I have a Remington 700 Youth Model in 243, which would be comparable to the Compact. Bought it 6 or 7 years ago at a Walmart Black Friday sale. Put an old Weaver 3X10 on it, and it shoots 85 grain Sierra HP's into an inch at 200 yards.
I priced my Howa 6.5CM to a neighbor, never thinking he'd buy it, but he did. I replaced it with a new Model 700 SPS in 6.5, bought about 3 weeks ago. I had to replace that awful Xmark Pro trigger, but otherwise did nothing else to it. Now, I haven't shot it a lot, but it is shooting my handloads into less than an inch at 100 yards, and busting watermelons and pumpkins at 300. Which is good enough to me for deer killing accuracy, although I'm still not trough playing with it.
I've never had a 700 or 7 that didn't shoot good. I don't shoot factory ammo, I reload for every rifle I own, except some AR's, so maybe that has something to do with it. Whatever is the case, no complaints from me.
I have an OLDER Howa 1500 in a 22-250 I picked up for nearly nothing. I thought the action would make a good doner for a build since I didnt have a lot in it. After it sit in the safe for well over a year collecting dust, I finally decided to mount a scope to see what it would do. I picked up a cheap box of remington 55grn ammo, and off to the range I went. It shot so well I'm talking in the 4's and 5's that I couldn't stand the thoughts of tearing it apart. Now it's my light weight yote buster. Trigger is aweful though with a ton of creep, but thats nothing that cant be fixed.
