Remington 700 SPS Varminter

Started by recoil junky, June 13, 2008, 08:05:30 PM

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recoil junky

Here a month or three ago I was "bragging" about gettin a new .223 in Remington SPS. Well I've had for a couple months now and it's taken me that long to get it in shape, what with working gobs of overtime and all. (I'm at 28% for the year) I had to remove quite a bit of plastic in the forend  to get the desired floating job, but some work with a carbide burr in the old drill, the work went rather quickly.


The cheezy plastic stock leaves a bit to be desired, but after glass bedding the action it's turned into quite a shooter. This group is at 200 yards. If the guy doing the shooting  could have held the darn thing still I think the group would have been better :o I have yet to chronograoh this particular load but  27.9 grains of Benchmark and a 40 grain Vmax out of the 788 with a 24" barrel is running about 3800 fps if memory serves correctly, so with the 26" barrell the SPS should be pretty close to that.


The scope is a 6-24X50 BSA  Contender that used to be on my 788. I wanted to use the Weaver Quad rings but unfortunatly they were to low for the 50mm  objective lens so I settled for the old reliable, plain jane Weaver rings. For the money it's a pretty good piece of glass. It's no Leopould by any means but it seems to be doing a great job. Pretty clear up to about 22X, but after that it starts to get a bit darker.

I've had it out shooting ground squirrels a couple of times and it will take some getting used to. It's not like the old 788 where I just "point and shoot" but it's coming along. On Sunday it will get the real test, shooting prarie dogs. :MOGRIN:

I'll be looking to put a laminated stock on it of a yet to be determined manufacturer and use the old stock to tamp dirt in post holes. The trigger was pretty good right out of the box, but a bit of tweaking made it pretty crisp with no over travel or creep. I may go with a different firning pin/spring set-up to speed up the lock time.

If you are thinking of a new varmint rifle I'd recommend one of these. (except for Brithunter of course :greentongue:) I'll have to see how it performs next to a Sako on Sunday. So far it shot neck and neck with a CZ Varminter in .223.

RJ
When you go afield, take the kids and please......................................wear your seatbelts.
Northwest Colorado.............Where the wapiti roam and deer and antelope run amuck. :undecided:  
Proud father of a soldier medic in The 82nd Airborne 325th AIR White Falcons :army:

Brithunter

Ahhh but did the CZ have to be floated and tweaked? that is the question :greentongue:


  As for the Scope :eek:  you like living dangerously I see. Those BSA scopes don't have a steller reputation. I ceratinly would not buy one! the only thing BSA about them is the Name and that was brought from the asset strippers :frown shame to destroy such a good name but there you go Money talks.

 
   Glad your happy with it :biggthumpup: the rifle set up that is :hat: .
Go Get them Floyd!

22hornet

The Remington SPS series is very popular here in OZ, probably because of their price.
 
And they are all accurate shooters too - once you remove that nasty foreend bedding tip.
Why do Remington do that?:frown
 
I hope the rifle works out for you, although I have never seen a BSA scope in the field so I can't comment.
 
I like your shooting stand too. Do you have a patent on the design? It looks good enough to copy:biggthumpup:
"Belief:" faith in something taught, as opposed to "knowledge:" which is awareness borne of experience.

recoil junky

Brit and 22, I have 4 of the BSA scopes. One i've had for 10 years anit's performed flawlessly. I'm pretty impressed with them so far. I don't think I'd put one on the 300 RUM but then aagin the it's already shook apart a reputidly "good" scope.

RJ
When you go afield, take the kids and please......................................wear your seatbelts.
Northwest Colorado.............Where the wapiti roam and deer and antelope run amuck. :undecided:  
Proud father of a soldier medic in The 82nd Airborne 325th AIR White Falcons :army:

Paul Hoskins

RJ, I can understand you wanting to put a wood stock on it but it is obviously a darn good shooter as is. That kind of accuracy (consistency) is what makes a varmint rifle. I love a gun that does things like that. It's nice to bounce a bullet off a groundhogs head at 400 yards 97 times out of 100. ........Paul H

recoil junky

The forend of the stock is, well, cheezy. It's actually hollow and if you noticed in the picture there are 2 swivels, one for a sling and one for mounting a bipod. I use shooting sticks instead of a bipod and just resting the forend on the sticks will flex the forend enough to make it touch the barrel. That and there is nothing lkie a nice looking laminate wood stock. The laminnate stock on the VLS is just darn pretty.

As for being able to bounce a bullet off a groundhog's head at 400 yards? Well I hope to find out tomorrow how it will work on pdogs.

RJ
When you go afield, take the kids and please......................................wear your seatbelts.
Northwest Colorado.............Where the wapiti roam and deer and antelope run amuck. :undecided:  
Proud father of a soldier medic in The 82nd Airborne 325th AIR White Falcons :army:

Hunterbug

That's a nice looking rig RJ. Have you thought about full length glass bedding it instead of floating the barrel? This winter I'll have to make a run up there and we'll go chase coyotes! My Grandfather drew his doe tag for your place 2nd season so we'll be up there for that as well.
Ask not what your government can do for you. Ask how your government can go away and get out of your life.
 
 
The unarmed man is is not only defenseless, he is also contemptible.
Niccolo Machiavelli

Brithunter

Hmm RJ,

   Strange you say that about the BSA scopes. Am still looking for a cheaper varible to use for ammo testing etc but never considered the BSA scopes due to amount of faulty ones I heard about. After the recent problems with new Chinese made scopes an leery of them but I will bear in mind what you said.
Go Get them Floyd!

LvrLover

#8
I use a BSA on my 22 for squirrels, but for serious hunting I like my Burris - or Leupold, or weaver. Its a 3-9x40 with a lighted reticle I got for a song. Tried it on my .223, but it wasn't enough magnification for longer shots. As for bedding rifles, that is a can of worms to open. I personally like a glass bed on the action (or an aluminum block) and a free floated barrel - most of the time. But some rifles like a small amount of upward pressure on the barrel from the forend("that nasty forend bedding tip"). The key in my book is consistency. If its free floated the barrel should never touch wood under any conditions. If its bedded it has to have the same pressure and contact all the time. Did you try any groups before you modified it?
"Live free or die: death is not the worst of evils." General John Stark

2ndtimer

RJ, I have an identical SPS Varmint .223 with a Leupold VX-3 4-14X with fine duplex reticle.  The only modification I have made to mine was the installation of a Timney trigger, which was a huge improvement over the X-Mark Pro trigger.  A gunsmith who did a great job on a stock Model 70 trigger as well as an older Remington 700 said that new Remington trigger was the biggest piece of junk he had ever tried to work on.  (He did keep my $40 though, he said if I really wanted a decent trigger to come back with $100 more and he would install something worthwhile)  Did you notice a dramatic improvement by free floating the barrel?  Mine has a definite forend pressure point that I have considered removing.  It shoots pretty well even with the unfloated barrel, so I haven't touched it yet.  Thought I would try to get over to Montana to give the gophers a workout before I messed with the bedding and barrel.  My SPS seems to shoot everything decent but nothing consistently outstanding.  I have settled on a load of 26.0 gr of TAC powder with LC brass and WSR primers with either 50 gr Nosler SHOTS bullets or their 52 gr HP bullet.  It averages around 3/4 of an inch for 5 shots at 100 yards.  I still think the rifle wants to shoot better.  Maybe I should float that barrel and try glass bedding the action.

recoil junky

It shot all over the map, well 1 1/2-2" groups anyway when I first got it. With that heavy barrel I didn't think the stock could put enough  pressure to make much difference, but apparently it did. After I floated the barrel and bedded the action, concentrating on the recoil lug area, it really came around. I've been thinking of using some body filler in the forend to fill up the holes and make it stiffer.

As far as the X mark trigger goes, I guess I must have gotten a "good one". A bit of tinkering with most Remington triggers is all it seems to take to get one to work pretty well. The trigers on both the 300RUM in Sendero SFII and the VLS in .243 are dandys. I still have some tinkering to do with the rigger on the SPS, but it's OK for now. The biggest thing on the new Remington triggers is getting whatever they put on the adjustment screws off so you can turn the screws. I had to use the propane torch and heat them a bit to get them broke loose. It masde me a bit nervous having to heat them, but it seems to be working so far.

It performed quite well on Sunday shooting prairie dogs. It did take a couple of shots to figure out where to hold on shots over 200 yards. I use 40 grain Vmax's and Benchmark in both .223's and the .222. With the 1:12 twist in all three rifles they all seem to like that bullet. I still have to run the load for the SPS over the chronorgaph to see what it's doing.

Brit, I'd sure give a BSA a go. I was pretty sceptical with the first one but after I got it mounted and shot it some I was impressed. They all seem to hold zero and the target modeels all have large turrets and 1/8 moa click adjustments. As with all my scopes I go past where I want the adjustments to be by a 3-4 clicks and turn it back to the desired adjustment. I've only sent one BSA back and it was not really the fault of the scope. It was a red dot sight I had on my Ruger Redhawk 44 magnum that literally shook apart from the recoil after about 500 rounds of very heavy loads. The new one they sent me back was on the pistol for near 1000 rounds before I took it off and put the iron sights back on. I only did this so I could use my holster while riding horseback.


RJ
When you go afield, take the kids and please......................................wear your seatbelts.
Northwest Colorado.............Where the wapiti roam and deer and antelope run amuck. :undecided:  
Proud father of a soldier medic in The 82nd Airborne 325th AIR White Falcons :army:

gitano

Dang fine shootin' there RJ! :biggthumpup:
 
Good to see targets like that. Let's me know how far off I've gotta get if we get in a spittin' contest. :)
 
I don't know if anybody else noticed, but does
QuoteIt did take a couple of shots to figure out where to hold on shots over 200 yards.
translate to
QuoteI missed some long shots
?
 
Paul
Be nicer than necessary.

Hunterbug

Gitano, bite your tongue! We know that RJ wouldn't miss. ;) He was watching someone else shoot and miss untill he figured out the hold from their mistakes.:MOGRIN:
Ask not what your government can do for you. Ask how your government can go away and get out of your life.
 
 
The unarmed man is is not only defenseless, he is also contemptible.
Niccolo Machiavelli

recoil junky

#13
Aw shucks :shy:

I do have a er an uh welluh a reason, yeah a reason, why I missed a few shots.

In addition to the new SPS, I had the .222 in 788, the .223 in 788 AND the .243 in VLS. Zach was shooting the .222,  

while I was trying to shoot the other 3. One at a time of course. Changing rifles after they would get to hot is not very conducive to making EVERY shot count as I'm still getting a handle on the SPS. NO excuses while shooting the old 788 or VLS though.

Brithunter, you'll notice a BSA mounted on the 788 that Zach is shooting. That rifle and scope combinaion is pretty deadly on vermin. And you know what? Zach don't miss too much. His Dad was a USMC firearms instructor and taught him prett well. OORAH!!

Zach's Dad, Mike was my best friend. We lost Mike to lung cancer last October and well, Zach and I have become hunting pards now. Before Mike died he asked me if I would take Zach hunting sometimes and I'm taking him whenever I can. We've got plans to go elk and deer hunting this fall, plus Zach is going to help with Hunting Buddies.

Semper Fi Mike

RJ
When you go afield, take the kids and please......................................wear your seatbelts.
Northwest Colorado.............Where the wapiti roam and deer and antelope run amuck. :undecided:  
Proud father of a soldier medic in The 82nd Airborne 325th AIR White Falcons :army:

LLANOJOHN (deceased)

Hey RJ!

Great pic of Zach and congrats on getting the new "smokepole" to shoot!:biggthumpup:   Sounds like you did all the right things.

Speaking of 788's...would you happen to know where I could obtain a .222 magazine for a 788?  I just picked one up and, of course, no magazine!:frown   Checked the usual places like Gun Parts and Jack First with no luck:Banghead:

Keep the pics and stories comin'!!

Ol' John:sleeping:
Life Member-NRA-TSRA
Riflesmith-Bolt & Lever Centerfires Only
Left-Hand Creek Rifles
Mark Twain was right-"There is no such thing as too much good whiskey!"
My best advice.."Best to stay outta trees and offa windmills!"

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