Hey guys,
Thought I'd post a pic and give a bit of a range report about my new - and first ever Remington M700.
I've never really been a fan of M700's, being more of a Winchester M70 guy - but I got this for an absolute steal and it looked pretty good in the ad, so I thought I take the plunge and venture onto the dark side!
My new rifle is a Remington AAC-SD 'Tactical' model and it's in .308 caliber.
Although a tactical model I plan on using this for deer hunting in Australia - and in fact I traded off my .300Wby so I could purchase it.
Now, while the .300Wby was and is an AWESOME caliber, the longest shot I've ever taken on a deer with it was 60m...
And although a great caliber, I just wasn't utilising it to it's fullest potential so when someone threw some money in my face wanting it, I let it go... albeit a bit sadly...
The last 2 deer I shot with it were a couple of small Fallow and I got them at the staggering long distance of 40m!
![ROFL :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/twitter/twemoji@14.0.2/assets/72x72/1f923.png)
![ROFL :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/twitter/twemoji@14.0.2/assets/72x72/1f923.png)
![ROFL :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:](https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/twitter/twemoji@14.0.2/assets/72x72/1f923.png)
I remember saying to my guide at the time, "I could've done that with a bloody .308!"
And I could've too...
With half the muzzle-blast and recoil...
And a lot cheaper...
So here we are!
I purchased this Remington already fitted with the Bell & Carlson M40 stock and as soon I got the rifle home the first thing I did was put a spare Vortex Crossfire II 6-18x44 scope that I had lying around on top of it.
To be honest this scope is a little big for a hunting rifle, but it's what I had on hand and I can always swap it out for something smaller later on down the track.
All up with scope and a full mag, it weighs spot on 4kg (9lb) which although heavy for a .308, feels quite nice in the hand.
Because of the heavy-ish weight, recoil is very mild. In fact it's under half what the .300Wby was - and is about 1/5 of what my .458WM is shooting the 550gn!
It was actually really nice shooting a rifle that didn't try to KILL you every time you pulled the trigger...
Today saw me at the range to put it through it's paces - and it had big shoes to fill. I loved that Weatherby and this Remington - a rifle I had no prior experiences with, had better perform.
And it did.
It functioned flawlessly. Extraction and ejection was positive and feeding was smooth. And it was very accurate.
That's the good! Now the bad...
The magazine only holds 3 instead of 4 which is no biggie and didn't really bother me - but what did give me bother was the trigger... it is HORRIBLE. Although crisp enough it was very heavy. This made shooting small groups with it off the bench hard work.
But even before picking the rifle up I knew the trigger would be heavy as most factory rifles are in this day and age of lawsuits.
But I'll get used to it. Given enough time I believe you can get used to nearly any trigger.
The ammo I was using was the Australian Outback factory ammunition.
I specifically chose this ammunition as it's loaded with the Sierra Gameking 165gn projectile and I believe this is the best bullet weight in the .308 for the hunting I do.
It should work well on small Fallow and the Elk-sized Sambar.
At the 50m range it put 3 shots in a fraction over 1/4" - which I was really happy with considering the trigger.
Velocity from the short 20" barrel averaged 2630fps and I've got it sighted in:
1.5" high at 50m,
3" high at 100m,
zero at 200m
- 12" at 300m.
Luckily I have mil-dots on the scope and utilising these, shots out to 400m are possible although I have a self-imposed rule of not taking shots past 300m.
So there you go, I'm feeling pretty good about this rifle so far.
The bolt handle didn't fall off, rifle didn't self-discharge and the extractor didn't break.
The rifle had a 'quality' look and feel about it and it was accurate. It feels good in the hands and it looks fantastic.
This weekend we're heading off to try and bag a deer and that will be the final test for this rifle. I just know it's going to be wet, muddy and cold so there's no better test for it.
I'll keep you all posted on how it goes - and thanks for reading
Russ