Remington quality

[Ole_270]

My son bought a couple 700 ADL rifles in the Walmart clearance sale, gave 199 apiece for a 223 and a 243. I glass bedded them and changed out the scope for something decent, New bases and mounts coming. Both shot decent with loads worked up for other rifles, haven't gotten serious with them yet. This morning I ran the Teslong borescope down the barrels to see how much copper was left after a quick cleaning. The 223 looked pretty good, the 243 was clean, but found a gouged ring about 3/4" ahead of the chamber that ran the whole circumference of the barrel. No way this should of made it out of the door.

Mostly I had shot 85 Sierra hp GK slowed down to 2500 fps for my younger grandson to use. It shot 1-1 1/4" groups which I didn't worry about too much considering the reduced load. Now I'm wondering how well this one will do with normal loads and how long it will last.

 

[Rick]

Not just Remington, here is what Winchester put out the door on my 30-30. That is the very first thing the bullet saw leaving the case.

 

[Ian]

There are many good reasons that the only Remington firearm to be found at my house is an 870 Wingmaster.

I think someone reamed that chamber with the roller pilot missing and just the screw installed in the end. They're bankrupt anyway so I'm sure there's been a very low GS factor on the shop floor for a while.

 

[Ole_270]

That 30-30 could be throated by a decent smith, not sure what could be done to the 243 but Make a tomato stake out of it

 

[Ole_270]

Ian might be right on the chamber reamer. Some of the lands extend to the chamber end shoulder, some stop at the top of the leade

 

[Rick]

Yepper and indeed it was. Just so happened that my smith had a 30-30 throating reamer and it turned out great. Made a shooter out of it too.

 

[CZ93X62]

Yepper and indeed it was. Just so happened that my smith had a 30-30 throating reamer and it turned out great. Made a shooter out of it too.

Most 30/30 throats--even good ones--could benefit from a throating reamer to remove the city street-form leade angle.

 

[CZ93X62]

That 30-30 could be throated by a decent smith, not sure what could be done to the 243 but Make a tomato stake out of it

Oh, ye of little faith. Send that critter to JES and have them turn it into a 6.5 GreedMore, 308 Winchester, or 358 Winchester.

 

[Ole_270]

Wish JES did the smaller bores, think 338 or so is his small end

 

[Ian]

It's a 700, the most re-barreled receiver on the planet.......for a reason. It's probably not straight, either.

 

[CZ93X62]

Wish JES did the smaller bores, think 338 or so is his small end

Ah ha. 358 Win, then. Or 338 Federal.

I would love to snag another 243 bolter, but the QC problems at a lot of makers scare me a bit. Leaning toward the Bergara at present.

 

[Ian]

Bergara or Tikka.

 

[fiver]

Bergara makes their foldin money selling replacement barrels for the model 700.
I bypassed the middle man and went straight to their receiver, stock, and bottom metal too.

 

[todd]

you get what you pay for. i own three remmies, 2 are the rem m7 with 18.5" barrels in 7-08, bought them new sometime in '90s. i recently bought a rem m14(1926) in 30 rem. i had a remington in the m700 mountain rifle in the '06, m700 a and b and cdl in 243, 308 and '06. a rem m760 in 308 was also traded.

the newest rifles i own are the tc encore in the MGM barrels. green mountain and douglas barrels are the ones i want for the (2) 93 and 95 mausers. krieger barrels will be a 1898 springfield armory in 22 hornet and to be determined cartridge.

i like old rifles, i'm not into the newer rifles.

 

[RKJ]

I've got 3 of those Walmart 700 ADL's (Grandsons 243 Youth, .223 and .308, I've also got one in 6.5 but not bought from WM) and they are all good shooters. I've only used cast in the .223 and gave that up as it just wasn't worth it to me. I'm not a Remington fanboy but I like these rifles and feel I got some pretty good rifles (especially for the price),

 

[Petrol & Powder]

I've owned my share of Remington's over the years. The newest one I have is probably 25 years old.
Remington was capable of making fine guns but doesn't mean every gun with Remington stamped on it is a fine gun. Nor does it mean every Remington is a bad gun.

