Like a dummy, I sold my pet 700 BDL last year. It was close to 10 years old and I regret it daily. So, I gotta replace it. I want another 700BDL just because I like the 22" barrel on std cartridges better. I has replace the j-lock with a new shroud and had a smith tune and adjust the trigger. I am not against buying a used one but really want a new one. I have a couple of questions:

1. How is the x mark pro trigger? Being externally adjustable would save a trip to the smith if it will really go down to 3 pounds.

2. How is the quality? I know Remington is for sale I have read some of the QC has been spotty but I am looking for real world use from owners of late model rifles.

3. Do they still have the j-lock thing?

I know there are lots of other rifles out there but I love the way a 700 feels and they seem to fit me better than my Ruger. Looking for a little help...

I was in the same boat awhile back and ended up getting a new model 70 Winchester. I think Remingtons of late are not as good as the older ones and vise versa for Winchester IMO...

I looked at the Rem. 700 CDL SF but went with a Sako Tecomate.

The Remington that I looked at had defects in the flutes on the fluted barrel.

Bought a .223 SPS last year; shoots GREAT. The X-Mark is ok. Serviceable once adjusted. I say that as a trigger snob. No J-lock.

Bought a Sendero I guess 4 years ago and it also shoots well. However, the chamber had a burr that was a PITA until I figured it out. That was a little disturbing.

I'd look hard at their XCR line.... I have one from 6-7 years ago and love it. The new ones are black colored which is even better. Upgrade the stock someday if you want to make it even cooler (though the standard stock feels and shoots great on my rifle). Just a thought.

Others have a lot of good material.

Bullshit. This is the same bullshit I heard ten years ago and ten years before that and so on and so forth. And when Winchester came out with the new Featherweights in 1981, "people" were making the same bullshit statements then about Winchester making a good gun "finally" and Remington's quality had slipped and it wasn't what it was twenty and thirty years before, etc.

The bdl 700s they are putting out now are probably just as good as ones in years past, the reason I say probably is bc any of them could have a problem, but they more than likely wont, the sps and the adl that they are producing have crap for finish and have rough bolt movement, however the ones I have bought have shot fine. Buy the bdl you will be pleased

I have worked over a couple for guys lately that they bought this fall when we got home from out last deployment. So far they are all sub-minute guns with the right ammo after proper scope mounting, bedding, and trigger jobs. Both were SPS .308 Winchesters.

My only issue with some of Remington's models is what they cost these days.

The M700's of the last few years generally shoot as well as the best of the old ones--this seems to be especially true of the heavy barrels.

Fit and finish is noticably better--especially in the cheaper grades like the current SPS/ADL vs the matte/synthetic ADL from ten years ago.

The era from roughly 1998 thru 2009 are the ones that I have seen the most QC issues.

When Cerebus bought Remington in the late 90's, it took a while, but it seems to me access to cheaper money for financing helped Remington QC and development of products.

Cerebus just announced in the last couple weeks it is trying to sell Freedom Works (which owns Remington, Marlin, Bushmaster, etc).

Casey

More pointless, anecdotal BULLSHIT. I've heard this era was better than that era, but this other era was WAY better than ANY of those eras, blah, blah, blah, BULLSHIT. The quality and any perceived quality control "issues" -- which are primarily in the heads of Internet posters and gun shop wags -- has and have largely remained the same for all post-WWII Remington products.

Nobody -- and I mean NO-F*CKING-BODY -- has been able to provide any sort of statistical data, warranty return data or anything that would in any way prove that Remington quality has gone up or down in any given era or timeframe. It's always this anecdotal HORSESHIT of "I've seen," "I've heard," "In my opinion," or some other larded-up nonsense.

I doubt most of the opinion bloviators would know the difference in any Remington 700 based on how it shot even if the damned rifle bit them in the ass.

If you were on here 10 years ago when you bought your j-lock remington you would have read all about how those remington 700's were such a piece of crap you wouldn't have bought it.

