Need help diagnosing issue with Rem 700 LA scope base...

[ZFletcher]

Was helping a friend of mine who was having issues with his rifle and am hoping someone here has an answer or solution to this problem

There are two different rifles pictured, both are Rem 700 long actions (300 WM), they both say Remington Model 700 on the left side of the action.

Tan stock rifle: Rem 700 300 WM stainless action and barrel. Barrel is just a regular light hunting-profile.
Black stock rifle: Rem 700 300 WM stainless action and barrel. Barrel is a fluted Sendero.
As far as he knows both are factory rifles and have not had any modifications to the action or barrel.

The issue is where the scope base gets screwed into the rear part of the action. The back part on one of the rifles (the one with the tan stock) is canted a bit to the right and will not allow the rear part of the scope base to fit flush with the action. The other rifle (the one with the black stock) is level and the scope base fits perfectly. It doesn't look quite as different in the pics than it does in person but the difference should still be pretty clear. He has two bases, one is an EGW base and the other is a Nightforce base, they both are perfect with the black stock rifle, but neither will fit the one with the tan stock. The one with the tan stock is older than the the one with the black stock by many years (exact age not known).

Did Remington change something over the years? Is there a base that will fit the tan stock rifle? Manufacturing defect? Or something else?

We tried looking online but couldn't find anything.

If anyone knows of this difference and/or has a solution to this please let me know!

I also added a few pics of the front view and they too are different (see circles).

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[Aftermath]

Defective.

 

[spife7980]

If the screw holes are plumb then I would bed the base and rock on

 

[cfwii1979]

Ya the line of axis of the screw holes is offset left as well to the true center axis of the action and rifle.

 

[sinister]

My 700 looked like that, but it was the front set of holes that were off-center. My windage turrets were almost half-way to the internal left limit-of-range to zero at 100.

Contrary to popular belief the outside of Remington 700 receivers are not co-axial and true to the bore.

The rear holes on your tan gun are obviously off-axis:

My gunsmith had to weld-up my holes and drill and tap new ones -- which brought alignment on everything back to dead-center along the common axis -- no twisting, or off-set rail.

 

[FuhQ]

Oh, that's perfectly normal... That's just a Monday Morning/Friday Afternoon edition...

Seriously though, the holes were accidentally drilled off center at the factory. That's a factory manufacturing defect. A good gunsmith can fill those in with weld and re-drill them square. Won't cost too much, and will be worth it in the end. Also, while he's got it pulled apart, might as well have him check over the whole gun, and true the action to ensure everything else is square, including the receiver face, bolt face & lugs.

 

[cfwii1979]

Oh, that's perfectly normal... That's just a Monday Morning/Friday Afternoon edition...

Seriously though, the holes were accidentally drilled off center at the factory. That's a factory manufacturing defect. A good gunsmith can fill those in with weld and re-drill them square. Won't cost too much, and will be worth it in the end. Also, while he's got it pulled apart, might as well have him check over the whole gun, and true the action to ensure everything else is square, including the receiver face, bolt face & lugs.

It really will be an oppertunity to have most of the whole of the gun broken down as well - so id heed this advice. When welding obv heat transfers and you want to attempt to isolate the piece being welded as much as possible - this means here, disassembly.

 

[FuhQ]

If you're looking for a good smith, contact Chad Dixon over @LRI ... I'm sure he can get you fixed up. He does lots of stuff on CNC so he's pretty quick from what I've heard. I know he does amazing work. If anybody can fix it better than new, it would be him.

 

[LRI]

This, unfortunately, is pretty typical on M700 stuff. The good news is it's an easy fix. We likely won't have to weld anything up. All that is required is punching the holes to 8-40.

We'll need your barreled action for about ten days. The link below describes the process in more detail and will walk you through everything.

Happy to help.

GUNSMITHING SERVICES: 8-40 Optic Base Threads for Remington M700 and Winchester M70

A nagging side effect of production grade receivers is the tendency for certain features to be machined slightly out of position. The 8-40 optic base hole upgrade is intended to resolve this issue. By aligning the receiver bore to an axis on the milling center, we are able to correct position...

www.longriflesinc.com

 

[ZFletcher]

Thank you all very much, I will pass along the info to my buddy.