Remington model 700

[Bradley.sporkman]

I have tried finding information on if the model 700 is now copletely safe after its misfire issues but havent found much. So if i was going to go buy a brand new model 700, is it as safe as any other gun or do these guns still have problems?

[Scorch]

As long as people ignore the basic rules of firearm safety, we are not safe. I know this has changed over the years, but I remember
Rule 1- Keep firearms pointed in a safe direction at all times.
Rule 2- Treat every firearm as if it were loaded.

[T. O'Heir]

Given that Remington has plans to file for bankruptcy, I'd re-think an M700. However, the recall only applied to rifles(M700 and M7) that had the X-Mark Pro trigger. Not all M700's.
Rifles manufactured after April 9, 2014 are not subject to recall. Doesn't apply to BNIB rifles.

[Bradley.sporkman]

Ok thanks, ya everyone needs to be safe with firearms but i just dont want a gun that is still known to fire unexpectedly, i probably wont go with remington but its one of my choices in my price range

[cptjack]

m 70. and wont be disappointed

[RC20]

After their lameness on that issue after all these years, I would never buy a Remington.

My opinion of course but why reward poor business practice?

I shot one of their new guns with the wonder trigger they came up with (not mine) crappy trigger even if it is safe.

I don't know about others, Savage Varmint guns have a very nice trigger out of the box.

[hooligan1]

I have had 3 Rem 700's over the last 5 years, all had the Walker style trigger, which I tuned and made nice.
I still have one in 7mm rem mag that I will not trade or sale because of how great it shoots.
I have pillar bedded and Devcon bedded recoil lug and rear tang, and tuned trigger, did a load developement that consisted of borrowing another rifles load data I own. It has shown itself to be very consistant grouping rifle that I was going to send off and have trued and rebarreled, I now see no benefit to that for now.
The Xmark trigger was their answer to the safety problems but I dont care for that trigger as much as the Walker....

[jmr40]

Any Remington bolt gun except the 788 manufactured from 1946-2006 can discharge with no trigger pull. The trigger design is flawed. It doesn't matter how heavy or light the trigger is adjusted, nor whether it is clean or dirty. They would do it right off the assembly line.

Having a dirty or improperly adjusted trigger can lead to a failure with any gun, but that is a separate issue. Many don't understand that.

Some rifles with the new trigger manufactured between 2007 and 2014 had adhesive drip into the trigger assembly while being manufactured. The problem was really only with a handful of guns, but Remington recalled all of them to check for a problem. They inspected, cleaned if necessary and returned. The 2007-present trigger is a solid design. Just a manufacturing error on some.

Doesn't mean the older guns will do it on a regular basis, but any gun can do it, and if used long enough they will eventually do so. It is just a matter of internal trigger parts getting in the correct alignment. When that happens the firing pin can be released by any movement of the rifle. When this happens the guns safety is the only thing holding back the firing pin. When the safety is moved to the "fire" position the gun discharges with no trigger pull. A lot of people confuse this with a defective safety. Nothing wrong with the safety.

My 700 was manufactured in 1974, purchased new in 1975. The trigger has never been modified and it is as clean as a 45 year old gun can be. It dropped the firing pin 3-4 times with no trigger pull sometime in the 1990's. Only did it a few times on one day in over 20 years of use. Never had another problem until 2012 when it did the exact same thing. Problem went away as quickly as it appeared. After that I installed an aftermarket trigger and I'd advise anyone to do the same. Just because yours hasn't done it YET doesn't mean it isn't a flawed design.

After their lameness on that issue after all these years, I would never buy a Remington.

My opinion of course but why reward poor business practice?

Lotta truth there. The engineer who designed the gun sent memo to management in 1946 advising of what he called a "dangerous" design flaw. He even went as far as drawing up plans for a new trigger, but his plan was rejected because it would cost 5 cents more per rifle.

Remington has lied about the problem for 70 years and continues to do so.

[eastbank]

I,m sure some triggers were-are bad, but any AD,s for any reason were piled on as Remington has-had deep pockets for law suits. if a person screwed up and caused the rifle to fire ,trigger misadjusted, finger on trigger or other cause and injured-killed a person do you realy think they would admit it?, put the blame on the rifle and let the maker defend the law suit and pay the judgement. the lawyers don,t care who or what caused the AD , they are only after the money. the most AD,s I have seen in over 60 years of hunting had been with pre-83 lever actions rifles. I have owened over 50 Remington bolt action rifles and have never had a AD.

[RC20]

No such thing as an AD.

There are NDs and there are failures of the mechanism.

If the flaw was not there the law suits would have no traction.
If the flaw had been corrected, ditto.

[Paul B.]