I was around then, too, dummy. The J-lock and whatever bonehead created it didn't have a damned thing to do with the end quality of the rifle. If you'd had your head out of your ass ten years ago -- or even now -- you'd understand that.

I bought a couple M700s in the last 3 years. A 700SPS-DM SS in .308, and a 700ADL-SS in .270. Both have shot well, and are OK.

I bought a 700 ADL .300 WM back in May, and I am having feeding problems with it. I called up Remington, and they said it sounds like the internal magazine, so they sent me a new one, only made the problem worst. After taking the rifle apart, the casing will barely fit into the chamber with loading from the blind magazine. I finally found a gunsmith yesterday locally and talked to him about it. He suggests that polishing the magazine and action with a dremel and the polishing area, should slick it up quite a bit and help out. Going to give it a try and see what happens in the next coupld of weeks. My older BDL DM, slickest action I own and the most accurate rifle I own.

I've got tons of experience with the 700's and other than some easily fixable feeding issues on some, I've never had a bad one.

bought 2 in the last year and a half , SPS Tactical that is .5 moa gun with a Timney on it and BC stock , and a SPS 308 that I'm still trying different loads for to get it to shoot less than 1.5 MOA. X-Mark trigger can be funtional but good luck getting the epoxy crap off the allen heads to be able to adjust.

I bought a new 700 Varmiter in 243 this summer..It has a mat finish..Had my gunsmith set the trigger for 2.5 pounds, no j lock..It shoots great..Over the years most of my varmit style Rems. were in .222 or .22-250..I have no complaints about this new Remington..Most of my rifles have been rebarreled to suit me..But this factory barrel is a great shooter...

I have several Remingtons. Some dating back to the late 80s and some as new as this year. My opinions and observations are this:

1) The late 80s Remingtons had nice blued finish and nice wood/metal fit. Accuracy is around 1MOA out of the box.
2) An LTR I bought around '05 is an accurate setup (~ 1/2-3/4 MOA) but the camming on the bolt is way off. Never could get the trigger adjusted properly due to creep.
3) Newer Remingtons in the last couple of years seem to be machined better (i.e. primer strikes are centered, engravings on barrel look to be laser etched). However, I'm not a fan of the matte blued finishes. X-Mark triggers suffice after being adjusted but they are no Shilen.

Sixpack: I finally got to shoot one of the two newish Remington 700's I bought two weeks ago.
This Rifle is a Remington 700 SPSV-SS.
I bought it from a rich eccentric friend of mine who goes through Rifles like water.
He fired it just about 150 times and relayed to me that it was the best shooting 223 he had ever owned accuracy wise.
Why he wanted to sell it is known only to him!
Well I mounted a Weaver V-16 (variable 4 to 16 power) on it and headed to the range.
It was 12 degrees with a slight tail wind when I got it somewhat sighted in. Then I fired one 5 shot group there at 100 yards that measured .307"!
Yeah this 700 shoots.
The trigger is simply EXCELLENT on this Rifle (I assume my friend adjusted it?) with no "J" lock - I think they have been out of style for 8 or 10 years now.
I enjoy the fit and feel of Remington 700's (Varminters especially) myself and always recommend them to friends and new shooters.
My local co-op feed store/hardware store/gas station has a small firearms selection in the corner of their huge building - they have 3 Remington 700 SPS-V's in caliber 204 Remington priced at $459.00 with a $40.00 rebate in effect until 12/31/2,012.
That is a good buy on a good solid Varminter ($409.00 after rebate).
I could personally not care less if the surface finish of the 700's metal is not as "shiney" as a Weatherby MarkV!
In fact I prefer the matte finish to the high gloss finish of the Weatherby MarkV or the shiney Sako's.
The new Remington 700's (and I own a BUNCH of them) shoot rather well IME.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Bushrat: I think I have two Remington 700's with the "J" lock feature on them.
One I know for sure is a Remington 700 Classic in 223 Remington - it shoots well and looks nice and I have had no trouble with it.
The best group (5 shots at 100 yards) I have made with it to date measures .659".
And for some reason I fired a 3 shot 100 yard group with it a couple of years ago (something I very seldom do in the Varmint calibers - maybe I was low on ammo that day or rounding out a "row" of fired cases in my cartridge box?) that measured .251"!
Or maybe I was so impressed with the tiny three shot cluster with that sporter weight Rifle I decided to quit while I was ahead.
I am guessing I was just verifying sight in that day and stopped at three rounds fired.
Anyway I have been happy with this Rifle and its somewhat unsightly "J" lock feature.
Are you unhappy with the "J" lock era Remington 700's for the unsightliness, unusefullness of the "J" lock or do you have other complaints from that era.
By the way I only have a 4x12 Leupold variable scope on this Remington 700 Classic (for your information in evaluating my accuracy attainment with this Rifle).
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Thanks for the info guys! I am going to look at a new BDL soon and make a decision.

