Like the title says, I have a new 700 Magpul Edition model #84293 coming into the gun shop by the end of this week.  I've got a badger 20 MOA base coming in the mail, and with this rifle I'm also going to start using a data book so one of those is inbound as well.  The scope I'm going to start off using is my old Vortex Gen 1 PST 6-24 FFP.  There's not much information on this rifle out there so it's not like I'm basing this purchase off of reading plenty of internet review of this exact setup.  I made the purchase based on the Remington 700 reputation and my hopes that the 5R barrel will shoot better than the SPS Tactical that I had and sold or the Savage 10 BA Stealth that I had and sold.  

I plan on feeding the rifle a steady diet of 168gr matchkings.  I'm going to start out with factory ammo and maybe start tinkering around with handloads at some point.  I went with the 308 because I've been shooting and handloading for a heavy barreled savage 30-06 for going on 10 years and I'm tired of never having a factory ammo option to be able to buy over the counter.  I've been on a search for a quality precision 308 and I'm really hoping this rifle works out.

I'm going to start with Federal Gold Medal Match 168gr, then move onto the same in 175gr.  What other ammo out there are people getting good results with in either this rifle or similar 308's?  I've been out of the 308 factory ammo game for a long time so I'm trying to see what's good and bad these days.  

Eventually the can on it will be an AAC SDN-6..... eventually.

Black Hills and Hornady come to mind...  

Fyi, Palmetto state has 168 gold medal match for $16 a box + shipping. Pretty good deal!  They keep saying it's a "daily deal" but they've had it at this price for awhile.

Best newly manufacturer ammo for 308 out of mine 700 is Australian Outback.  Fed. Gold Match was alright, but Australian Outback has always given me a tighter group.

As much as there is against the new 700's from here, I'm curious about these. I like the 5r guns and would love to see a range report. Rifle reviews "look" good but I have yet to hold one or see unbiased reviews. Tagging for later

The day I saw it at $16 with free shipping over some amount of boxes, I swiped the card and picked some up.  It was absolutely too good of ammo to not jump on that.

I definitely hope to be posting a range report within a week or more.  I'll post my results, whatever they are.

I bet it shoots just fine.  Maybe try some IMI 168/175's from SG Ammo in addition to what else has been suggested.  

Get the tool to take the bolt apart and clean the FP assembly and the inside of the bolt, with the old 700's I've bought, there seems to be lots of crap in there.  Not sure how that might come from the factory.  

Get a guide for the cleaning rod and a chamber plug with the O-ring.

I have shoot mine out to 300yard for ladder test, I'm very surprised with the result.  I've test 155TMK Ramshot TAC the rifle really like this combo. I also tested 175 Nosler CC with Accurate 4064, also like this combo.  I have shot Hornady 178 ELD-X at 100yrd it was 3/4" 5rd group.  Shot was taken prone Harris bipod & rear bag.

I've had my Remington 700 5R in a HR Precision stock for about a year now.  There may be some different opinions on this topic, but... I did a break in on my rifle of 1 shot and then clean it with a copper remover... did this 5 times.  Then 5 shots and cleaned it.  Then 10 shots and cleaned it and I was done.  I've got about 200 rounds through it now and the plan is to clean it again at around 400 rounds or when the performance changes.

I have only shot Fusion 180 grain and it works well.  100 yard shots are sub MOA holes touch.  300 yards I can hit at will although the groups are 2-3 inches apart.  600 yards I can hit a 9X9 inch piece of steel but not consistently.  This rifle is a lot of fun to shoot and is definitely one of my favorite rifles.

Attached File

My factory R700 absolutely loved FGMM 168 for inside 300 yards and FGMM 175 for beyond 400. Shot it with my AAC 762-SD can.

I tried just about all the match factory ammo out there and the FGMM was significantly more consistent. Next up was Copper Creek.