If I wanted to buy a Remington and preferred one of the earlier guns because of quality control issues on the newer rifles, I'd just but the one I wanted and replace the trigger with a Timney and forget about it.
Other than that, I'd just be very aware of where the muzzle of the rifle was pointed. I do that will all my rifles anyway.
Paul B.

[tobnpr]

So if i was going to go buy a brand new model 700, is it as safe as any other gun or do these guns still have problems?

No reported issues with current production rifles of which I'm aware.

[Bradley.sporkman]

Thanks for the replies, i probably wont get a remington because of their reputation but they are one of the few gun brands in my price range so im glad i got good info on them

[Troy800]

I think current rifles are fine. If you have a question about a specific rifle you can go to there website and they have info on determining if the recall has been performed. I own several M700 with no issues. One of the first things i do to any of my rifles is put a new trigger in them.

As far as Remingtons reputation, i challenge you to find any rifle brand that has not had issues or recall with a rifle somewhere in its history.

[Sure Shot Mc Gee]

Remingtons Reputation? My Goodness their weaponry settled this country_armed our soldiers_ shot straight & true so to removed deviate criminals to improve our security. Little doubt Remington has harvested game for more than a few frontiersman to feed their family's through the many decades Remington has had its doors open..

For hunting that's I'll take into the woods is a reliable Remington repeater. Last two I bought I didn't wait to be told or ask others speculating whether or not there triggers are faulty. I simply called Timney down in Phoenix, AZ had em pre-set two of their Best 700 triggers to 2-1/2 lbs pull and had em sent to my door. I don't want to tinker with factory trigger internals. That's above my pay grade. I just want to shoot my yearly deer and take those rifles occasionally to a gun range and shoot out paper bullseyes the size of a quarter at 200 yards then go home smiling "That's my enjoyment."

Getting back to:
Installing those Timney triggers. The first install took a 1/2 hour and accomplished while seated in my recliner. A rat tail file. A Flat Blade screw-drive and a Torx Bit screw driver.
Second trigger took 20 minuets. Easy to install instructions came packaged with each trigger.

One thing is certain. My son was from day one a true blue nothing beats a Ruger Flat bolt 243 for harvesting game. I gave him that 77 Ruger new in the box as a Christmas/Birthday present one winter. "His very first center fire deer rifle."

Oh a dyed in the wool 243 flat bolt Ruger user he certainly was. Nothing compared to his Ruger model 77.~~ Until the day he shot my Remington walnut stocked 700 Mountain Rifle chambered for 25-06 with its Timney installed. Honestly these last few years I don't recall seeing his Ruger 243 in deer camp. Because he's asked to barrow my 1/4 bore 06 year after year.
The son takes a nice meaty deer every year. Sometimes two._ One for him the other for his dear old dad.

When I think back. What is the Reputation of all those off shore made firearms? Accuracy~ Reliably? Neither aspect betters anything {ever} assembled by our neighbors here in the USA.

[old roper]

I own few Rem and never had a problem. Long before problems with Rem triggers lot of owners adjusted the trigger. I did and it was easy and I didn't know many that didn't adjust their trigger. Be interesting ask how many gunsmith adjust them.

[Don Fischer]

Boy do people like to bash Remington, bad trigger's. I've been shooting 700's longer than I can remember and have never had one go off without me pulling the trigger. Every rifle is no safer that the person shooting it!

[Bradley.sporkman]

Just curious the triggers that were dangerous were called xmark i believe, anyone know what triggers come in them now? The only thing i think is bad about their reputation is apparently they knew their triggers were dangerous and they didnt do anything about it for a long time from what ive read

[FITASC]

My gun is from 1980 and is supposedly in that lot; have never had an issue in all those years.

[emcon5]

Originally Posted by jmr40

Lotta truth there. The engineer who designed the gun sent memo to management in 1946 advising of what he called a "dangerous" design flaw. He even went as far as drawing up plans for a new trigger, but his plan was rejected because it would cost 5 cents more per rifle.

You are confusing memos, or blatantly disregarding the actual contents (which I have pointed out to you several times) because it doesn't fit your agenda.

The 1946 memo (you can read it here) was regarding "A theoretical unsafe condition". The last line is the important bit:

Originally Posted by Mike Walker

this change will be incorporated in the drawing as soon as tool procurement is completed

In other words, he found a potential problem, and fixed it.

There was a 1948 memo (which you can read here) from Walker where he advocates adding a trigger block to the safety, and what that would involve, in the manufacturing process:

They also say that the cost would be 5 1/2 cents per gun, which is certainly minimal, but once again, unit cost and the cost of making the change are not the same thing. They do not mention tooling and setup costs, and depending on where they were in the design/manufacturing process, this could be a substantial setup cost.

