Remington 700 - looking for advice

I have a 243 from the same era. It won't shoot well either. Those actions are very smooth and well-worth saving, but the barrels are a crap shoot. They likely didn't cost Remington $10 apiece. You can try floating the barrel. That won't cost you anything, and it should help with horizontal stringing. If that does help, then glass bedding the recoil lug will keep things stable. If it does not perform, I'd look at a rebarrel. My 243 is destined to become a .308 when I get around to rebarreling it.

Fist confirm the scope and mount are tight. If you have another scope to try that's high quality, give it a try.

Then.

I would start by free floating the barrel. While you have it apart look at the recoil lug and see if contact is even across it. Also look at the mounting pillars and see if anything is beating it's self up. If it's was not set properly into the stock it will eventually damage the stock.

Along with other things mentioned you may just have to find the right combination of bullet and powder as well as oal. I have always been able to get a 700 from that era to shoot after sometimes a lot of trial and error. Find the oal seated to the land. Some like to be right on it some off by several 1000ths. There are just so many variables to getting a rifle to hold tight groups.

Sierra 85 gr hpbt #1530 with IMR 4895 or IMR 4064. The big case needs a faster powder.

Clean bore well, let it sit over night. Use .. Patch out with #9. Dry, test fire.

Should average 1 1/4" @ 100 yards or better. If not, dont waste your time, sell or rebarrel.

Bedding, floating, new trigger, cant fix a bad barrel.

9 lbs up pressure at end of forearm may help pencil thin barrels.

Indicates pressure point change. Make sure the receiver is tight, 2 screws on the bottom. I would not think he removed the scope to install the new trigger. But he may have had since you have to drift 2 pins out.

Were the top left your last groups shot? How long are you waiting between shots?

Pencil barrels heat up fast. Need to keep the barrel where you can keep you hand on it and not burn you. Here in the south I generally wait 5 min, and 10 min during the summer time. I use a cooling fan and temp probe to monitor/cool the barrel between shots.

Blue68f100 said:

Pencil barrels heat up fast.

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^^^ I have a 243 that puts the first three through the same hole, but starts to open up on the 4th round if I don't stop to let it cool.

Pencil barrels heat up fast.

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The 700 BDL has a standard sporter weight barrel. It should not get too hot from 5 shot groups shot in under a minute. The Mountain rifles I've had were often extremely accurate for 2-3 shots but would shoot #4 and #5 some distance from the 1st 3.

I've never heard of a standard weight or heavier barrel that shot worse after being free floated. Some thin barrels may shoot a little better with some pressure on the barrel from the stock.

Scope is the same Leopold 3 x 9 that has been on the rifle the past 45 years.

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Scopes wear out. I'd not trust one over about 30 years old. And it's a 3-9X, not 3X9.

If I’m shooting groups I shoot them together, but separate. 3-5 rounds on target should not take 2 minutes. Fire, cycle bolt, reacquire grip, reacquire target, steady, squeeze, repeat. Let it cool between groups, not between shots.

I don’t bother to chrono until I have the accuracy load figured out, then speed helps determine drops for your chart. Just the way I do it because I’m not married to my chronograph and the extra hassle of toting it along/setting up/recording.

I would definitely start with stock and action screws. Is it free-floated? Did you put the stock back on after trigger change with a torque wrench?

How are you bagged or rested?

And then move up to scope. Mounts, and even the optic. If it's vintage, I would not trust it either.

It COULD be the barrel, but is more likely to me to be other bits of the system not letting the gun live up to it's potential.

Just stop your load development and bed the action, and relieve the pressure point that Remington put in the stock forend. Here is a check and easy reality check, see if you can slide a piece of paper between the barrel and stock channel. Bet you cannot move that paper very far. The barrel probably touches the stock channel in several points way before you arrive at the pressure point.

My Rem 700 feather weight, it was obvious that the action was sliding around in the stock, based on the left to right dispersion.



First thing I did was to "pillar" bed the action, using Bisonite to cast pillars.



It was a bit of a trick to drill a hole that left some support for the front trigger guard screw ferrule.



I then found the location of the front pillar and removed it from the barrel channel. I used numbers on the tape as a reference where to relieve wood. Opening that barrel channel took time, I installed the action, tightened the screws, passed a sheet of paper down till it stopped. I uncorked the action and removed a little bit of wood at the spot, then did the paper thing all over again.