Varmint guy: I just think the j lock looks like crap on the gun anywhere and as easy as it was to replace the bolt shroud I just got rid of the thing. No problems at all with 700s of any kind. Still have a youth adl in 243; thinking about a rebarrel on it.

Sixpack: Yes I was somewhat annoyed and perplexed by the "J" lock device when I first saw it and its hard to ignore - but I learned to almost completely do so.
Good to hear you have not had any problems with your 700's.
The 700's are a basic, simple, clever, strong, handsome and reliable design - OFTEN copied by all manner of custom gun/action makers!
Like I posted in a similar thread to yours I do not have any type of metal tester or metallurgic training but I do have a bore inspection tool and several trigger gauges and my close firend has a Hawkeye Bore Inspection optical tool and I am happy with current production Model 700's although some of their models are now way over-priced (IMO)!
Seems that the Remington bean counters have decided hmmm... folks are paying over $1,300.00 for Remington 700 "clone" Rifles why don't we expand our prices as well???
I paid $800.00 (IIRC) a few years ago (April of 2,007 now that I checked my loading log) for a Remington 700 VSF in 17 Remington Fireball - that is the most I have ever paid for a non-40X Remington Rifle.
I love that Rifle and am happy with it in every regard except for that initial price that I had to pay, to get a 17 Remington Fireball Varminter back then.
I probably will not pay anything more than that in the foreseeable future for a Remington Rifle!
I am quite content with the moderate and lower priced bolt action Remington Rifles.
You touch on another subject where I have now decided not to partake of anymore and that is, re-barreling Rifles.
I have decided it is to expensive and I now would rather content myself with trading off guns I am not 100% happy with and simply buying one that I am interested in.
Don't let me talk you out of your re-barrel job though as you are quite likely to obtain better accuracy and ease of cleaning etc once you do so.
In fact I wish you best of luck if you decide to re-barrel that 243.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

The j-loc has been gone for years. New Remingtons shoot great. They aren't that expensive.

You be dummy, wasn't replying to you Bricktop, just clicked on the reply at the bottom of your post, happened to be the last post at the time,sure you'll get over it, hope you aint tramatized. I was making a sarcastic remark about the posters on here 10 years ago saying the j-lock remingtons of that era were crap. Aside form the j-lock they were fine. I own a few of those, own a few new ones, and own some real old 700's, nothing wrong with any of them, cept perhaps the newest generation x-mark poo trigger.

Then please accept my sincerest apologies.

How this Brick, no [bleep] stats or hearsay bullschit, just what I and a world-class gunsmith friend of mine have seen, not with our own two eyes, but with our dominant eye through a [bleep] 10X loupe. Remington just shipped him a 308 with a 5R barrel. Great crown!. They ship him SPS's with a hog wallow for a crown. Point of fact is obviously the azzwipes at Big Green KNOW how to produce a proper crown, but don't always bother. One rifle he just recieved has a chamber so [bleep] you have to pound the bolt handle open to extract the fired case.

Remington 700's are excellent actions, once a competent gunsmith has unphucked them and installed a decent barrel and stock.

Let me see if I can put it in a vernacular someone of your ilk can understand: How this, you no speaky no numbers, just mo' BULLSHIT. You savvy? No savvy?

Yours is just another of the same old horseshit stories that gets floated around by the same old dumb, f*cking, imbecilic [bleep] as always. There is nothing to indicate post-WWII Remington products have gotten better or worse or have certain "eras" of any specific quality to avoid or covet. I couldn't give a good God-damn how many of these little horseshit yarns you choose to spin or what sort of characters you choose to inject in order to give them any particular gravitas.

I know my dad bought a Model 760 in 1961 with an out-of-round chamber. What about that? Where in the hell was Remington's vaunted kick-ass quality then? I have an article from the Cast Bullet Journal from about 1996 of a late-'80s 700V in .308 with a screwed up throat. These examples are just more indication of the same alleged problems existing throughout Remington's production runs of ALL decades since WWII.

If you had a "blind shoot off" of various 700s selected from the various eras entire 700's production run, I doubt you or anyone else could pick out any anomalies or adverse patterns in accuracy. I'd bet good money on that.

You are too [bleep]' ignorant to
1) Identify what a proper crown looks like
2) Understand and relate its importance.

And you don't own a loupe, or have a clue how to use it. But you know good "stats" when yo'ignant azz sees 'em! Dumbazz.

Go [bleep] YO' SELF!

I've been a satisfied 700 owner since 1974. I think the new rifles are as good as ever. But the new Winchesters are a BETTER rifle. The Ruger Hawkeye is a better rifle as are several others. Remington is still stuck in the 1970's while every one else has advanced.

You're too f*cking dumb to understand two random rifles doesn't represent an accurate sampling, dumbf*ck.

I bought a pair of 700 CDL's in .243. Win, left-handed. (2009) Neither one shot worth a schitt. Factory or hand loads. 1.75"-2.5" groups. Fit and function were perfect. That being said, every other 700 I've ever had shot great. Just picked up a '06 and 7RM in BDL's for my son... Both are late 60's I'm guessing, pretty nice. I love'em. But like anything else, rarely are things perfect everytime.

I wouldn't say the new SC or soon to be Portugese asssembled winchesters are 'better'. have had 3 new winchesters one 243 was ok, a 7-08 chambered off center to the bore, didn't have to make a chamber cast to tell, it was plain as day just looking with a hawkeye borescope, wouldnt shoot worth a hoot either. a 270 win that the front face of one bolt lug was hitting the cone breech of the barrel, had to file that down so you could close the bolt without using a snipe on it, didn't shoot so good either.

I was just assigned a brand new 700 tactical and got to see 6 others in action. The finish is rough, but I think it's supposed to be that way. I'm perfectly happy with the new trigger and when I finally sat down with it at the bench (don't get to use it when qualifying so I didn't really see what it was capable of til later) it shot half inch groups with a random handload( 150 sierra pro hunter)after I had shot 100ish rounds through it without cleaning.

I have always been a Remington guy, but I have got too many bad Remington's to remain one. My main complaint is the barrels, they have been hit and miss. My latest is a XCR and i checked the bore with a bore scope and it looked good. The bore is fine, but the galling on the locking lugs doesn't inspire my confidence in the brand.
For me, that makes three in a row that had quality issues, I am done with them.
Aaron

And then you rode away on your sparkly unicorn and lived happily ever after. What a load of bullshit.

I own 2 of 'em.

The one thing I hear/read all the time is that they're accurate...once you spend some more money on them to tune 'em up. I can attest to this.

My Sendero 300 WM, one of the first out, with probably less than 200 rounds through it had to have the headspace redone.

Recent 6 gun shoot out published by Shooting Times, the 700 BDL came last. Notably: the average trigger pull between the 3 sample rifles was 4 lbs 9 oz, with a variation of 16 oz...!

Frankly, if Remington is going to kick 'em out the door performing like that...new fangled trigger and all...I'm even less interested in another one of them.

Just sayin'...

I have a few "new" ones too. The new trigger sucks, but other than that I have no complaints. The 700 has out performed my expectations. I've always been a CRF fan, but I'm really liking my 700's now too.

Nice, accurate platform. Maybe the best...???? I still wouldn't bet against one from the bench.

I like my wifes 700 sps in the 308 tack driver with 150gr ttsx and rl15... Don't know about all this bore scopes and crowns and [bleep]... My bud worked on the trigger again great rifle! I had J llock in a 375 ultra mag great shooter... I also had a 74 production 700 bdl in a 7 mag that thing was a tack driver with 175gr factory ammo. I gave it to a friend who needed a good elk gun.

Shutup Brickhead--all the swearing tells me you don't really know much--just cover it up with lots of mouth.


Casey

If this same question was posed as "How are the new Winchester 70s?" or "How are the new Sako 85s?" or "How are the new Ruger 77s?" I would be willing to lay odds that the very same peckerwoods would be coming out of the shadows, posting the same old stupid, f*cking BULLSHIT about "they're not as good as they were ten years ago, blah, blah, blah, my mangina hurts," "my circle jerk friends all bought one and they had bad barrels, blah, blah, blah, my bunghole hurts," "I looked at one in a gun shop once and got all excited when the guy bent over in front of me, so I don't like them now."

Typical f*cking ignorant-ass BULLSHIT. And like all f*cking whiners, you f*cking bitches get all bent out of shape when someone calls your bluff.

I haven't seen a God-damned thing posted yet that would indicate that the Model 700s produced today are any better or worse than the ones produced ten years ago, twenty years ago, thirty years ago, and so on and so forth. What I do see is a lot of dickheads with Internet access and time on their hands.

I like pre 92 Remington 700s. Seems like about the time they started the detachable box mag, embellished engraving, and gimmicks to make the rifles supposedly more desirable, they went down in quality.

Nothing definite but just my assessment of the 700's.

g

I didn't view that as a decline in quality as much as -- you pointed out -- a gimmick. The Model 700 is a pretty good rifle, but it hasn't changed a hell of a lot in 50 years either. When it was introduced, the Winchester 70 was in decline, Ruger made handguns nearly exclusively, and these other brands (like FN) didn't matter much. Now Remington is trying to compete with a revitalized Model 70, affordable Model 70 derivatives (like MRC and Kimber), a wide range of Ruger products, and a whole host of other quality competitors.

I've owned a model 7 in 7mm08 (18.5" barrel) since they 1st came out and have shot over 200 Red deer Chamois and Himalayin Thar in all conditions. It has always shot very close to but always under 1MOA and has been nothing but consistant.
I was looking at another Rem but I found the new Model 70 to be a nicer finish. Purcheased it in 7mm08 (.7s with hand loads) converted it to 284 Win and still consistant .7s.
I certainly have nothing against a good Remington.

Shaddup Ghettomouth! Popping out of the weeds with your foul mouth doesn't make you credible.

I own/owned multiple examples of M700's from every decade since they were introduced. Odds are good that I have tweaked, tuned, disassembled, assembled, hunted with, and shot more M700's than you.

Geez--I am tired of your keyboard toughguy routine.

Now take your ghetto mouth somewhere else and ignore me.


Casey

I knew it. I can pick out someone who's all hat and no cattle pretty damned easily. If they're ever taken to task or called out for something, they engage a "fight-or-flight" response. As evidenced by you and a few others in this thread.

The only ones I trust are the senderos and the Varminters. At least I never had a problem with them. I will not buy the sporters.