Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles WORST modern bolt gun hunting rifles?

The correct cost-benefit analysis is a few cents per rifle versus many cents per rifle. Assume 5 million M700s manufactured and 5 cents to fix the problem. That comes to $250,000 over the life of the product so far. Add $50,000 for every additional 1 million rifles produced.

Now consider the payouts for the lawsuits, the cost of lawyers, the increased cost of liability insurance and lost sales due to bad publicity. That cost will easily be in the multiple million$ and I suspect is in the ten$ of million$.

When Walker warned of the problem and provided a solution, Remington should have listened.

A note re my last post....

That post was not written to bash Remington. That said, a careful review has led me to believe that Remington acted with wanton disregard for their customer's safety. They are not the only company that has done this and won't be the last.

A few years back Sako had a problem with stainless barrels blowing up. Did they issue a recall? Not that I noticed. Instead they tried to track down the rifles that could be affected, knowing that they could not track them all. Eh, whats a few untraceable rifles with potentially bad barrels? Maybe nobody will get unlucky...

Amen, I thought I was the only one..............and I agree with your points about never !!!!!!!!

If I may interject a question please, how would you know if a Walker trigger is in your 25 yr. old M700 30-06 ?

Should I take it to a good gunsmith ?

Sales are about a lot more than just branding. The folks able to afford the custom makers you listed likely grew up in the Jack O era and so developed their obsession with the pre-64 70... but Winchester was so proud of the design even they dropped it for quite a while.

Confusing good bean-counting with ignoring safety issues and using anti-gun-media-derived lies like Walker's "memo" is playing into the anti-gunners hand.

Locking bolt safeties are available, easily, and cheaply for the 700. Lawyers forced that move after a woman killed her son while unloading her rifle while pointing it at her son (yes, through a stock trailer) and no one (not even Jack Belk) could make it repeat the action. At the same time EVERYONE could make it repeat the action simply by placing their finger on the trigger. It was all about balancing financial risk with cost.

Okay, so you watched and believed the very biased 60 Minutes show which has been proven repeatedly to have lied...

Those that don't carry their own rifles and pay to hunt, generally don't use 700's. Those are also the last ones to get advice about anything hunting related from.

Carry on

Possibly the worst modern rifle (dollar for dollar) I've had any experience with is probably the Golden Eagle (affectionately known as the Gilded Turkey by those familiar with it) this was the epitome of a polished turd.
The Cooey Model 71 was a Canadian-made winchester derivitive which took the post-64 Model 70 and cheapened it even further. It was cheap, homely, and poorly finished but was usually surprisingly accurate.
The Midland 2100 was a Parker Hale effort which used a crude Mauser-like receiver which was fitted with a Springfield bolt. Crude, clunky, and unattractive, it should never have been made. GD

Because you ask - if you are concerned, yes.

Never saw the CBS show about Remington (at least not that I can recall) but did do quite a bit of research on the subject some years back.

I bought a M70 Winchester ten years ago and that sumbitch wouldn't hit due east....until I worked it over!!

Most of the gun manufacturers know that the average Joe doesn't know schitt about firearms or what's good accuracy so they can get away with building schitt for firearms!!

Thank you Coyote Hunter, wasn't sure if it only effected newer rifles...I'll take it over to be checked, and change to a quality after market if needed,,,love my Remingtons.

They certainly aren’t the type I would generally seek advice from, but they are not necessarily the last, either.

Not sure what to make of your post, but it shows as a reply to me.

If you are suggesting I don’t carry my own rifle, you are mistaken. Been carrying my own all my life. Well, except for one antelope hunt in Wyoming where I took two of my nephews. Loaned each a rifle, didn’t take one for myself. After the second got his antelope down, I “borrowed” my own rifle and carried it until I got my own antelope - so even then I carried it while I was actually hunting.

Also, if you are suggesting I pay the big bucks to hunt, you are again mistaken. We hunt Wyoming antelope on both public and private land. When on private land we give the landowners $50 per antelope down plus the landowner coupons, which I think are worth $16 each. None of the several ranches we hunt want have asked for money – the $50 is just a goodwill offering on our part. Earlier this week I sent a thank you letter to one of the ranchers with a photo of Daughter #3 and her first big game animal, a doe antelope taken last year on his ranch. We hope to be back on his ranch again in October, along with a couple of other ranches.

Since I got started hunting Colorado big game in 1982, missing only one year since, I have paid to hunt private land in Colorado exactly three times. The first time was in 2009 or 2010 when my hip was so bad I could hardly walk around the truck. I paid $500 for the opportunity (and was happy to have it) but ended up passing on the shots offered. Another was a year or two later when my hip was still bothering me and I paid $300. The last was for the opportunity to hunt a rancher’s hay field. He didn’t want any money but I took a decent-sized buck and left a goodwill check for $100 in his screen door when I left. All of my other hunts have been on publicly accessible land. (This includes Colorado’s Ranching For Wildlife ranches, which are equally available to all Colorado residents and for which licenses cost the same as regular public land licenses - about $49 these days).

This is just a me thing, but I have never owned a M77 Ruger that shot worth a sheit. I may try at some point in the future, but it has surely never happened yet.

Just sayin'. donsm70

Remington has a recall on some of their newer triggers but the Walker was the old design they used for decades. A rifle you cant trust isn't a rifle I would want to carry, hence my response. I trust my M700 but I also treat it like I do my other firearms - never point it at something you're not willing to destroy.

What EXACTLY do you think is wrong with the Walker trigger? You have not said anything specific and of substance and I am wondering whose line of reasoning you are swallowing.

For a time Ruger bores were three thousandths oversize to reduce the possibility of serious pressure problems... that did not make them shoot better...

One of the most accurate rifles I have ever dealt with is a tanger 77V in 243 I bought in 1977 and still own. It can do amazing things...

Load it, put the safety on and pull the trigger several times hard, then look down the muzzle while you release the safety... If you see a bright light it will be the first time...

Double entendre intended...

Remington has churned out a lot of turds.

That has been my experience as well.

All said and done though, I think a pretty good case has been made for the M700 as the worst built, the primary issue being the trigger issue.
I've owned 3, still have one. They all worked and shot fine, accuracy was OK . The 300RUM was a tackdriver, quite exceptional for my experience with 700's back in the 90's.
I've since had as good accuracy as that 300RUM, with Tikkas, Weatherbys, and Brownings, carte blanche.