I left the rear pillar alone, but routed an amazing amount of material around the front pillar




the rifle then shot round groups



all the way out to 300 yards.

three shot groups are now promoted as the Golden Standard of accuracy and consistency by in print gun writers



as the group gets larger the more shots are put into the target. And the in print guys really don't want to shoot a lot of expensive ammunition when readers accept three shots groups as a measure of accuracy.



this is very good for a featherweight at 300 yards, and I am going to claim that since it was a windy day, that left to right dispersion would have been less on a calm day.



So, bed the action and free float the barrel. There is no magic bullet, produced on no magic reloading press, that will compensate for bad bedding and a barrel contacting the fore end channel.

Howa 9700 said:

On the free float......as noted in the first post, dollar bill would not make it past black forearm insert before coming to a dead stop. Notice other places where stock contacts barrel on one side, but not the other.

As of this afternoon, dropped gun off with a local smith to be pillar bedded, then free floated. Will try test loads again when I get it back and report findings.

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Joe D purchased a M1917 receiver, a Pfeifer barrel, a Fajen stock, and had a local gunsmith barrel the action and mill off the rear sight ears, drill and tap the receiver for scope sights.










as was the practice from 1900 to at least the 1950's, Joe carefully bedded the barrel to the fore end, so there was complete contact between fore end and barrel. Joe thought the rifle was a tack driver. He must have been shooting those gunwriter three shot groups, and tossing out the flyers!







I bedded the action and free floated the barrel. It shot round groups.



eight inch group at 300 yards is OK for a hunting rifle.

I would free float to start. With a non-floated rifle I can easily pull the POI around by a minute or more just with reasonable forearm pressure.

My first center fire rifle was a 700 from 1978 which I still have. The rifle was not really very accurate until I had it bedded. The difference was like night and day.

I’ve owned a few rifles from that period both Remington and Winchester. None of them shot great till they were free floated.

Howa 9700 said:

pillar bedded, then free floated.

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Removing the pressure point should make bullets hit a lot lower on target.

While rifle is being tuned up, do a benchrest prep of the brass. Sorting by weight to 3/10 grs can get rid of fliers. If there is 3 grs or more different between lightest & heaviest brass, it needs sorted. (Must be same lot)

The Redding type S FL bushing die will keep from over working the necks. Neck turning is a plus.

Even if you have a Remington 40X target rifle, it still needs great ammo. As does a Rem 600 Mohawk. Both in 243 win.
Berger Match Bullets in 68gr FB & 90 gr hpbt produces the best groups.

Howa 9700 said:

On the free float......as noted in the first post, dollar bill would not make it past black forearm insert before coming to a dead stop. Notice other places where stock contacts barrel on one side, but not the other.

As of this afternoon, dropped gun off with a local smith to be pillar bedded, then free floated. Will try test loads again when I get it back and report findings.

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My '79 R700 is a .243 Varmint Special model that is epoxy bedded and free floated. Dollar bill slides freely to the recoil lug. It is a tack driver. It likes a 75gr HPBT in front of a heap of IMR4831.

I bought a used Whitworth 7mm with a Mauser Mark 10 action. Very lightly used-like it appeared to have never been shot. I just couldn't get the darn thing to shoot well. I then discovered that the factory ammo I was shooting was loaded very close to the lands-actually .0010 to .0020. That was why my shots were all over. If they were loaded to the same OAL. They hit together. I tried again with my own ammo loadings. I still wasn't happy. I had the barrel floated and the action bedded. Still not happy. I tried every bullet/powder/OAL I had in the closet. No real joy, but it was better. I finally went with neck tension using Redding competition dies simply because there was nothing left to do. Bingo! I now have a rifle I'm proud to shoot-sub MOA-and I test at 200 yds. I almost sold it, but I could not do that to another. Some say I'm stubborn, but I'm not.

One of my thoughts is the trigger, you installed, I had a Smith install mine, the issue I had was that the trigger cartridge and shoe are wider than the factory trigger and it was contacting the inside in the reciever area and in the bottom metal that the shoe comes through. Make sure it's not hitting in either of those places. If it is Inlet, filet some wood or what ever stock material is and file out trigger guard. Contact here is a serious detriment to good accuracy.

So a rifle that shot factory ammo just fine throughout it's life is now inaccurate with reloads and everyone is missing the obvious and pointing you to the stock?

First thing is get some factory ammo and see if it still shoots funny. If it does, then go to the stock.

My post was directly applied to installation of a timney trigger that caused issues in my rifle, perfectly logical place to check.