fit and work out your downstream upgrade jobs, because 90% guaranteed there will be more to it than just re-barelling. Maybe its already got an aftermarket trigger, been bedded, etc.
Honestly mate, look carefully at getting a new rifle, Howa or Tikka. In the long run I bet it will work out cheaper. And it will be a tack driver out of the box.
Dodgy, one problem I had with Howa was that if one wants to sell it at a later stage. We could not give them away. Remmy always has a value. In our little world at least. I had a few Howa rifles, all shot well and are made to an OK standard just the re-sell issue.
I don't think there is a huge difference between brands when it comes to the cheap tupperware type of stocks that rifles are sold in. Be it a SPS or even a Sako all rubbish in my eyes. In many cases even a wooden stock would be better, at least one can pillar bed that properly.
If I look or judge a rifle I don't look at the stock it comes in as that will be removed anyway... I am lucky to be involved in stock making.
edi
I don't think there is a huge difference between brands when it comes to the cheap tupperware type of stocks that rifles are sold in. Be it a SPS or even a Sako all rubbish in my eyes. In many cases even a wooden stock would be better, at least one can pillar bed that properly.
If I look or judge a rifle I don't look at the stock it comes in as that will be removed anyway... I am lucky to be involved in stock making.
edi
markyw
Well-Known Member
I think a lot of the bad press on the Howa comes from the cheapest stock option coupled with a lot of snobbery. Odd, as rumour has it that the early Howas at least were made on old Sako tooling and stocks are easily changed.
I have a .308 heavy barrelled stainless action that was in the very cheap Hogue stock and it shot ok. Put it in a Nordic Wolf and it is now much more consistent and shoots moa or below groups.....even in my hands. I also have a Rem 700 vssf II in .17 rem fireball and like that very much too. Very similar quality, in my opinion, although I have replaced the Rem trigger and only had to lighten the Howa’s.
Regards
Mark
I have a .308 heavy barrelled stainless action that was in the very cheap Hogue stock and it shot ok. Put it in a Nordic Wolf and it is now much more consistent and shoots moa or below groups.....even in my hands. I also have a Rem 700 vssf II in .17 rem fireball and like that very much too. Very similar quality, in my opinion, although I have replaced the Rem trigger and only had to lighten the Howa’s.
Regards
Mark
Ronin
Distinguished Member
The action for the Howa im referring to is brand new and unused (other than proof) , it has new trigger, the barrel is kreiger so needs no explanation, the barrelled action is cerakoted and currently in a brand new GRS Beserk stock
I don’t believe they want a great deal for the complete rifle and would probably change the Beserk to another grs model if asked as I believe they have a few in stock
The rifle was as for sale two days ago
I don’t believe they want a great deal for the complete rifle and would probably change the Beserk to another grs model if asked as I believe they have a few in stock
The rifle was as for sale two days ago
I have 4 Rem 700's and a Howa. I would take the Remmy's over the Howa, but there's not much in it.
All have had stocks replaced as the factory stocks on both are poor, especially the super bendy Hogue on the Howa. All have had triggers replaced. After market parts are easier to source for the Remmy and come up on SD second hand more regularly.
I don't believe there are many factory rifles that you can guarantee to be super accurate out of the box, there are good ones and bad ones. If you go for a rebarrel by a GOOD 'smith you are guaranteed a rifle that shoots well - sub 0.5 MOA if you do your bit. By the time you have replaced/bedded the stock and rebarrelled you will have spent £2k plus, but you will have a brand new tack driver. You can also choose your barrel length and twist rate which is important if you want to start playing with the new heavy for calibre bullets.
Different people look at it in different ways, but I'm very happy with the semi custom route I have taken with my rifles.
All have had stocks replaced as the factory stocks on both are poor, especially the super bendy Hogue on the Howa. All have had triggers replaced. After market parts are easier to source for the Remmy and come up on SD second hand more regularly.
I don't believe there are many factory rifles that you can guarantee to be super accurate out of the box, there are good ones and bad ones. If you go for a rebarrel by a GOOD 'smith you are guaranteed a rifle that shoots well - sub 0.5 MOA if you do your bit. By the time you have replaced/bedded the stock and rebarrelled you will have spent £2k plus, but you will have a brand new tack driver. You can also choose your barrel length and twist rate which is important if you want to start playing with the new heavy for calibre bullets.
Different people look at it in different ways, but I'm very happy with the semi custom route I have taken with my rifles.
Ronin
Distinguished Member
I’ve built numerous rifles on Rem 700 actions amongst using many other makes of donor and custom actions
If your looking at a donor Remington my advice is to look carefully at the secondary cam (the part of the bolt handle that contacts with the angled ”kick” plate at the rear of the action, of there is damage to this it’s a sure sign of abuse through operator using stiff loads = hard extraction.