Your rifle should definitely shoot MOA or better with 168's with a 1/10 twist barrel out to 4 or 500 but 175's will shoot better beyond 600

Well luckily I was able to get the rifle out yesterday and give it a little test drive.  I had bore snaked the barrel as it was full of crud from the factory.  At the gunstore when I picked it up he had a trigger weight gauge and it was measured at 4 - 4.5# on it's lowest adjustment where basically the allen screw was completely removed.  I only ran 40 rounds total of federal gold medal match 168gr ammo through the rifle.  I noticed that some of the ammo was really sticking and closing the bolt was very rough.  I can only imagine it was crud in the chamber since I had only bore snaked it and not given it a good proper scrubbing.  The rifle fed and from the magazines and functioned perfectly otherwise.  The scope I have on it is a Vortex PST 6-24 FFP and I have a badger 20 scope base with it.  Every screw has blue loctite.  

I started off at 50 yards just to get on paper and horsed around a lot trying to just get that done since I don't have a good bore sighting laser anymore.  I was shooting 5 shot groups and honestly I don't care much if it's a 5 shot or a 3 or a 10 shot.  Yesterday I just chose 5 shot groups for no particular reason.  This was a quick shoot for me and it was almost 90 degrees out yesterday.  I didn't wait for the barrel to cool, and I didn't do anything special or fancy breaking in the barrel.  Recoil was very manageable especially for shooting off a swivel Harris bipod, and a rear sand bag.  I've thought about a muzzle device or muzzle break, but debating because I intend to put a can on it eventually.

After I got done shooting I used some bore foam and the bore snake again.  Checked out everything I could think of and it all seems solid.

This is the only picture I took of the groups I was getting.  The group on the left was probably my best of the day and the one shot all out by itself was a called flier, so I was really happy with that.  The group on the right was my last 5 of the day and after I made my last scope adjustment.  At this point I was just rushing to pop off the last 5 rounds for the day and get back inside the air conditioned house.  The barrel was very hot and I was happy with just getting rounds through it and having it ready for the next time I get it out to the range for some more serious work.  All the groups I was getting for the day were somewhere between the two groups in this picture.  I don't normally start getting really interested in how well a rifle shoots until it's got at least a hundred rounds through it but in this case I was pretty happy right out of the gate.

I'll post more pictures later if I end up taking more.  This being the internet and all I expect to hear how my groups suck, I didn't fire enough rounds for them to count, everyone else is better than me, etc, etc, but for myself I'm actually pretty happy with what I've seen so far.

I should have mentioned earlier, but I have a timney coming in to replace the factory trigger.  The factory trigger is a good functional trigger, I just want something better that's got a lighter pull weight.  Hard to go wrong with a Timney.

nic

Nice work!  Wait till she's broken in and you put that new trigger in.

I was able to get out last night.  My wife and kids were gone but I still had to rush and be quick out back.  100 yards and started punching 5 shots groups.  I was very happy with the rifle as any time a group opened up or I had a spoiler I knew I had pulled the shot.  I started shooting the stick on targets on the paper, then the last couple 5 shot s groups on the sticks below the paper were just a bunch of rushed shots to get the round count up and some time on the gun.



Timney trigger is still on the way.  Should be in next week and the more I shoot this Remington the more I look forward to the Timney.  Not saying the Remington trigger is terrible, just saying I've been spoiled.  I will also say something that cut the range trip short was a flash rain storm that dumped water out of nowhere and was just a quick bath and then it was done.  Even though my 700 has the ceracoat my bolt had surface rust on it in less than an hour.  It reminded me of one of the reasons I hadn't had a Remington for a while.

I'm hoping that once the new trigger comes in I'd like to run some other match ammo in the rifle and probably also some factory Hornady ELD ammo.

Which Timney?

Just their old tried and true 1.5# to 4# with a curved trigger.  Nothing fancy or too special about it, just a good solid trigger that's been around and tested for some time.

Yep the X mark pro is functional it's just very tough to shoot really well with. I've a 300WM 5R milspec that I've gotten down to an average of 0.6 MOA for 3 rnd groups with fatory ELD's at this point I feel the rifle is capable of more and I've outgrown the trigger.

