Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Remington 700 3pos safety

I bet I can guess who. Lol.

OK then, it appears that this forum has a few fellers that can do it. Which one of you do I ship the parts to for the installation? Pathfinder, PM an address and I'll get it out to you!

Butch,

I have had several Gentry 3-position safeties installed on various rifles, both on 700s and Mauser 98s, which have worked perfectly on hunts from Alaska to Africa. All worked perfectly, but were installed by Dave--who pointed out they have to be slightly modified for the specific rifle AND trigger. (By the way, Dave also offered me a job in his shop after I put together a 98 Mauser .30-06 under his direction--during which I found out why such safeties have to be adapted to specific actions. And D'Arcy Echols has found it necessary to modify plenty of Model 70 Winchester safeties for trouble-free performance, on both pre- and post-64 factory actions. Which is partly why he started getting his own Model 70 "type" actions made a couple years ago.)

Personally, if I were going to have a Gentry 3-position safety installed I would send it to the Gentry shop, which since Dave passed away has been run by his son Dennis, who started working for Dave while Dennis was still in high school in the 1990s.

I can’t install one. Which apparently qualifies me for the guild. PM sent.

Is that for Remington's or others too.

I had one installed on a Sears Mod 50. The gunsmith who was working on it couldn't figure it out so Gentry did the job. Works as expected. I am now having Dennis Erhardt (Frontier Gunshop in Helena, MT) put one on another Mauser. I had asked him about other safeties but he said the Gentry is the best. His opinion maybe, but he has proven to be good at what he does.

I knew you would give a wise ass answer. Jim Kobe is going to handle it.

Am not surprised by Dennis Erhardt's opinion. He's been doing great work for a long time--as did his retired older brother Arnold, who worked in Capital Sports' gunsmithing department.

Out of stock or you don’t want one? I’ve eyeballed them a few times and wondered about them. Are they no good?

I've successfully installed two on my own rifles. Experimenting with one I found that if using the factory trigger the firing pin HAS to retract back far enough for the sear to rise up so that there is sufficient clearance between the sear and the floating connector on the trigger. If not the connector drags on the sear and if someone were to pull the trigger with the safety engaged the trigger may reset but the connector doesn't. Releasing the safety on a loaded round gives you an earth-shattering ka-boom.

Arnold was a top natch guy, flawless work and stood behind what he did. He put together several rifles for me. I really didn't realize Dennis was his bother, I will use him if the need arises. I under stand Arnold still stops by Capitol Sports. I stopped to see if he was there on my last trip through Helena, but missed him. I hope he is doing well. He is missed, I'd call once in awhile to BS and he always made time to share his knowledge.

Switch,

Yep, I still run into Arnold fairly frequently, often at Capital but also just around Helena.

One thing I really liked about Arnold's gunsmithing skills was his extensive knowledge of older German guns--partly because Eileen and I have a number of 'em. He knew exactly how to fix 'em, whether something relatively simple, or more complex, sometimes involving making a part. Often he'd even thank us for bringing ours in, just so he could examine them!

One other rifle I owned for a while that Arnold worked on was an old Marlin 1893 with an octagon barrel that started out as a .30-30, but the bore eventually went bad due to corrosive primers. It came into Capital on a trade, if I remember correctly, and Arnold decided to rebore it, something he'd never done before. But he got it done, turning it into a .38-55--and then put it up for sale in the store, whereupon I bought it. It shot very well--but while talking to Arnold about the Marlin he swore he was never going to rebore another barrel!

What about Melvin Forces 2 position, 3 function trigger? When pushed down you can open the bolt. Those are just modified timney 510s are they not? 100-120 bucks?!