The weak spot of the Rem 700 is the bolt handle, if abused they come off.
It’s a relatively easy job to replace with new and silver solder or tig weld back on but whoever does it has to get the timing correct so the action functions correctly
You want the two angled areas to touch almost immediately in lifting the bolt handle (hard to explain what I mean) but in essence you want secondary cam to be effective
When checking the action also, dry fire, if there is bolt handle jump u can bet the secondary cam isn’t properly set - it does affect accuracy you don’t find many custom actions that suffer from this issue but it’s well documented that it affects fire control efficiency of the bolt and bolt secondary cam isn’t “true”
It’s been mentioned the older Rem actions are better - yes they may be made of better quality steel than the mass produced cnc fare that’s come out of the factory for the last fifteen years or so but in reality when we are using said action for non target work (by that I mean competition accuracy) it isn’t really going to make a massive difference
Once an action is trued, be that an early A B or C prefix or a 2018 supermarket special there will be no real difference in performance
I’ve built in both ends of the Rem age spectrum and my customers report accuracy that is equal regardless of action age
There are plenty of alternatives to “big green” consider all before deciding “want that one”
If your looking at a donor Remington my advice is to look carefully at the secondary cam (the part of the bolt handle that contacts with the angled ”kick” plate at the rear of the action, of there is damage to this it’s a sure sign of abuse through operator using stiff loads = hard extraction.
The weak spot of the Rem 700 is the bolt handle, if abused they come off.
It’s a relatively easy job to replace with new and silver solder or tig weld back on but whoever does it has to get the timing correct so the action functions correctly
You want the two angled areas to touch almost immediately in lifting the bolt handle (hard to explain what I mean) but in essence you want secondary cam to be effective
When checking the action also, dry fire, if there is bolt handle jump u can bet the secondary cam isn’t properly set - it does affect accuracy you don’t find many custom actions that suffer from this issue but it’s well documented that it affects fire control efficiency of the bolt and bolt secondary cam isn’t “true”
It’s been mentioned the older Rem actions are better - yes they may be made of better quality steel than the mass produced cnc fare that’s come out of the factory for the last fifteen years or so but in reality when we are using said action for non target work (by that I mean competition accuracy) it isn’t really going to make a massive difference
Once an action is trued, be that an early A B or C prefix or a 2018 supermarket special there will be no real difference in performance
I’ve built in both ends of the Rem age spectrum and my customers report accuracy that is equal regardless of action age
There are plenty of alternatives to “big green” consider all before deciding “want that one”
I think this is the crux of the matter. That difference between MOA and half MOA, i.e. 10mm or so at 100yds, doesn't mean much in practical terms, to the average deer stalker. Or the deer. So it comes down to what degree the shooter is "into" the accuracy side of hunting, and what they are prepared to spend to achieve their goals.
The last five new rifles I've bought were Howas and Tikkas. Two of those have received an aftermarket stock / chassis. In their original form, all five shot their guaranteed 1 MOA out the box. Only ever shot hand loads. I only struggled (briefly) with one to find the right load.
The one I have since sold, the Howa Mountain Rifle (which was too light for me), was required to prove this accuracy by the buyer, with premium factory ammo, I forget what (7mm08). I admit to being a little nervous because the rifle had never shot this ammo before, only my hand loads. But it shot the eyes off a fly, and I got full price, no quibble.
I believe modern budget rifles from several of the manufacturers are 95%+ good for their 1 MOA guarantee, the ones we hear about are the couple in a hundred that aren't. Made up numbers of course but I just don't believe that most of the main competitors to Remington produce the same quality and inherent risk (and need for a gunsmith).
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patjack
Well-Known Member
I would just buy a factory 7-08 like many done the semi custom rifle not so great if you want to sell at a later date, you will practically give them away compared to the expense incurred, buy a good second hand one...
nothing to be gained if your after a purely stalking rig shooting sensible distances.
nothing to be gained if your after a purely stalking rig shooting sensible distances.
And there speaks a man who shoots 600 meter goats on a regular basis.
Quite agree that in the real world 1 MOA is good enough for stalking, but I'm a little anally retentive and am not happy unless bullets are touching each other. The pics below are a Rem 700 short action on it's third barrel. 6.5x47 Lapua wearing a Bartlein by Neil McKillop. Load development was done in less than 30 rounds and there's probably more I can get out of it when it's seen a couple of hundred shots out of it and has settled down.
I've owned for many years a Remington 700 Varmint Special HB in 7-08. I think it is early 80's model, came with dies, brass and some ammo. It never got much use at all except for some longish range fallow on a permission where they were very difficult to approach. Sat in the safe unused for a while but am mindful to start loading for it again and bring it out of retirement. Another case of kit punching well above it's weight compared to the price paid all those years ago. Sorry but I have never owned a Howa but am sure they are great rifles too.
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