Update.  I picked up and had my new trigger installed at the gunstore.  Stock was taken off and put back on the barreled action twice.  The gunstore owner and I figured what the heck we'd set it at 1# to really see what difference it'd make on the accuracy.  Once it was put back together and reassembled, I gave it a couple good solid thumps on the recoil pad against the floor to make sure it wouldn't misfire with such a light trigger weight and it worked just fine.

The group on the left of this picture was the first five shots after reassembling.  The high left shot was the first, the wide left shot was the 2nd.  I was really shocked to see that the next three were all back to being right on the zero.  I don't know why the first two went wild and the others didn't follow suit, but that's for the scientists to figure out.  The group on the right was the next five shots fired.  I was happy with that group, but honestly didn't see much if any real improvement over what I had been getting with the factory trigger.



On this set of targets the group on the left was my third group of 5 shots.  I had one little interruption during the string, but got back to it and finished off the 5.  The second group that's pretty tiny is actually a group of 3 rounds.  Just above these targets I had two steel plates and just had to ring them before calling it a day.  Had I really understood how tight this three shot group was I would have pump the other two into it and probably just made it worse.  :)  



Anyway, only 20 rounds through this rifle since the newly upgraded trigger.  Total round count now is at 100, with all rounds being 168gr Federal Gold Medal Match.  Maybe after another 100 rounds of the ole faithful 168's I'll test with some of the Fed 175gr GMM, and the newest Fed 185gr berger GMM.  I've got a few of the Hornady ELD loads to try out, but will mostly focus on factory match ammo.

Nice looking rifle.  Great choice on the Timney. 

Couple of things.  

First: great shooting.  No ribs here.

Second: I used to drive by they Leinenkugel plant every day to get to work.  You can see it from the freeway.  Not sure if they have more than that one, but they have good beer.  

Third: smack yourself upside the head for not posting pics of the gun.

Fourth: My M1A seems to really like Remington's Match 168 grain.  I have gotten sub MOA with it and it seems to favor it over FGMM.  At least in 168.  I've not tried 175's in it of any flavor.  But yeah, I would think Black Hills and Hornady would be very good choices.  I"m not sure why I don't hear people talk about Remington's Match ammo.  Maybe it's a little more expensive???  

Fifth:  You and I both need to reload.

I should smack myself in the head for not posting pictures of the gun.  Honestly, when a new rifle is in it's probation phase with me, I don't get too excited about taking pictures of it just yet.  This rifle deserves a good picture though.  

My M1A is a scout, and I've got it setup to run with the M80 FMJ, I haven't tried out the accuracy of it yet or even shooting it at distance yet.

I've been reloading for years, and honestly a big part of the appeal of the 308 to me was the ability to buy quality ammo right over the counter.  I don't doubt I could cut the groups down and fine tune this machine to shoot even better.  The problem for me has just been the time.  I used to reload a lot more before my wife and our three kids.  Even with a Dillon 550b I don't get around to it anymore, and with seeing Fed GMM 168gr for $15 or $16 shipped online it almost doesn't make much sense to reload anymore for as little as I get out and shoot anymore.

Where you getting it for that cheap shipped?  I would be interested to see what the prices are for the remington at the same place.  


I hear you on all accounts.  Being busy does not make for an easy time to reload.....

Where you getting it for that cheap shipped?  I would be interested to see what the prices are for the remington at the same place.  


I hear you on all accounts.  Being busy does not make for an easy time to reload.....

Palmetto State Armory

Yeah, Palmetto State Armory has been selling it for $16 a box lately, and one day they had a $16 shipped sale after however many boxes I can't remember.  They've been having it at $16 per box semi consistently here lately and I think that's an amazing bargain.  Targetsportsusa.com also tends to have a pretty consistently good deal on the ammo as well, and even though it's not as good of a deal as PSA, it's in stock nearly all the time.

