Finally the Remington 700 SPS is a good shooter
Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 10:00 pm
If I ever start talking about buying another rifle for precision shooting, just kick me hard. I picked up a Remington 700 SPS as a starter a while back, and was not happy with it's performance. the flexible rubber Hogue stock prevented even the best ammo from putting up a good group. I have 3 friends that bought the same rifle, we have ALL replaced the stock that came on them to improve the accuracy (actually to give the rifle the ability to shoot a group that was small enough to avoid being taunted at the range, yes it shot THAT bad).
I didn't care for the built in magazine and wanted to convert to a bottom feeder. Thanks PTG. Now that PMAG is selling AICS style mags for a reasonable price, I can pick up a few more magazines.
I missed that Remington was selling this rifle with a threaded barrel, and I ordered a .30 cal can, so I wanted to get the barrel threaded before my stamp arrives. Turns out my best deal was a friend who got stuck with a Criterion Barrel for a Remington 700 that was misrepresented to him as a Savage barrel, and he has a metal lathe in this garage...
Went over to his house this weekend, got the new barrel threaded, we removed the original SPS barrel from the action and installed the new Criterion barrel, head-spaced the bolt. and mounted the muzzle break for my Suppressor. I then re-installed the trigger and assembled the rifle, remounted the rail and optics and headed off to the range to start the break in.
took about 9 rounds rounds at 50 yards to start the barrel break in and get the bore sighting done. Then shot 3 - 2 round groups at 100 to finish out the day (still doing barrel break in, it certainly can't hurt). I still have a some tweaking to do to finalize sighting in the scope, but I ran out of time today. If the groups with this Prvi Partisan 147grain FMJ BT ammo is any indication, I can hardly wait to see what this will do with some Federal Gold Medal Match or some tuned loads. THIS is the accuracy I was expecting out of the box, but was sorely disappointed. I was amazed to see the groups that turned out with this inexpensive ammo, I wasn't expecting anything to group under 1", call me pleasantly surprised.
If I had this to do over I would buy just the action and build the rest of the rifle from the ground up, which is essentially what ended up happening. This approach cost me a lot more, and I have enough leftover parts to build a Rem 700 SPS except I seem to be short an action.
This was certainly a learning experience for me and I won't be making the same mistakes again.
I didn't care for the built in magazine and wanted to convert to a bottom feeder. Thanks PTG. Now that PMAG is selling AICS style mags for a reasonable price, I can pick up a few more magazines.
I missed that Remington was selling this rifle with a threaded barrel, and I ordered a .30 cal can, so I wanted to get the barrel threaded before my stamp arrives. Turns out my best deal was a friend who got stuck with a Criterion Barrel for a Remington 700 that was misrepresented to him as a Savage barrel, and he has a metal lathe in this garage...
Went over to his house this weekend, got the new barrel threaded, we removed the original SPS barrel from the action and installed the new Criterion barrel, head-spaced the bolt. and mounted the muzzle break for my Suppressor. I then re-installed the trigger and assembled the rifle, remounted the rail and optics and headed off to the range to start the break in.
took about 9 rounds rounds at 50 yards to start the barrel break in and get the bore sighting done. Then shot 3 - 2 round groups at 100 to finish out the day (still doing barrel break in, it certainly can't hurt). I still have a some tweaking to do to finalize sighting in the scope, but I ran out of time today. If the groups with this Prvi Partisan 147grain FMJ BT ammo is any indication, I can hardly wait to see what this will do with some Federal Gold Medal Match or some tuned loads. THIS is the accuracy I was expecting out of the box, but was sorely disappointed. I was amazed to see the groups that turned out with this inexpensive ammo, I wasn't expecting anything to group under 1", call me pleasantly surprised.
If I had this to do over I would buy just the action and build the rest of the rifle from the ground up, which is essentially what ended up happening. This approach cost me a lot more, and I have enough leftover parts to build a Rem 700 SPS except I seem to be short an action.
This was certainly a learning experience for me and I won't be making the same mistakes again.