The tweaking done to 700s is far from mandatory and to suggest the average 700 does not shoot adequately, or any worse on average, than an A or X is laughable... and you CAN work on the Brownings, but no one wants to.
As to reliability, as I already stated I have personally witnessed more failures with A-Bolts than all other makes and models combined with far less time near A-Bolts.
Again, YMMV.
My experience with a 700 wasnt just sub par shooting, its workmanship and design issues where the safety had to be reworked to make it workable and the thing vertically strung shots 8 inches due to stock issues. I bought it new off a dealer off the internet so I was forced to go to a remington warranty center. Twice.
Your comment about gunsmiths not working on brownings maybe the warranty center issue. They may not have the network that remington has and or the volume of defective product remington has so gunsmiths dont do the work. Browning may be selective in who it sets up to do warranty work & parts center work like Remington who needs every gunsmith on deck to contain the crap they put out there. I shoot trap league and wouldnt own any remington pump, auto, or OU after seeing the number of problems they have....
Sometimes it how you look at it and twist the comments to favor your brand. I dont think remington is as good as it once was and my collection is shifting over to Brownings as I uprgrade.
According to unsubstantiated and undocumented anecdotal evidence, Browning's big problem with the A Bolts, and possibly X Bolts, probably lies with the metallurgy of the metals they use for their triggers, receivers, barrels, etc.
If these rifles are taken to Alaska, and thereby closer to the Arctic Circle and North Pole, the magnetic attraction of the pole apparently changes the molecular makeup of these metals, rendering them corrosive, soft, and prone to immediate failure.
These failures must be real, as they are reported frequently by Sitka deer.
If these same rifle models are taken to more equatorial latitudes, these problems seem to abate, as witness the thousands of Browning owners who have used these rifles in North America, Africa, etc. without apparent problems- at least they don't seem to be reported often on the 24 HC, the truthful clearinghouse of all matters relating to firearms.
My own personal experience with a Browning X-Bolt, here in North America, where hunting seasons often see use in sub-freezing, wet and snowy conditions, has been one of flawless performance.
A real test of this theory would be for folks to take the Brownings to Antarctica to see of the phenomenon exists in the magnetic proximity of the South Pole.
