Thread: Tips to rebuilding an old Remington 700 ADL into a LR rig

Well I have an old (1993) Remington 700 ADL in 308 with a heavy weight 'varmint' style blued barrel, basic synthetic stock, blind mag that the barrel has seen better days. In its day it had a LOT of mil surplus ammo through it at the range, and lots of 125 gn NBT through it at Sika. But it was used as a workhorse, and developed a few small spots of rust midway down the barrel from camping out under a fly a lot and staying wet, etc etc

It'll still do inch - inch and a half groups at 100, but my other wee rifle will do half inch when fed the right stuff, so I am looking at throwing some $ at it to get it up to hitting gongs, and reachout out beyond my self imposed 3 hundy for my other wee rifle.

So....the action itself should be fine to use...but are those new fandangled skeleton stocks the business or are they mostly for looks???

I'll get it rebarreled with a decent length stainless barrel, and I guess pay more for the action to be trued to the new barrel, bolt to the action etc etc. Trigger job or replacement trigger???

And then there will be the better bit of glass on top. Its currently sporting a 1990 Tasco Titan, which has not let me down...but looking through my new Loupy VX3hd is a bit of a wakeup call.

Thoughts from the guys who have gone through this process would be invaluable. Or is it cheaper to just go out and buy a new 308 that will already do 80% of what I want it to do???

Cheers guys...

I guess it depends. Do you like the current platform? I guess you are used to it now and it’s function and handling are well ingrained in your muscle memory. From that perspective, it is well worth rebarreling. It will get you back to the glory days of when it was shooting well, and likely give you some more performance to boot. And lower maintenance.
I personally like the Remington platform, and your old school action is likely to be a good one. So unless you really want something different, I’d stick with it.
Regards to trueing up the action, have a talk to the lads at True Flite. They’ll let you know if it’s worth the extra cash. I hear talk from some areas that for a lot of applications, not to bother. I trued an action once, and the reality wasI couldn’t shoot as good as the difference in accuracy the action work was possibly delivering.

Have at it

When you say "LR rig" how far do you want to shoot ? and do you want to stick with 308 ? or are you willing to consider other options ? Have a think about 284 would be my suggestion as that will get you to 800-900+ yards on game. Probably better starting off with an old LA REM700 than SA if you went 284.
Truing the action - probably not needed, especially if the action has proven accurate in past. Talk to TF. If you want to stick with 308 then probably they can get you a new or near new SS factory barrel. I did this with Truflite a few years back. Had an older, well used REM700 Tactical with heavy profile bbl. Grant had a standard SS sporter profile 308 that had been taken off another rifle. Chopped to 20in, shoots like laser & good to 500 yds with 168AMAX or NBT's. Cost swfa.
Then you can save $$ for some good optics.

If you like the remmy platform go out and buy a bergara and call it done. A remmy action with all the flaws ironed out and will cost a lot less than doodling around with your current action.

Throw it away and buy a tikka

That age of action will be an awesome start to a custom they were made to a lot higher tolerances to new actions. And accuracy potential will be better than a T3 action. I have a similar age blued SA rem action and it shoots like a laser.

Well thanks guys, sounds like its a keeper then.

Yeah, would like to be able to reach out and touch 600 or so metres, so will stay with the 308. Why??? Well I have about 3 lifetimes supply of 308 stuff, so its plain economics to stay with the calibre. And I do like knowing that the action will not benefit massively from having more machine work done to it, given its pedigree.

Chainsaws mention of then being able to put more $$$ into quality glass makes sense.

Will update when stuff starts happening

buy a KRG Bravo and shoot it as is. Possibly you could get a new prefit barrel (criterion) and then for minimal outlay you should have a good shooter.

Or...............................
You could just use it as an excuse for a new gun and buy something like this

https://www.springfield-armory.com/m...ypoint-rifles/

And invest a few $$ in a good stock

@XR500 if you go with True Flite, ask them about the option of the M-852 Match reamer. It’s a reamer designed by Dave Manson and apparently gives great results with factory and hand loaded ammo.

for the $$$$ its going to cost you to rebarrel...wait and snap up something off the forum that is already to go...like the 7mm mag I sold recently....numerous rifles Mr Songhurst has onsold....not to mention all the others .
keep your old rifle as back up...or list it as it is full disclosure....seems quite a few folks after something roughish to butcher for short bush rifle.... even if you only sell it for say $400 and poke another $600 into new rifle you would still be on par with new barrel if you were lucky to get one cheap and gunsmith in good mood.

I would buy a really good quality match grade barrel like a Shilen, Lilja, Bartlein. Have it fitted by someone who laps the Tenon threads and bed the action with Nathans Fosters kit.

If the bolt lugs BOTH have good contact you're wasting money truing the action for a hunting rifle. You may go from half moa to quarter moa at best if you can shoot that well. A good tube with well adjusted walker trigger bedded into a good stable stock will have you up and away. But its $1000 for a match tube fitted, plus the stock, plus bedding and what ever trigger work is needed if you are buying all services. Other wise sell it and buy a good used tikka, etc.

Originally Posted by Dicko

If the bolt lugs BOTH have good contact you're wasting money truing the action for a hunting rifle. You may go from half moa to quarter moa at best if you can shoot that well. A good tube with well adjusted walker trigger bedded into a good stable stock will have you up and away. But its $1000 for a match tube fitted, plus the stock, plus bedding and what ever trigger work is needed if you are buying all services. Other wise sell it and buy a good used tikka, etc.

You may also end up with the action being worse than it was before you started depending on who did the work!

Originally Posted by Longrun

Throw it away and buy a tikka

Mr Longrun scores the second troll point for the day