I agree that a trigger block is a good thing to have on a safety, but that does not mean that a safety without a trigger block is unsafe. There are lots of rifles without a trigger block safety out there, for example the Mauser 98 and 1903 Springfield actions.

There was an actual recognized problem with early Remington 700 Triggers that Remington will fix (If I remember correctly), involving rifles that could be "tricked" into firing by putting the safety lever placed in between "safe" and "fire" positions (i.e, not actually on safe), the trigger is then pulled in this condition and the rifle goes off when the safety lever is moved to the "fire".

This isn't a huge problem on it's own, but compounded with the stupid pre 1982 700 trigger that locked the bolt closed when the safety is on it could become one. You had to take the safety off to unload the rifle. An estimated 1% of the rifles sold before 1982 could have this problem.

This was also fixed 30 years ago.

Read these threads:
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=516968

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=498729

We will just say jmr40 and I disagree on pretty much everything on this subject. Not going to bring it up here, it was covered extensively in those 2 threads, and probably a couple others.

I am not saying there isn't a problem, I am just saying that the evidence provided as "proof" is suspect at best, and downright misleading in some cases.

A properly adjusted post 1982 Walker trigger is an excellent trigger and perfectly safe, but that does not mean you are exempt form basic safe gun handling. Yes, some people died at the hands of idiots using a Walker trigger equipped Remington 700, but EVERY one of them would be alive today had the owners followed Rule #2.

Originally Posted by Jeff Cooper

RULE 1
ALL GUNS ARE ALWAYS LOADED
The only exception to this occurs when one has a weapon in his hands and he has personally unloaded it for checking. As soon as he puts it down, Rule 1 applies again.

RULE 2
NEVER LET THE MUZZLE COVER ANYTHING YOU ARE NOT PREPARED TO DESTROY
You may not wish to destroy it, but you must be clear in your mind that you are quite ready to if you let that muzzle cover the target. To allow a firearm to point at another human being is a deadly threat, and should always be treated as such.

RULE 3
KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THE TRIGGER TIL YOUR SIGHTS ARE ON THE TARGET
This we call the Golden Rule because its violation is responsible for about 80 percent of the firearms disasters we read about.

RULE 4
BE SURE OF YOUR TARGET
You never shoot at anything until you have positively identified it. You never fire at a shadow, or a sound, or a suspected presence. You shoot only when you know absolutely what you are shooting at and what is beyond it.

[Bradley.sporkman]

Thanks for the detailed info

[Mr. Hill]

OP, Remington makes a very accurate rifle. They are well made by American workers. Don’t try and adjust the trigger yourself, have an experienced gunsmith do it. Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire the rifle. Don’t believe 60 minutes and lawyer leeches about Remington; Remington has made millions of good rifles that don’t just fire themselves, walk around at night like vampires, or fly on broomsticks.

Maybe some of these folks need to learn gun safety and proper gun handling techniques. And how to properly maintain a firearm (or pony up and pay a smith to inspect and maintain it, which is what I’ve had to do). What a bunch of hogwash statements in this thread. If Remington rifles were as inherently dangerous as some allege, they would have been sued out of existence by the government and lawyer leeches long ago.

[RC20]

Boy do people like to bash Remington, bad trigger's. I've been shooting 700's longer than I can remember and have never had one go off without me pulling the trigger. Every rifle is no safer that the person shooting it!

They launched the space shuttle innumerable times with the tiles getting smacked by the foam falling off.

The Columbia was lost because the foam hit the tiles in such a manner as to damage them and on re-entry it disintegrated killing the crew.

A single sample is meaningless.

I know of a Remington that you can duplicate exactly the firing pin letting go at no provocation what so ever.

A lot like Tacata Airbags. As long as you have one that does not blow up, its great.

You have one that blows up and kills you, not so much.

At the very least the trigger should be put through the paces to see if its one of the blow up in your face.

You have every right to believe that if the safety is on, the rifle can't fire.

Not that does not mean you don't follow your process in gun safety.

It does mean if you are human and make a mistake, you have every right to expect the safety to do its job.

No rifle should fire off safety or not by itself unless the trigger is pulled.

[emcon5]

I know of a Remington that you can duplicate exactly the firing pin letting go at no provocation what so ever.

What did Remington say when it was returned to them?

5 minutes with a small screwdriver, I can get my Remingtons to do the same thing.

[RC20]

The owner elected not to screw around with shipping to Remington.

The owner never touched the trigger. He did not know it until the slight bump test was done.

He got the trigger replaced locally.

I would not recommend sending it to Remington as too many nightmare stories.

Just because Remington was once a fine firearms firm does not mean it is now.

Buy a Savage with a very good trigger at a lower price.