At some point, I'll probably do some reloading for this rifle, but I don't see it happening for a long time.

Oh wow.  That is a good price.  I like how they have XM193 for cheap sometimes with free shipping.  The free shipping makes all the difference.  

I was on midway and the Remington Match was like over 30 bucks a box.  Not shipped.  Booooooooo.....  And then it shows 168 grain Remington to be limited availability and possibly no longer made.  But they do a 175 grain.

I've never tried any Remington match ammo.  I've never really been impressed with how any of their ammo has shot as far as accuracy goes.  I have the opinion that Remington 22lr ammo is about some of the worst ammo you could try and should only be bought when absolutely nothing else is available and you're completely out otherwise.  The only good Remington ammo in my opinion is their corelokt for hunting when I'm not expecting the worlds greatest accuracy anyway.

Palmetto has some good deals on ammo, and so do plenty of other places.  It's been so long that I've seen fed gmm ammo for under $1 a round that I don't try to overthink it and I just go ahead and buy when I see it there.

Yeah, I don't know if it's typical or not.  It's expensive anyways.  I'd be more apt to think Black Hills as the gold standard....

But I think I've only shot two groups with the box I have so far and they were both Sub MOA out of my M1A.  I always wanted to try their 62 grain BTHP loading for .223.  But I don't think they make it any longer.....  I think they're using Hornady bullets in their match ammo.  Or used to.  

If that's out of an M1A I'd take that any time I got the chance.  What model of M1A was that?  I mostly run 150gr FMJ out of my scout, and one of these days I'll run some good stuff through the rifle and see what I can get.

It's a loaded model.  But I use the crappy gen III mount and still get good, well, decent, groups....






Actually 6 or 7 rounds, not sure how I messed that one up.  

Got out to put anther 20 rounds through it last night.

First group was on the left, and of course I can't make an awesome 5 shot group without tossing one out.  The high left shot was number 4 or 5 so go figure.  The group on the right made me feel a little bit better.


These were my third and fourth 5 round groups.  I wanted to try something different on the group on the left and kept a very light grip on the rifle with my firing hand.  I wasn't impressed with my results.  The group on the right was my last 5 rounds through the rifle for the day.  


I didn't take a tape measure with me, but I 9mm FMJ and figured why not take a picture of the nights last group for reference.

That's a nice looking pew pew you've got there.   I actually popped a few off with my M1A scout last night just because your post reminded me to get it out.  

I'm not sure what photobucket just decided to do with my photo links, but I may need to do some homework on a new photo hosting site.

I went to www.imgur.com.  It works well.

I would love to see the pics.

M1A's are fun......

Once you burn up those 168s I would never look back.

Try some 155 Lapua Scenars and Varget.

BTW,

I was at an industry gathering last weekend, playing with some of Savages new semi auto .308s and 6.5 Creeds.  Also present was Federal who had some new factory .308 ammo that featured a 185 grain BERGER, loaded to box mag length. That would make a smoking good all around load for a non handloader. I imagine it will be expensive.

I've been a savage fanboy for a long time and honestly, I'm kind of surprised at how much I like this Remington because of that.  I've been keeping an eye out one their 308's because I really want to see how well they perform.  If I start seeing some positive you tube reviews and some high round count reliability reports I'll probably buy one assuming the accuracy is on par with their bolt guns.

I've got a box of the new Fed GMM 185gr at the house, just waiting for the day I've got time to play with it at the range.

Trying something new with google photos.  

Since the last time I shot this rifle I had taken the stock off again to adjust the trigger weight.  I have it set just a hair lighter than my Geisele SSA trigger and I'm happy with that weight.  The group on top was the first five. The shot to the upper right was the first round through it and I expected it to be thrown off.  The other 4 were just was I was hoping to see.  The group on the lower sticker were the next 5 shots and as much as I'd like it to be a little tighter, I'm happy with that.