Observations about Remington rifles being re-barreled more than others (if that's even correct) could simply be a function of Remington's enormous production totals. If 5% of all rifles (and that means all makes) get re-barreled and one make of rifle represents a larger portion of those total rifles; that alone could account for greater numbers of those rifles being re-barreled.
Whenever you're talking numbers it is vital to remember that raw numbers and percentages are different metrics but raw numbers can affect percentages.

There are far too many variables to list here but over the last 20+ years, Remington has been effected by a multitude of factors.
There is no single factor that you can point to and definitively say; "There, that's where it changed".

Leading up to the 2008 Presidential election, every gun manufacturer in America was cranking out firearms as fast as they could. We saw that again in 2016 and we're seeing it now.
Mass Shootings and media coverage resulted in a shift of retail sales from large multi-product distributors to gun shops (this was a reversal of the trend of big box stores getting more involved in gun sales)
Gun manufacturers were involved in lawsuits for both safety and end use issues.
Labor costs, taxes, competition from imports and other factors affected profit margins.
The variables are nearly endless.

Remington is in trouble and the company may be restructured, it may die, it may limp along for a awhile. I don't know.
Has the quality of Remington rifles dropped? I don't think you can look at a single rifle and claim that is representative of the entire production quality. Is it likely Remington's quality has recently decreased? Yes, that's likely true.

Just so we don't forget, in the mid 1990's Remington was producing rifles that would shoot sub 1 M.O.A. groups, Out Of The Box ! So they can do it.

 

[Missionary]

I will write the older Remington Rifles can be great shooting sticks. Our early model 788 in caliber .243 is still our best shooting 6mm we have ever had.

 

[L Ross]

My modern Remington experience is limited to two .308's a SPS and a ADL Varmint? I stuck one in an old 40-x stock and the ADL went into a wooden police take off with some left over bottom metal from some other guy's left overs. Geez I really like both of these rifles. I'm only shooting cast and they shoot really well. They do not lead and I am totally satisfied.

 

[fiver]

you can't directly pin point when things went off kilter.
but I'd take a look at the time frame when they dropped the 1100 in favor of the 11-87, that's shortly before they started making the 870 express in favor of the wing master and right before they imported some Italian made [B.Rizzini] guns and putting their name on them.
and about the time they took over the Charles Daley [Mauser type] rifles, only stocking them themselves and charging another 150 bucks for them.
then dropping the line to remove the competition.
it wasn't too long before acquiring the Marlin lineup and killing off that companies reputation.
then bushmaster, AAC, Barnes, and now Sierra
[you priced those bullets recently? literally the simplest ones to make and they cost the most,,, how does that work?]
then there is the R&D for the 30 RAR, 7-30 SAUM's, the ultra mag's, and the 260 Rem. where are those rifles?
Remington 1911,,, anybody,,, how do you screw that up? even Taurus got it mostly right, and CZ ala Dan Wesson is damn near a custom handgun from the Factory.

I don't know if you can pin point the time but the later 90's would be an awful good place to start looking.

 

[RBHarter]

My Dad had an exceptional 700 BDL 25-06' that wouldn't shoot factory ammo up to par and a very good friend of his had one just a few digits away and otherwise identical that shot factory and carefully attended hand loads about half way between what Dad's did with factory and hand loads . It probably shot an inch give or take a jacket , Dad's was a nickle 5 shot group every day even when he pulled a shot .

My best life friend has a 700 BDL left hand 06' that until very recently shot an inch every day for 3-5-10 in factory . The ammo has changed and the 100 yd groups are as good as ever but they fall apart at 200 becoming car doors by 250 .

I had a Model 14 , 760 , 1100 and an 11/43 O3A3 . The 14 was great up to 3 shots at a time . The 760 was just hoohum and so tight chambered it was occasionally pissy about its own fired cases going back in the chamber . The 03 is a rifle that should have been put back in a correct stock and placed with a collector because I did everything you can do with them short of replacement of the Bubba stock and it wouldn't shoot anything that went super sonic .

The 1100 mag I just couldn't like I spent months trying , hunted it seasons worked some loads . In the end I swapped it so fast for a black phosphated M12 I think the urathane peeled a little on the stock .
The Pietta Remington 1858s have been good in most respects but that's not only a different bucket of fish but another trawler altogether .

The 1895G RM I shoot occasionally isn't bad and provides everything I expected from a lever action cannon , no horror stories there but no real praise for an exceptional example .