40X or Rem 700 Action

40X or Rem 700 Action 
I’m thinking of building an across the course gun and I was trying to figure out which action to use. A 40X or a Rem 700? I realize that the 700 would have to be trued and slotted and this would add to the cost. Well, all I need is some advice! Any takers? Thanks!

40X or Rem 700 Action 
Forget both of them and go with a Win. M70. The action is stiffer and has a nice flat bottom, you don’t have to lengthen the bolt handle, as it is long enough from the factory, if you want to use the factory trigger the Win. is easier to get lighter and remain safe, and the extractor isn’t garbage like the Remington’s. I’ve built and used guns on both Remington and the Winchester actions and there really is little comparison, the Remington takes too much foo-fooing to get it up to what the Winchester already has. If you’re stuck on Remingtons (and this seems to be a common disease) there is very little advantage to the 40X, as it still needs to be trued, and for the extra money I personally don’t think it is worth it. You can probably find a beater M700 somewhere for a relatively good price and spend the extra money you have in your pocket getting the thing tuned up.

40X or Rem 700 Action 
Someone asked: “I’m thinking of building an across the course gun and I was trying to figure out which action to use. A 40X or a Rem 700?” Either is fine as long as it is built properly. Someone said the rem700/40 bolt handle is too short, they are right. Easy and inexpensive to lengthen, you can do it at home with no special tools. Use epoxy and cast a new knob onto existing handle after grinding off old knob flush with handle. Factory trigger okay on rem700 – you can get it to a pound safely. Most folks go aftermarket. Get a Jewell. I don’t know which if stiffer, model 70 or rem700, but do know that both can do the job, so evidently either is stiff enough. Don’t worry about factory extractor on rem700. Went over 10000 rounds on mine before it needed replacement. Fellow shooter down our way is a sniper instructor at Ft. Bragg – he says their guns typically go 60000 rounds on one extractor. Inexpensive part. Any factory gun you get will need truing and sad to say, that is the case for many custom actions. I do wish the rem700 had a built in recoil lug, but IMO, that’s not really a big disadvantage, because every time I rebarrel, I want to rebed as well, to make sure I never shoot on an old/tired bedding job. Just my 2 cents worth. Kent

40X or Rem 700 Action 
Gary Singley singlgl@ocslink.dom An extremely good post, Kent, and extremely good shooting. According to Jarrett, who won’t put a Sako extractor in Remingtons, if you have a bad gas leak, you might get part of the Sako extractor back in your face, and this won’t happen with the Remington extractor. Just something to think about. I have shot a lot of rounds through 700’s and 40’xes, and have never failed an extractor.

40X or Rem 700 Action 
I’ve shot a lot of rounds through a Rem 700 and never had an extractor failure either. However, over the years I’ve seen several go bye-bye. My first experience came when I shot the Highpower Silhouette Nationals in Reno, NV while I was still a junior shooter. During that match four Remington extractors took a dive, fortunately someone had the required extractor anvil and some spares and the rifles were fixed. The following year at Perry two of my buddies from CA had their 40X extractors fail, and I’ve seen the odd one fail off and on since then. In my twenty years of competitive shooting and three years as Chief Range Officer at an active shooting range, I’ve seen two M70 extractor failures, one old and one new model. The best quote I ever heard was from Charles Donnely, a barrel maker and gunsmith from Grants Pass, OR, who has replaced several of them over the years, “I wouldn’t want that extractor between me and a Grizzly Bear”. Kind of says it all from a guy who has probably replaced more extractors than I can imagine breaking.

40X or Rem 700 Action 
Whenever the Remington extractor comes up for discussion, one of the points inevitably raised is “I shot [or I know a guy who shot] X rounds through a Remington and never had an extraction problem.” True as those individual experiences may be, it is impossible to prove a negative (that the extractor design is not a problem) through a handful of isolated *non*events. On the other hand, a substantial number of failures do point to the existence of a problem, as does the very existence of the Sako-conversion cottage industry. If failures were a non-issue, there would be no demand for such conversions, and the market would not be supplying them. Should parallel circumstances have arisen with regard to automobile brakes (let’s assume for a moment that the manufacturer had been bombed, liquidated, or was otherwise not available for recall or comment), the attitudes would certainly be far less casual, because of the obvious fact that one failure at the right time might cost everything. In such a case, the accounts of failures experienced by others — though perhaps small in number — would be far more convincing than the office wag who asserts that it’s all much ado about nothing because HE brakes hard with that same car all the time and has never had a crash. The situation is similar, though with slightly lower stakes (unless the grizzly is in a bad mood after the first shot), in high power rifle. Thousands of successful extractions might mean nothing compared to one failure at the wrong time. I feel very strongly about this because I know a shooter who, after more than eight years of competition with a Remington, suffered an extractor failure (twice, I believe) during the last 300-yard rapid fire match on the last day of the 1991 National Matches. Under the circumstances, he was very fortunate not to have lost more points than he did. As it happens, 1991 was his final year of eligibility for the junior championship, and that incident virtually erased the point differential, if memory serves me correctly. It was, literally, a last-time-in-a-lifetime opportunity, imperiled by an inferior design. Thus, the person seeking to build a rifle has to ask himself the following: given both the expected amount of a lifetime investment in the shooting sports and the possibility that a shot at a major award might be a rare or even unique occurrence (individuals of rare greatness, such as David Tubb or Gary Anderson, excepted), is it worth the risk — based on the testimonials of some who have successfully lived on borrowed time — to keep such a weak link as the Remington extractor at the heart of one’s shooting platform, when the experiences of others (not to mention the popularity of Sako conversions) testifies to the problems it can and has unleashed?

40X or Rem 700 Action 
The simplest way to make cars safe and prevent accidents is to make them so that they can’t move. The engineers who choose that option get an OSHA award and a boot to the seat of the pants. Remington is undoubtedly at a design dead-end on the advice of their lawyers, not because it is utterly impossible to improve on the design without making it completely unsafe. The Wright brothers arguably made bicycle technology less safe when they modified it and took it to the skies, but there was a functional benefit to doing so, and it doesn’t mean that a properly built, maintained, and operated airplane is inherently dangerous. Theoretical speculation aside, if there is actual evidence that a responsible shooter, loading and acting safely, was injured solely because of a problem with a Sako extractor conversion that had been properly installed by a recognized and competent gunsmith, I would be genuinely interested to hear about it. (“Perceived functionality problems”? I really hope this was an effort at a metaphysics lesson, because I suspect those of us who have suffered from an ill-timed extraction failure don’t need to be patronized about it.)

40X or Rem 700 Action 
Gary Singley singlgl@ocslink.com. Spent a few bucks and called Jim Cloward out in Seattle. Found out some interesting things. One, he thinks the Sako extractor is not much of an improvement over a Remington extractor. Two, he feels that most extractor failures are caused by “pilot error”. I did not press Jim for an explanation; he works for a living. He feels that the Remington extractor is failure prone, but he also says that he would not recommend changing the extractor if you are not having problems. His exact words were “if it is not broke, don’t fix it”. As far as how much better the M70 extractor is, he did not say. But, I know from talking to some people who have hunted dangerous game extensively in Africa, if I were having a rifle built for use on dangerous game, it would probably have a Mauser type action.

40X or Rem 700 Action 
Stupid question perhaps, but if a Sako extractor is OK on a Sako what’s the matter with it on a Remington? And by the way, when the bolt on an M700 is closed isn’t the extractor on the Sako conversion contained within the receiver ring? Dave Hickey

40X or Rem 700 Action 
Actually, there is a slight gap where the right hand locking lug has to pass through; I suppose it is possible for the extractor to make it out through this in an instance of catastrophic failure. That would be some failure though, and most likely there would probably be more than just the extractor to worry about in such an instance.

40X or Rem 700 Action 
Gary Singley singlgl@ocslink. I didn’t mean to make any one angry. I was just quoting what I had been told by Jim Cloward, whose judgment I respect. He didn’t feel the risk was too great that one would be injured by something coming back through the gap. Jarrett seemed to consider it more risky from what I remember. Jim said that at least some extractor failure was “pilot error”. Didn’t ask him for an explanation because he was busy. The bottom line is no one has any solid statistical data; we are all basing our views on personal observations. That is about all we can afford to do; I am not going to spend any more time or money on it. I suspect that the failure rate is pretty low on Remingtons, maybe not as low as on M70’s. I suspect that “pilot error” is failure to clean and lubricate, ammunition that is defective, etc. I clean my bolt face and the lug recesses more frequently than I used to; I suspect that dirt in the right place could cause higher loading on the extractor.

40X or Rem 700 Action 
I have read articles in PS by a number of BR gunsmiths who will not chamber a Remington 700 for PPC cartridges unless a Sako extractor is installed. Their concern is that the rather thin web of the PPC cartridge does not get sufficient support from the barrel with the Remington system.

40X or Rem 700 Action 
TDB – Also, I don’t believe Remington makes a PPC bolt face? If they do it would have to come out of their custom shop on 40X’s. I doubt they do since they are the ones who market the .22 and 6mm BR cartridges. By virtue of the oddball case head on the PPC, a modified Remington has no choice but to find another extractor.

40X or Rem 700 Action 
Good point, dj, but the reason given by the gunsmiths is that the PPC has a thin web and the Sako extractor allows the chamber to be cut about 1/l0″ deeper into the barrel. I expect we would see the 40X chambered for PPC cartridges if Remington thought it was a safe practice.

40X or Rem 700 Action 
Before you make a decision about the merits of one particular extractor over another look at each installed in an actual bolt. The material left under the case head by a Remington bolt with a Sako extractor is much less than a pre 64 or the new style Mod 70 bolt. This to me would make the decision easy. I shoot Rem’s and Mod 70’s but no Sako extractors for me. Scott in CA.

40X or Rem 700 Action 
Dadharddog said: “I suspect that dirt in the right place”… INDEED! Now we are getting somewhere with this thread. Next time you are at a match and people are doing “show and tell”, look at their bolt faces and keep what “Dad” said in mind. You will be surprised at the crap that collects just after one 800 Agg! Kent