Before I say anything, I want to make it clear I'm an avid Rem 700 fan, nearly every rifle I own is a Remmy of various flavors, with the exception of a Howa 1500 22-250 that I took possesion of at a rediculous good price and judging by the way it shoots, an extremely good bargin. I also own a couple winny's, but all in all, Im a green through and through Remmy fan.
To my question/observation.
I have not purchased a new Remington 700 stock rifle in a couple of decades. I have however purchased a few Remington bare bones actions to build customs from. These custom rifles always served me well and shot to the standard I would expect from the quality of parts, and craftsmanship I acquired from my hard earned dollars. I just never in atleast 20 years purchased a complete rifle with the intent to shoot it.
A couple years ago, my wife after 30 years of marriage decides to catch the hunting bug. She wants her very own hunting rifle, so to start her off we make a trip to the local gun shop to pick her rifle. After sholdering a few different models, she decided the Remington 700 compact .243win with a 22 inch barrel felt the best to her. So we make the purchase, buy 4 different brands of ammo and set off to mount a leupold vx3 3x9x40 and zero that sucker in. The very best I could get was around 2 inch groups at 100 yds, and that was with federal fusion ammo. I should note that before we shot the rifle, I ran a patch soaked with some bore solvent followed with a few dry patches through the barrel, loosened the action screws and insured the recoil lug was seated firmly against the pocket and retightened the screws. Also made shore all scope rings and bases were torqued.
After trying several handloads, we finally got her to shoot 1.7 at 100, but Im not happy if I can't get her to do 1 MOA at 100 yards.
Second incident with a brand new Remington 700 came a few months ago when my nephew purchased the new sendero in a 25-06. It was much the same thing. We could not get that rifle to shoot any better than 1.5 at 100. We tried several different ammo, handloads which he doesnt want to do, he would rather shoot factory ammo, but I tried anyway because I was sure the rifle would/should be able to shoot tighter than that. But was unable to squeeze much more out of it. I suggested he send it to a competent smith and have it bedded, and new trigger added, and check the crown. He finally got his rifle back a couple weeks ago and is reporting the rifle will shoot in the 7's with the occasional .5 groups when he does everyrthing right. I believe he said he was shooting win Supreme silver tips.
I can remember my last factory rifle I paid for which was a Remington 700 stainless synthetic in a 7mm magnum not being anywhere near that difficult to get to shoot.
I guess my question is has Remington fell off that much in the quality of their barrels? I have to admit Im not at all a fan of their stocks, and offten felt they have slipped a bit in their quality control, but I guess my last two experiences with a factory offering by them has been a little dissapointing. Since then I have shot a TC in a 270 win, and a howa in a 6.5 creedmoor, and a savage axis in a .243 and all them shot well for factory sticks. Can not believe the Remington's I've shot recently have'nt shot to the same standard. I know my sample size is quiet small, but I figured I would throw it out there and see what your experiences were on the matter. If I were for whatever reason to decide to buy a factory back up to my custom, I would like knowing that after spending 800.00 dollars on a rifle, I wouldnt need to spend another 800.00 or so in barrel work to make it shoot 1 MOA.
