Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Remington 700 - making sure I don’t buy a lemon

I’ve posted a few questions on the forum and asked some people about different rifles. One rifle I’m considering is the Remington 700 Mountain SS.

If I decided to go for a Remington rifle, I know I’ll probably end up with a decent one. It seems like the horrible QC of several years back has improved even if it’s not great. But I’m not an expert in firearms by any means. I own two bolt action rifles and shoot them and clean them, but I’m no gunsmith. So what could I do looking at a Remington in the store before purchasing (or in the inspection period after ordering online) to check for issues? What are things you would add to a checklist before buying a rifle with a spotty reputation for quality control?

Can’t give you specific advice on what to look for. Firing it is the test.
I own and have owned 20 plus Rem 700s, none have been a lemon, or close to it. On the other hand, I have owned half dozen Rugers, 77s and #1s. All of them are long gone.

What caliber are you looking for?

The gremlins that sometimes take up residence in the 700s are mostly hidden, so there is really not much you can do to fine them by "inspecting" the rifle before you buy. The most common are the problems with triggers, bolt handles and extractors, none of which usually go bad unless you are actually using the rifle.

Problems with rough and out of round chambers as well as problems inside the bore are rare, but again that is not something you can know about unless you are shooting or if you have a good bore scope. Scoping the bore first is not a bad idea, but most men don't have one.

I read about barrel problems with Remintons but in my shop, such problems have not been in a higher percentage with Remingtons then with some other guns, so I do not think you are more likely to get a bad Remington 700 barrel more so then any other rifle's barrel. Yes we see some, but I have seen a few on Savages, older Rugers, A few Weatherbys, one Mossberg, one Browning BLR, and even one band new SAKO. So I don't really buy into the craze that Remington is making "bad barrels" any more then any other factory made rifle. My best guess is that with the exception of a few European makers any rifle you buy has about the same odds of good barrels to bad ones.

I am sometimes said to be a "Remington basher" and I am not really. I am just stating what I have seen.

I am a gunsmith with about 1/2 century of experience, so I do see the "sick guns' like a doctor sees the sick people. People do bring the good ones to me for repair, but only the broken ones.
So I base my opinion on what rifles I have seen come to my shop the most with need for repair as opposes to those that come for customization and that type of thing.

Recoil pas installation, adjusting triggers, re-bluing, refinishing, shortening and lengthening and so on....those are not the things that I look at when I form an opinion about the design of a rifle.

Broken parts which happen in normal use is what I remember, and the 700 is at the top of the list as far as things that need to be FIXED, not adjusted.

But in fairness I need to point out that for every 700 I need to fix that are probably 10,000 I never see. The "gun doctor" need not cure the healthy but only the sick guns.

The reason I recommend other rifles before the 700s is the fact that I also fix them now and then, I have fixed more 700, 721` and 722s in the last 50 years that all other rifles from all other makers combined.

There can be factors that need to be addresses like the fact the many more 700s exist then Ruger 77s, or Savage 110s,so the odds stack against the Remington if the failures were all happening at the same percentage. (Remington has made what.....6,000,000 of them?) But if that were true the percentage of needed repairs would be the same for the other brands. They are not.
If there were (just to illustrate my thinking here) 1 in 100 'bad guns" made by all other makers and I got 1000 Remington, 500 Savages and 100 Rugers I would be fixing 10 Remington, 5 Savages and 1 Ruger.

But my records have proven that the average is NOT even close.

I have seen a few broken Savage, Marlin, Mossberg and Howa extractors but NEVER had a bolt handle come off a Savage, Howa, Ruger, Browning, Mauser, Mosin Nagant, Lee, Krag, or any other rifle ever. I have had to re-solder on a bunch of them on Remingtons.