On this set of groups I started in the upper left.  I was trying something differently with my rear bag and instantly regretted it after seeing the group.  Second string of 5 shots was the lower left hand group.  After that group I went to the upper right target then lower right.  Barrel was getting pretty hot, and I was getting sloppy, so there's really no excuse for those last two groups.



Of course with this being the internet and all I need to post a zoomed in picture of my best group and completely ignore all my sloppy groups.  :)


Hey, looks like I figured out how to get images up on imgur.  I'll update the rest of these photo's asap to get this thread back to where it once was.

Now that I "think" I may have the new photo hosting figured out, here's a picture of the rifle.  When I commit to a rifle, I paint it.  It's more of a mental exercise for me telling myself not to worry about scratching it or what the resale value might be some day.  It's how I tell myself this rifle is meant to be used.

Here it is all ready for it's new make over:


Here it is with a base layer of tan:


Here it is all finished up:


All I ever do when painting a rifle is slap a pretty solid layer of Kyrlon tan down on everything.  Then I'll ta krylon green & brown and spray my finger over the gun so the spray drips onto the rifle before spraying over the whole gun from far enough away that only a mist lays on the rifle.  After the base layer of tan and the spots of brown and green I put another misty layer of tan over it again.  To be completely honest, I don't think this was my best work, but it'll do for now.

Looks like good shooting to me!  

I'm a fan of woodland.  But nobody does that anymore.....  If I was any good with painting I'd attempt that.  But instead I just paint my guns brown or green.  Or with my recce AR:  Green on the lower and brown on the upper.  With some stuff left black.  I guess I need a little bit of lighter brown too, to complete the woodland color scheme.  hehehehehe


But it looks good.  I'd be happy if I was you.  Do you find the magpul stock comfy and good cheek weld?  It seems kind of high to me......

The magpul hunter came with two other cheek weld pieces, and a couple length of pull adjustments, but I never swapped out any of them and I'm comfortable with it 100% as it came from the factory.  My only gripe and this is a minor thing and me just being very nit picky is that the stock body itself is a little on the slick side.  It's not glass smooth plastic, but it's also not stippled modded glock kin of grippy either.  I find that the rifle gets a little more grippy with a little krylon on it. I have some stick on rubber grip stuff that I could cut to fit just as I'd like it to be, but I'm going to see how I like the grippyness of this with the paint on it and then reassess.  This is probably the best documented break in of a rifle I've ever done between pictures and the log book, but I'm always interested to see if the paint would have any effect on accuracy.

I'm old school and like woodland camo too.

Yeah boyeeeeeee

Last Saturday was the first time I've been able to get out and shoot so I ended up doing a little ammo testing just for giggles.  Since the rifles last firing, I did a krylon paint job and added a APA little B muzzle break.

In this picture I started from left to right, and all groups were at 100 yards:


The group on the left labeled Fed GMM 168 was the first group.  The high left round was the cold bore, the low left round was the second shot.  The three round near the bullseye were the last three of that group.  The target to the right also labeled Fed GMM 168 were the next five rounds.  The Fed Gmm 175 group was next, followed by the Fed Gmm 185.



These targets were me just trying some new Hornady ELD-X ammo, an old box of black hills 168gr, and another round of Fed GMM 175. They pretty much speak for themselves.

This group is when I backed off to 300 yards and used a shoot and see target to find where I needed to hold:


This group was confirming that hold and putting up a 5 round 300 yard group:


Once I got the 300 yard dope (6MOA), I had a little fun on the steel:






And here's another shot from the 100 yard line for giggles:

So do you think it's worth it as a beginners "precision" rifle?

Same here...looking for a 700 but unsure of the model. My range goes out to 200m and I don't reload.

Buy something in 223 if you are shooting under 600.  They will shoot beyond that but wind gets tricky.

The timing of the question "is this a good beginners rifle" is perfect because yesterday I got it out to a 1,000 yard range for the first time.  The short answer is Yes, this would be a fine rifle for anyone looking to get into precision shooting, but I have a few other suggestions as well.

