Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Remington 700 - who has had a Bolt handle break off ??

djb: It is all about Murphy's law. Rather address an issue before it pops up (or off).

For the record, no Rem 700 has ever given me a single problem.

Nice thing about a Kimber Montana, I have a very light rifle with a screwed on bolt and crf for all those big bad grizzlies that are set on killing everyone here in Montana

"9lb CRF"... I can build an all-up 7.5 lb M70 easily with no fluting. But Kimber MT is just easier...

Me neither unless you count parts lost in the mail

i'd be slow to play the 'miles traveled to hunt' card...

the idea that the farther you get from the game, the more important the rifle becomes may have merit somehow, but I'm not seeing it.

well, maybe psychological, but that's not universal.

a gun nut trying to justify features deemed necessary is a world apart from a hunter viewing the rifle as a tool. the most badass non-resident hunter I've met was carrying a Savage 110 in Tupperware.

never

Big time +1

An easier question might be - "who hasn't had one fall off?

That's what I was thinking too.

I've owned 3 700s and one 7. No bolt handle problems. Did get one of the infamous remington triggers though. BDL 300Mag that would fire by disengaging the safety. It went to the gunsmith then went down the road.

And we're off!!!!

No Remington handles out of over 100, 700's but I did have a Kimber SVT bolt fall off in my hand extracting a fired case.

Jim, if you'll stop hunting when it's -114*F your bolt won't fall off.

Me. But I've never had an issue with Firefox either.

Guess like anything else, QC can suffer when you pump out 5+ million rifles.

Well said, as usual.

In my own case I normally hunt about 5-6 hours from home. Call it a day-long round trip minimum, possibly more if the weather is bad. When a Ruger M77 in 7mm RM was my only bolt rifle (the first 20+ years) I never gave potential problems much thought. Early on Dad gave me a Browning B92 in .44 Mag and, although I took it along and hunted with it at least one day a year for many years, I never needed it as a back-up.

Last year my daughter went on her first-ever hunt and used my Ruger M77 in .257 Roberts to take her first big game animal. After the shot we discovered she couldn't open the bolt without a lot of work and bolt wiggling - the kind of problem that could get you killed in griz country if a follow-up shot was needed but was just an annoyance hunting antelope, especially when other rifles were available. (No, it wasn't a hot load, something with the extractor was sticking. Ruger says they "REPAIRED EXTRACTOR, POLISHED CHAMBER". I was never able to figure out exactly what the problem was.) I wouldn't have thought a Ruger extractor could cause such problems, now I know better. Guess I'll continue to take two rifles elk hunting, particularly since my buddies tend to leave for home days before I do.

I've had exactly two Remington M700's, a BDL .308 Win and a "Special Purpose Wood".30-06. The .308 got sold to fund my first AR. It was a looker with excellent wood and was exquisitely accurate but it didn't provide any practical benefit in the field. I still have the much plainer .30-06. Do I worry about the bolt handle breaking off? Not to the point of obsession, to be sure, but I recognize it is something that has happened to others under purely pedestrian conditions of use. In other words, if the Remington goes it won't be the only one. Same deal as my Rugers.

For those that say something along the lines of "It hasn't happened to me", don't kid yourself - it happens often enough that some people personally experience multiple occurrences. It seems to me that if taking a M700 as my only rifle on a trip far from home, a small investment in screws or welding could prevent what might be a "minor issue" closer to home becoming a major problem.

I wonder how far this guy travels to hunt...

The military provides all manner of absolute chit for our guys to use... lowest bid stuff. That the military uses something often proves/means exactly nothing, except that the Rem 700 is easy to chuck up on a lathe and re-work by anyone marginally qualified to use a lathe, and that a buzillion aftermarket parts are available for it. It's a toilet paper tube you can attach chit to. Perfect for a military armorer, a cheap means to an end.

I have nothing against 700's, just trying to keep a little reality in the conversation.

700's make excellent varmint rifles

When Dave Gentry was alive I asked him about the 700 bolt handle and he told me he re-welded a number each year...

what Dave said means less than zero to me. I have one of his rifles and that was/is the biggest POS in my safe. it is a Winchester M70 and i'll take any of my M700s anywhere long before I take that POS.

how many bolt handles have you broken off, Brad?

I've never had a 700 handle come off because I've only owned a dozen or so 700's and only hunted them lightly... just don't like them, except as a varminter.

Dave was a borderline genius when it came to sorting out a Mauser action... there aren't many guys that could take a chunk of steel and mill it into a finished action. All the work he did for me was top shelf.

Anything else, I can't comment on.

Agreed Rem 700s make good varminters, all of mine are 700s�.and oddly enough they get ten times ( minimum) the usage of any of my big game guns, and Ive still never had a bolt handle fall off�.as mentioned before, I have seen it, in the Remington Authorized repair shop, but only three times in 22 years and thousands of rifles. Im takin' my chances...