Finding
Those early sn 700's shared a lot of the same features as the 721's it replaced with some cost saving modifications though I'm not sure how they differed from the later 700's.
There were a few things that I can think of: First the trigger - similar at first to the 721/722/725 - the safety locked the bolt. Of course the 725's safety was different than the others.
The early 700's bolt didn't have a groove cut in it, similar to the 721/722/725.
The extractor varied. Don't know this for sure but I think the first year or two of the 700's they may have shared the same extractor and the 721/722 (really unsure about that!) But the extractors changed over the years.
When Dupont bought Remington they had Remington change the coating on the stocks. And of course there were many changed to the stocks of the years. When they did this Remington compressed wood in a machine to form it, cutting down on time to finish the stock.
The first couple of years of the 700 they made "carbines" as an option, which stopped I believe when the 600's came out.
The later years of course they came out first with [bleep] synthetic stocks. The stocks improved after that. The later years there was more automated work on the actions - less hand labor.
The first few years they had bolts that would make up for chambers cut too deep. They called these max header bolts. I've only owned one of those. They had them for 600's too as the one I owned was for a 600.
The sights changed over the years.
The finish on the bluing changed from pretty good to [bleep] unless you bought a C grade 700.
Then for some unknown reason to me, Remington sold certain chamberings in one grade but not the others and this changed over the years.
The first couple of years the magnum chambered 700 had SS barrels with an iron coating that was blued.
There's more that others can add, I am sure. But those are the items I can think of off hand.