If you're limited to a 200 yard range, you can do that with a 22lr and save yourself so much money that it's not even funny.  I know it's not as much fun to use a 22lr, and we all like big guns, but if I was asked to choose who's a better shooter between a guy hitting steel plates at 220 yards with a 22lr or a 308, I'd say the guy with the 22lr.  I have a savage fv-sr in a boyds tacticool stock with a bushnell 10x on it.  It'll shoot 300 yards when the wind is fairly calm.  That's just one example, and there are many other 22lr rifles that would work just as well.

If I can't talk you into a 22lr, then I'd say start with a 223.  Yesterday my buddy was shooting a savage 223 package gun that came with a Nikon 3-9x BDC reticle scope.  He was beating up steel plates at 600 yards using wolf gold ammo and that was with a consistent 15 mph wind coming at us for 30 degrees.  A good shooting 223 is always going to be a very economical choice for shooting longer range if you're just looking for some enjoyable target shooting.  If you'd like to lay a deer on it's side at that distance, then a 223 isn't the right choice, but for target shooting why not save yourself some cash in your wallet and soreness from your shoulder.

The other biggest thing you'll have to consider for a beginner precision rifle is caliber.  There are a lot of great choices out there and you could easily make the argument that there's options than a 308 for many reasons.  One thing you can't really argue though is that a lot of those calibers come and go.  Factory rifles chambered in the newer calibers and factory made ammo are both available now, but what about 5 years from now.  Most folks in the shooting world have been around long enough to remember several "new" calibers introduced through the years that for one reason or another died off.  For me, I went with the 308 because I'll probably use this rifle from a ground blind here in a few weeks, the ammo and parts will always be around for a Remington 308 bolt action and the prices of factory match ammo are back to the "good old days" pricing and likely to keep getting better.

There isn't a wrong choice for a beginning precision rifle, but just be aware that it's going to lead down a path of additional guns, scopes, ammo, etc.  My buddy who was shooting his savage 223 yesterday got the bug.  I can see it in his eyes, he's going to be a long range shooter and his rifle & scope set him back less than $400.

On the 22nd I got out to do a little quick and dirty ammo testing.  I wanted to try out a couple of different loads to see if anything would stand out.  The ammo I shot was Fed GMM 168gr, Some old handloads of Sierra MK 168gr trying to copy the Fed GMM from another rifle, HSM Trophy Gold 185gr Berger Hunting VLD, Hornady Precision Hunter 178gr ELD-X, Fed Premium GM 185 Grain Berger Juggernaut Open Tip Match, and some really old Black Hills 175gr match.

Here's the results of those same ammos listed from left to right.


You'll notice the First two bundles of 5rds were the top left two groups.  The next four groups were on the targets.  The only reasons it make look a little off is because I was trying to avoid hitting a chain I knew was behind the target.  This trip to the range was very quick and dirty and I wanted to get groups shot before my wife and kids got home.

Here's the fancy setup:  




The first load I shot was the standard Fed GMM 168gr on the left with some really old handloads of 168gr matchkings on the right.  Neither group really impressed me.


These were the HSM on the left, and the Hornady precision hunter on the right. Again, these really aren't anything to be bragging about.


These last two groups were the new Fed 185gr, and the old Black Hills 175gr.  The new Federal load really impressed me, especially since I was making absolutely no attempt to let my barrel cool.  I had 6 different loads of ammo to pound out as quickly as I could before the family got home so these just got cranked out fast.  


I've decided that I'm going to have to handload for this rifle if it's going to shoot the way I want it to.  Ideally I'm going to find the heaviest bullet I can shoot straight that'll also do double duty as a deer round if the need or opportunity would arise.  I may start with some of those Berger 185gr jugernauts because I would be happy with that group all day long let alone if I could tighten it up just a bit.

I installed a Triggertech Primary trigger in a friend's 5R stainless last weekend.  It was $99 and pretty nice with click adjustments you can reach inside the triggerguard without disassembling the rifle.

Here is something 700 owners should consider, Magpul on my LTR: