Remington 700 – Debunking some urban myths.
This is either going to be a lightning rod for some serious discussion, or it will serve it’s purpose which is to get some of the little known facts about the Remington 700 rifle action out in the open. I am hoping for the latter, and I truly hope that this leads others in the field to get some “inside” information out there for the average consumer to be able to evaluate BEFORE they throw down some of their hard earned money.
First & Foremost: Let me categorically state that I mean NO, as in ZERO, disrespect to anyone out there who loves the Remington 700, makes a living building Remington’s, dropped a world record buck with a Remington, or any combination of the above. Remington’s 700 series is a very popular rifle action. There are more parts, more options, more accessories and “toys” for a Remington 700 than just about any other category short of the 1911 and the AR variants. The Remington 700 is to the rifle world what the Small Block Chevy is to the hot rod world and there are some good reasons for this. At the time of the Remingtons introduction only Sako and Remington made actual true short actions and the Remington was a lot cheaper than anything from Winchester, Sako, Browning, Mauser Werke, Weatherby etc. The Remington action being round and softer than the others was easier to work with; this is now not as much of an issue with the tooling and techniques we have today. The problem today is that the more heavily marketed product is sometimes interpreted as “The best” for those that don’t know anything more than what the glossy ads tell them.
The Remington 700 is a fine rifle action, as a beginning platform, and with as many quality gunsmiths as we have available to us in every state, you can get some real great performance out of it with some work, eventually. Although the 700 is a popular action it has some flaws that I would like to “expose" to those interested in knowing. There is no reason to spend perfectly good money on a rifle action only to have to throw half of it out and replace it. If you are a Remington bigot and think there is no other rifle in the world that is okay, this is America and it’s still a free country for now but there is a larger world out there beyond big green and you are missing out on a lot of good rifle products.
I have been reading through a lot of the old posts online, all around the internet, and there is a common theme to people, new shooters, asking questions about “such & such” a rifle action and receiving anecdotal reports about how this person’s rifle works for them, but I don’t see much in the write ups about the rifle actions themselves. For the purpose of this discourse we are discussing the actions themselves which would be built into custom rifles by good smiths. Name brand recognition is one of the largest causes leading to buyer remorse that I see come through the gun shop where I hang out and do some part time apprentice work from time to time. People buy “X” brand, because they know people who use it, talked to someone who loves it, or read an article where “THIS” guy loves the product and everyone should love it. Just because you haven’t seen it or heard of it doesn’t mean it isn’t a great rifle. Remington is a great marketing company that is also a gun company.
For the record: For comparison I have laid out a Remington 700 short action, a Winchester Model 70 long action and a Howa 1500 long action. We don’t have a Remington 700 long action at the moment but the measurements on a 700 short or long would be the same regardless.
Stiffness: Here is a picture of the bottom of all three actions. The Remington is the round one on the right, the Winchester is in the middle and the Howa is on the left. Both of the flat bottomed actions are better at resisting bullet torque than the round bottom 700. The Howa and Winchester have recoil lugs that are integral to the receiver, the 700’s lug is a separate part sandwiched between the barrel and receiver which works but it’s a cheesy way of doing business.
The biggest thing that is commonly known as a “negative” on the Remington 700 is the structural shape of the action itself. Stripped down to the bare receiver, and placed side by side against other actions, you will notice that the Remington 700 is round and has much less cross sectional material than the Winchester Model 70 or the Howa 1500. The overall amount of material and the locations where it is thin are very important. In the pictures below, you will see where I have measured the wall thickness on the bottom of the action on the same side as the feed/ejection port. This is generally the thinnest part of the action, so a comparison of this point on your action is definitely relevant to the discussion. You can see that both the Winchester Model 70 and the Howa 1500 are almost 2 1/2 times as thick as the wall on the Remington 700. This is an important point because how rigid your action is will determine quite a bit about how well your rifle will group.
A correctly built custom rifle will have a free floated barrel, so that barrel, which can be upwards of 26 inches long, will only be anchored to the front of your action. Because your action is asked to support all that length and counter weight, plus keep it straight under the torque of the bullet spinning down the barrel, the stiffer your action, the less barrel whip you will have.
