Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters -- Remington 750 semi-auto rifle -- tell me about it ?

Gunwriters,

Can y'all tell me about Remington's 750 semi-auto rifle ?

I'm looking at it in the 2008 Remington catalog and did look at one in local gun shop.It was a carbine in 30-06.The carbine is the one most pleasing and most handy for me,in the 308 win.

Let me know,anyone out there.
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This is Remington's latest attempt to make a semi auto that doesn't erode the left bolt guide rail rendering it useless. At least, that's my guess.

I am not a gunwriter. that said, I did work for a gunsmith intermittently for nearly 15 years, and expereinced the heyday of the 742, and all of it's iterations up to but not including the 750.

In short, I would say do not buy it. When it wa the 742 in the 70's, it was plagued with numerous problems, most stemming from it just being in general a very weak design. I do not know about the 750, but it appears to have roughly the same extraction system and bolt guide rail as in earlier models. This aand the magazine releases' odd placement of the bolt release on the magazine itself are the three weak points of the design.

The mag weakness is easy to deal with, in that you fix it by buying a new magazine. The rest, not so much. You will have to get and keep the gun unscroupulously clean, or it will not function well. the bolt guide rails wear quickly, and anything more than facroty pressure puts alot of stress on an already weak extractor design.
I can recall that in it's last iteration prior to the 750, I remeber seeing more than 10 at any one time during SC's 5+ month long deer seson sitting, waiting for parts, mostly extractors. Note that the we got shipments weekely of the parts, so we are not talking about the same guns sitting around for very long - is that an indication of the quality level of the gun?

For my money, were I leaning towards a semi-auto rifle in 308, I would look very hard at the $100-150 more needed to get a Browning BAR, even if used. Those guns systems as described above are quite robust for long-action cartrdges, and when in the short-action ctgs., they have a rep for a hi-level of accuracy.


My .02 cents, FWIW

I hasten to add that most of the broken extractors came from either handloads or small spost of rust in the chamber or working parts of the action, or just carbon buildup from not cleaning well, a symptom of bubba-hunters who really aren't gun-guys, but it is still indicative a weak system

I had a friend who had a Rem 742 in 30-06. He never had any problems, but it could sure shoot! 1 1/2" groups with some going 1". I offered to buy it, but he said it was a keeper!

I have (3) 35 Whelens, one of which is a 750 that I bought 2+ years ago. It now has over 1,00 rounds thru it, all handloads. I have not had feeding or extraction problems, period. Most of my loads, including lots of experiments, tend toward the upper end of performance, but not magnum or overload stuff. My 700 Clasic, from the late 80's is pretty close to a tack driver. The 750 offers good hunting accuracy, meaning 1-2.5 inch, 5 shot groups, all day long. It probably shoots a little better than I do.
It is a little picker about bullets than the 700's. My standard hunting load for this gun is a 250 Hornady over 4064. I have never recovered a bullet yet. I have never been disappointed with its performance on game.
Yes the trigger could use some work, but it is not bad.
Further, I cannot imagine why anyone hunting with a clip fed rifle would not keep at least a couple of spares around.
Finally, I just like the way it looks. Recoil is near gentle.
Currently breaking in a CDL, can't seem to help myself when it comes to rifles in this caliber. There's my 2 cents.

Ok, I'm a sometimes gunwriter. I'm also a former gunsmith, and I'll tell you this. Our gunsmithing shop finally made the decision that we would no longer accept work on a sporting semi-auto rifle. Military rifles were ok, but the sporting rifles were really a pain in the posterior and 9 out of 10 times lost money on the deal. When they're new, they're just fine, but as the years go by, little problems start creeping in. Eventually those little problems get big.

I recently broke my own rule of owning a sporting semi-auto, but I've always wanted to have a Remington 8 or 81. So I got one and guess what...it doesn't work. Shoots great as a single shot, but it doesn't work. And just like every other sporting semi-auto, it's a real bear to figure out why it's not working. I haven't figured it out yet, but I haven't had much time to devote to the problem.

I mention my experience with my model 81 because it is, in my opinion, the highest quality sporting semi-auto that has ever been made. When they work they really work well, but it's a complex design, so when they don't work, they're really difficult to diagnose.

For what you'd pay for a Remington 750, you could probably pick up a CZ550 and have a highly reliable and accurate rifle. I recently heard rumor that they slimmed down the stocks on the CZ's, which is a great idea.

Best of luck to you regardless of what you buy.

Get a 7600.

Had a 7400 (semi) in 35 Whelen for a few years. It worked great with handloads from 158-grainer pistol bullets up to 300-grain Barnes. Very strong action and accurate--though it never did like factory stuff very much. Shot a nice bl. bear with 200-gr Barnes-X at 2800 fps. Sold it because I needed $$$ at the time. Would have another in 35 Whelen. I never had a problem.

Had a 7400 (semi) in 35 Whelen for a few years. It worked great with handloads from 158-grainer pistol bullets up to 300-grain Barnes. Very strong action and accurate--though it never did like factory stuff very much. Shot a nice bl. bear with 200-gr Barnes-X at 2800 fps. Sold it because I needed $$$ at the time. Would have another in 35 Whelen. I never had a problem. And I do some writing and publishing of reloading and hunting manuals.

Get a bolt gun ... almost any bolt gun.

fish-dawg, I am gald that you are getting that performance, but think about this: The town that I live in has maybe 25,000 people county wide, and the two nearest counties to us have only 10-12,000 people total, so as you can imagine, the gunsmithing portion ofthe shop was not as busy as other places, and pretty much 2-3 guys during the height of the season can keep up, and that includes some counter-sale time as well. Now picture having 10-15 of ONE type of firearm in there! There wasn't normally 10-15 of anything in there, and that includes toilet paper! Combine tht with almost all having the exact same problem, and you can imagine how popular the gun WASN'T with us!

The 750 was a product-improvement of the model 742. in the late 70's/early 80's, I worked part-time for a chain store called Roses, and they sold a passel of 742's, and there were ALOT of really pissed odd customers that returned those rifles, so while I am glad that you get good consistent performance, I will wger that your expereince is less the norm than you may think.


It was better-said above, but a good bolt-gun or lever gun or almost anything else is better off thatn that particular rifle.

Just the facts.

iam..,

Remington had a very quiet recall on 742s. In my part of the world gun stores won't take them on trade and I doubt pawn shops will loan anything on them. Found this out when a friend got a like new 742 in a trade. The owner of the gun store we traded at for years wouldn't even consider taking it, told us about the recall, then showed us where the left bolt guide rail was already losing chunks of steel. We shot the gun, it still worked OK and was surprisingly accurate.

Haven't seen where any gun writters have jumped in singing the praises of Remington semis and doubt we will. Think the poster who said 742/750 owners weren't gun guys was probably right. Most are likely deer hunters who don't shoot 5 boxes of ammo thru one in a lifetime, in which case, the gun will last them as long as they need it.