Trigger problems with other guns are related to them being hard to adjust or in some cases not being up the the customers liking. But no others have had a problem with parts breaking. We don't even need to go into the fact that the M700 trighgers have had problems, some of them turning deadly.
Broken extractors? Yes, about 75% of all the extractors I have ever had to replace because of the original breaking were Remingtons. 25% being every other rifle from every other maker including old military and obsolete guns, lever actions singles shots, rim-fires and all.........combined.

If you like the M700 get one. In the largest majority of cases it will not need the services of any gunsmith.

But the odds of you needing one for the M700 are higher then with any other rifle you can buy.

I do not mean to offend anyone here, but men seem to fall into a "thing-warship" when it comes to their guns, and saying things against their rifle is something like saying things against your wife. No insult is intended, but these are the facts I have to report on from 50+ years of experience. Those that love their Remington have my blessing and my encouragements. I am only addressing this to those that are thinking about 'what rifle to buy".

Gentleman, that is what I call not only, a fair and balanced opinion but an educated one at that. To a great extent, I think a similar assessment of the many thousands of Rem 1100 shotguns could be said - with so many of them around, any issues would be more well known than other makes and models. I bet that if you could determine what percentage of bolt action rifle sales in the last 50 years or so were 700's, and what percentage autoloader shotguns were 1100's, it would be staggering.

I will say only based on one rifle, that the M700 Classic .30-06 that I bought for my son around 1980 had the worst wood and metal finish I have ever seen, with a bent firing pin, and metal chips inside the bolt body. I got it for a good sale price, and Remington fixed most of the problems. Today the action resides on one of my now middle aged son's custom rifles.

OTOH, a M700 Varminter .308 that bought around 1978 was probably the most accurate rifle I have ever owned, certainly out of the box. Nothing wrong with the finish either. Of course I sold it.

Paul

I've owned several Mtn SS (and Ti) rifles over the years and all have been very nice and accurate. But you won't know until you shoot it.

Thanks everyone for some really helpful replies.


Not sure yet. 308 or 30-06 probably.

sent you a pm

Just think how much money you've collected over the years from those loyal 700 users. I noticed you didnt use the model 70 pushfeed or tikka in your comparison. Probably would have really offended the 700 guys. Im not a gunsmith, but ive owned 100's of rifles and the 700, 722 and 788 were the most troublesome. Like you said, extractors and triggers were horrible. That so called extractor was/is the worst designed pos ive ever seen. If you really use a rifle, you can bet money, that extractor is going to fail. Its a given. Ive had enough 700's fail, that i finally said, enough is enough and ill never buy another. They are just not worth the headache.

How many thousand rounds through a 700 constitutes real use? I have a couple with over 4000 rounds through each, and a few more with over 2000 through each. I'm waiting on that failure to extract.

To be fair I've seen a new 700 in 7 Rem mag that had extraction problems. I've also had my hands on a brand new Ruger Hawkeye, claw extractor and all, that wouldn't reliably extract unfired cartridges, so they certainly weren't stuck in there.

.308

You might wanna buy a LOTTO ticket soon... Seems yer a pretty lucky fellow...

Forester2: I currently own and shoot 46 (forty six) Remington 700 Rifles in MANY different calibers and models of the 700 (including one "Mountain Rifle").
I have probably owned 20+ others in my lifetime - to date I have had exactly NONE of the Remington 700's that could be described as a "lemon"!
So based on my 54 years of experience with them I would say your chances are LESS than 1 out of 66 that you will get a lemon!
By the way my Mountain Rifle is in caliber 7mm/08 Remington.
Cool Rifle this one.
Best of luck to you and again I feel your chances of getting a "lemon" Remington 700 - based on over half a century of my first hand experiences and observations of others are VERY low.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy
P.S.: By the way welcome to the CampFire

I had a new 700 chambered in 375 H&H with the chamber cut incorrectly. First shot out of that rifle with factory Hornady ammunition the bolt lift was a little rough and you couldn’t budge it to the rear. I had to beat that bolt open with a mallet and 2x4. Thinking it may be the ammunition I tried a factory Federal load next same outcome. There was nothing weak about the extractor in that 700.