Continued due to length -
This is either going to be a lightning rod for some serious discussion, or it will serve it’s purpose which is to get some of the little known facts about the Remington 700 rifle action out in the open. I am hoping for the latter, and I truly hope that this leads others in the field to get some “inside” information out there for the average consumer to be able to evaluate BEFORE they throw down some of their hard earned money.
First & Foremost: Let me categorically state that I mean NO, as in ZERO, disrespect to anyone out there who loves the Remington 700, makes a living building Remington’s, dropped a world record buck with a Remington, or any combination of the above. Remington’s 700 series is a very popular rifle action. There are more parts, more options, more accessories and “toys” for a Remington 700 than just about any other category short of the 1911 and the AR variants. The Remington 700 is to the rifle world what the Small Block Chevy is to the hot rod world and there are some good reasons for this. At the time of the Remingtons introduction only Sako and Remington made actual true short actions and the Remington was a lot cheaper than anything from Winchester, Sako, Browning, Mauser Werke, Weatherby etc. The Remington action being round and softer than the others was easier to work with; this is now not as much of an issue with the tooling and techniques we have today. The problem today is that the more heavily marketed product is sometimes interpreted as “The best” for those that don’t know anything more than what the glossy ads tell them.
The Remington 700 is a fine rifle action, as a beginning platform, and with as many quality gunsmiths as we have available to us in every state, you can get some real great performance out of it with some work, eventually. Although the 700 is a popular action it has some flaws that I would like to “expose" to those interested in knowing. There is no reason to spend perfectly good money on a rifle action only to have to throw half of it out and replace it. If you are a Remington bigot and think there is no other rifle in the world that is okay, this is America and it’s still a free country for now but there is a larger world out there beyond big green and you are missing out on a lot of good rifle products.
I have been reading through a lot of the old posts online, all around the internet, and there is a common theme to people, new shooters, asking questions about “such & such” a rifle action and receiving anecdotal reports about how this person’s rifle works for them, but I don’t see much in the write ups about the rifle actions themselves. For the purpose of this discourse we are discussing the actions themselves which would be built into custom rifles by good smiths. Name brand recognition is one of the largest causes leading to buyer remorse that I see come through the gun shop where I hang out and do some part time apprentice work from time to time. People buy “X” brand, because they know people who use it, talked to someone who loves it, or read an article where “THIS” guy loves the product and everyone should love it. Just because you haven’t seen it or heard of it doesn’t mean it isn’t a great rifle. Remington is a great marketing company that is also a gun company.
For the record: For comparison I have laid out a Remington 700 short action, a Winchester Model 70 long action and a Howa 1500 long action. We don’t have a Remington 700 long action at the moment but the measurements on a 700 short or long would be the same regardless.
Stiffness: Here is a picture of the bottom of all three actions. The Remington is the round one on the right, the Winchester is in the middle and the Howa is on the left. Both of the flat bottomed actions are better at resisting bullet torque than the round bottom 700. The Howa and Winchester have recoil lugs that are integral to the receiver, the 700’s lug is a separate part sandwiched between the barrel and receiver which works but it’s a cheesy way of doing business.
The biggest thing that is commonly known as a “negative” on the Remington 700 is the structural shape of the action itself. Stripped down to the bare receiver, and placed side by side against other actions, you will notice that the Remington 700 is round and has much less cross sectional material than the Winchester Model 70 or the Howa 1500. The overall amount of material and the locations where it is thin are very important. In the pictures below, you will see where I have measured the wall thickness on the bottom of the action on the same side as the feed/ejection port. This is generally the thinnest part of the action, so a comparison of this point on your action is definitely relevant to the discussion. You can see that both the Winchester Model 70 and the Howa 1500 are almost 2 1/2 times as thick as the wall on the Remington 700. This is an important point because how rigid your action is will determine quite a bit about how well your rifle will group.
A correctly built custom rifle will have a free floated barrel, so that barrel, which can be upwards of 26 inches long, will only be anchored to the front of your action. Because your action is asked to support all that length and counter weight, plus keep it straight under the torque of the bullet spinning down the barrel, the stiffer your action, the less barrel whip you will have.
Continued due to length -
