I am a big Fan of Remington I have 4 and have close 2 friends who have each. All of mine are from the mid to late 90s but the others are from early-mid 2000s, mine have always worked perfectly and other than one very bad trigger so have my friends.

All that said, one of my sons bought a new Winchester Mod 70 (SS) 30-06, it is stunning accurate and well made.

I am now leaning toward the Wins, I hope Rem pulls their heads out.

Snake

I wonder how many have fallen off in total...

50? 100? 250?..

"Let see 250 would be 5 a year...I suspect we would be hearing about it a whole lot more...if it was 5 a year every year for 50 years..

let's go with 250/5000000 = 1 defect per 20000 parts...yep that there is poor quality.

Mike"

I understand the logic. Even if it's one in a million, the problem arises when you're the one!

BTW Mike, your signature comments are perfect!

One falling off is one too many IMO..

I had the bolt handle come off a Remington 722, 257 Robts and another off a Rem 700 in 270 WCF some years later..They should be tigged on IMO...Its no big deal to fix, and the fix is better than the original, its tig welded, but it can be frustrating in the back country to hunt the week out with a pair of pliers.

The only Rem I have today is an old 600 in 222 that is super accurate. I'm not a Remington fan, they sold me a 5mm and quit making ammo, they sold me on the .416 Rem and quit makeing brass from time to time..That just ain't right!

OEM Remington bolt handles are induction brazed w/ cadmium silver solder,as is the bolt nose induction brazed & pinned to the bolt body.


HOW MANY Post 64 WINCHESTER MODEL 70 BOLT HANDLES ROTATE W/O ROTATING the BOLT BODY???????

Win M70 handles are collared & slid onto a straight line knurled bolt body w/ shoulder to attach the handle.
(TIG Welded 6 this week)

For all those who pooh-pooh the stories of bolt handles coming off, just because YOU have not seen does not mean it doesn't happen.

I personally have had problems with a 700 action's freezing stuck after first shot on a cape buffalo. You can cite me all the statistical hypotheses you want about percentages and it won't persuade me that this did not occur -- or that it couldn't happen again. A famous gun writer on another forum told me that couldn't be the action's problem, and he might be right, but my faith has certainly gone down re 700s.

Think about it. You may not be hearing about quality defects precisely because a manufacturer deliberately keeps it from becoming public knowledge.

25-30 years ago, a friend of mine, who is about as knowledgeable about guns as anyone here (in the business for years) and much more so than me, had a Remington 1100 action explode, tearing up a hand. Remington promptly settled with him for a generous sum, but only on the condition that he NEVER talk about it. He was with me when my action froze in Africa. He took a pre-64 70. <g>

AR is a great forum and members here speak frankly. It is a wonderful knowledge resource because so many members know what they're talking about. If several report that their bolt handles are falling off on a particular brand and model of rifle, why would you doubt all of them? What stake do you have in doing so?

Again, this is personal opinion, but I am prepared to accept that Remington makes very accurate rifles. That's fine. I have a couple myself. However, it is a high production manufacturer. Flaws happen. I am not surprised by that.

Then there is the esthetic factor and perhaps I'm adding insult to injury here. 700s come in several models and most of the ones they attempt to "pretty" up are not what I consider attractive at all. Form should follow function.

If that were not enough to raise issues about Remington's full disclosure of defects in Model 700s, there is a thread right now on Alaska Outdoors Forums about a client's shooting a guide's jacket. It discharged accidentally when he flipped the safety to unload it. Fortunately, he was pointing in a safe direction.

That thread cites this: http://www.usatoday.com/money/...0-trigger-cnbc_N.htm.

Many have seen that report already. It does question Remington's disclosure record.

quote:

Originally posted by Dans40XC:

HOW MANY Post 64 WINCHESTER MODEL 70 BOLT HANDLES ROTATE W/O ROTATING the BOLT BODY???????

Win M70 handles are collared & slid onto a straight line knurled bolt body w/ shoulder to attach the handle.
(TIG Welded 6 this week)

I assume you are speaking of post-'64 Model 70s?

Over my lifetime I have owned several dozen pre-'64 Model 70s, and still own four. I have never experienced, seen, or heard of that happening on pre-'64 Model 70s.

Matter of fact, aren't the pre-'64 M70 bolts and handles a one-piece forging?

General cheapening of the '65 and later M70s is why I quit buying them. So, if you re saying they are now as bad as M700 Remington bolt handles, I say, so what? When Mr. Kreig (head of the 1964/'65 Model 70 re-design team) screwed everything up in the '65 M70s, they went on my "don't buy" list. I have been tempted to try one of the new "CRF Browning/Winchesters", but your post just took that temptation bye-bye.

I have never heard of any CRF M-70 Winchester Pre or Post '64 having the bolt handle coming off nor any of their push feeds. All of this is news to me!

Dans40XC, were they push feeds or CRFs?

Yesterday’s match director is also a gunsmith. He was telling of the number of Remington bolt handles he has TIG welded back onto the bolt. He said a number of these came off because the idiot owners were using hammers to beat the bolt open. These fools were reloading shells so hot that they could not rotate the bolt by hand.

But, he also mentioned a number of Rem 700’s where the receiver threads were cut improperly, either the receiver hole was too big or the threads were sloppy, that the barrels threads were coated in epoxy from the factory. He called these Walmart specials.

Something is very wrong at Remington when they are gluing barrels to receivers.

Attached are pictures of a bolt handle that came off and a factory repaired bolt. The owner posted the factory repaired bolt after seeing so many bubbles in the solder joint. I too would not have much confidence on that joint.

Had my new 375 H&H Rem XCR II bolt handle Tig welded on before I took it to Alaska. I also have two stock 70's vintage Rem 700 BDLs in 270 (one for each son) that I have complete confidence in and will not fuss with.

I have never seen one come apart completely like that but I have seen 2 crack where the soldering begins and the handle is connected to the bolt.

One was my 35 Whelen and the other was a 300 Win Mag. Neither had ever digested "hot" handloads or had the bolt beat open.

When I was in the military, we had M700's and M40's that digested tens of thousands of rounds and I never saw or heard of any problems. However, when you have skilled armorers taking care of you, a lot of problems are fixed before they become serious issues. I have seen several of the "I just took off safe and it fired" incidents. In every case, someone unqualified had adjusted the trigger.

I think the M700 was a good, cheap platform that was easy to make shoot pretty good. Now, its an expensive platform that appears to have more quality control problems than ever. I know I will probably never buy another one.

If you want a cheap gun that shoots great, Savage and Weatherby have it. If you want a semi-custom rifle for about the same price as Remington's higher end rifles, Kimber has it.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike_Dettorre:
I wonder how many have fallen off in total...

50? 100? 250?..

Let see 250 would be 5 a year...I suspect we would be hearing about it a whole lot more...if it was 5 a year every year for 50 years..

let's go with 250/5000000 = 1 defect per 20000 parts...yep that there is poor quality.

Not to mention the fail on fire safety issues and the flimsy, sheet metal extractor prone to failure under dirty conditions. There's a reason there is an entire cottage industry focused on 700 extractors, bolt handles and safeties. BTW, huge difference between hunting and combat sniping. jorge

PS: accuracy? is this good enough? ("out of the box" 1992 Model 70 Express, no mods, nothing:

It happens, we build a lot of custom rifles on Remington M700's, and now that PG&W makes new one piece bolts we always swap them out.

On a Howa you don't have to do that. But Howa triggers kind of suck, and a Remington you can fix up.