Locking bolt safety rifles are not for children! You will like the non locking bolt safety if you like hunting with an open bolt. lost cartridge, and chamber full of crap!
THIS. I hunt with a locked and loaded rifle. Edited to add, guys, I don't want this turning into a pissing contest or a "I hate 700s" thread. Most of you guys know how I feel about them anyway, but some of the older 700s are real nice rifles and to me, the non-locking safety has always been a showstopper.
I'm in the other camp. I, too, hunt with a loaded chamber. I like 700s but the locking bolt is a show stopper for me with a 2 position safety. I dislike having to disengage the safety to clear the chamber. IMHO if you do it enough times, something bad will happen, necessarily and unavoidably. Wear, etc. I've pondered one of the Gentry 3-position safeties for a 700 but I haven't looked into it much.
Tom
If you do it enough times something bad will happen? I don't thing so! If you do it wrong something bad might happen! To unload a push bolt like the 700 it is not necessary to chamber a round. You simply pop the round out of the magazine and pick it out of the action. Just went and checked and you can do the same thing with my Mod 70 but I suspect dropping the floor place would be better! Years ago some guy made TV because he shot his foot off unloading his rifle. If I remember right it was a mod 77 Ruger and the fault was totally his. Fires he got into his vehicle before unloading. Then he was pointing the rifle at his foot and fully chambering a round and closing the bolt to unload it! He used that as his own cure for stupid. I hunt with locked and loaded rifles and if I have one that is three position safety I'm not really sure. What I am sure of is every rifle I own can be unloaded without closing the bolt on a live round.
As for the two position safety, I think problems with it resulted from people fooling with a trigger not having a clue what they were doing. I have never had a Mod 700 fire on me from taking off the safety. If I had the barrel would have been been pointed at the ground! Accident's do not happen, stupid does!
