The Remington Model 700 LSS Mtn. Rifle is a light weight version of the company's famous Model 700 action rifle. It comes with laminated wood stock and statinless steel metal in your choice of two long action and two short action calibers.
Way back about 1986 or maybe 1987 I bought my first Rem. 700
Mtn. Rifle. Bobby Hill was going out of business at Gauldin's
Sport Shop which he and his wife Judy had inherited when her
dad C. C. Gauldin died. Bobby had three of the then fairly
new Mtn. Rifles in stock but the calibers included only .270
Win. and .30-06. I really wanted one in .280 Remington but he
had none of them left and since he was going out of business
the close out deals were only on in stock items. I chose the
.270 Winchester. Loved that rifle. It shot both Hornady
Custom 140 BTSP and Federal Premium 150 Nosler PT into little
groups that hovered around 0.75" to one inch all the time.
Never did find a handload that would match either of them.
The only thing I didn't like about the rifle was it was blued
and not SS and had a walnut stock that while it looked really
nice just didn't have the practicality of a laminated stock
for use in the often wet woods of Alabama during hunting
season.
Fast forward a few years to a day I found another Mtn. Rifle
also in .270 Winchesster at a gun show. This one a somewhat
rare find made I think for only a couple years in limited
numbers. It has SS metal and synthetic stock and is an ADL
configuration rather than BDL. Yup, bought that one too. My
oldest son Bobby borrowed it every year after he got out of
the Army and returned it after season ended for me to clean.
He has used it to take all of his white tail deer to date.
Finally got tired of the routine and just gave it to him for
Christmas back in 1999. Since I had already acted dumb and
traded off the original Mtn. Rifle I bought I was looking
around for a replacement.
Low and behold, in the Remington catalog one day what do I
see but a Remington Model 700 LSS Mtn. Rifle with SS metal
and a laminated stock. Be still my beating heart. Yup, I went
off right away and had Steve Andrew at Sportsman's Exchange
in Gadsden, AL. order me one. They were available in two
action lengths and two calibers in each length. I chose the
long action in .30-06 and that is the subject of this review.
Boy did that introduction take a lot of words.
I fitted the rifle out with a Leupold Vari-X III 2.5-8x36
Matte finish scope and mounted it in Leupold Dual Dove Tail
Base and Rings provided for this test by Leupold. Things were
looking up as I now had the rifle I had been wanting since
that first Mtn. Rifle purchase back in the mid 80s. Life was
good. I was happy.
But happiness was short lived. The rifle wouldn't shoot for
beans. I had first tried some reloads for barrel break in and
then because nothing was working I went to the Hornady
Factory ammo they had provided because it had shot so well
for me in times past. No luck. Tried Federal factory ammo. No
luck. By now I was losing patience with this rifle I had
wanted so long. Friend Rick Brown drove over from GA one day
to see if he could help me fix this ailing rifle. We pulled
it out of the stock and glass bedded the action and first
couple inches of barrel. Rick suggested we also free float
the barrel even tho if is pencil thin so we did that too.
Rick went home and the rifle sat for a couple days for the
glass to properly cure and then I took it out to see what
would happen. Before it would often shoot two about touching
and a third (in no particular order) that would be from an
inch and a half away to off the paper at 100 yards. Well now
it was doing better. Everything was on paper and groups were
quite consistent but still not what I was looking for. More
work. I went back and put some card stock shims under the
barrel about where the factory had placed the little hump out
near the end of stock. Viola! Nice tight groups in the under
an inch to at worst 1.5" range with same loads that before
were all over. Took the stock back off and glassed in a
pressure point where the card stock had been. Let it set for
a couple days and took it back to shoot.
Well since then it is a shooter finally and now I am again a
happy camper. I have the rifle I was wanting since that first
Mtn. Rifle and it shoots!
Current specifications on the .30-06 LSS Mtn. Rifle from the
Remington website show: Barrel length of 22", Rate of Twist
of 1 in 10", Overall length of 42.5", Average weight of 6-5/8
pounds and a MSRP of $757 as this is being written in June
2001. I just bought a second one from Steve in 7MM-08 this
month and paid $610 out the door for comparison.
I have recorded much data from many many groups with both
factory ammo and reloads using a variety of bullets from
Barnes, Hornady, Nosler and Sierra and using a variety of
powders from Accurate Arms, Alliant, Hodgdon, IMR and
Winchester. Originally I planned to list all the results here
but there is just too much imperical data for one single
review. The Hornady ammo review was written when I planned to
put it all here and the other factory ammo reviews after I
changed my mind so the Hornady data will appear here and the
rest in the reviews of that brand of ammo. I won't
(can't/just too much of it list) list all the reloads I've
tried with this rifle in the roughly 1.5 years this test has
been on going. I will however high light some of them after
the Hornady data below.
Again Please remember that many of these groups were fired
BEFORE the glass bedding of the stock and do NOT reflect the
capability of the ammo but only of the way the rifle was
shooting when I burned up the ammo I was provided. Velocity
was not recorded on all.
Hornady 150 SST Group average of 1.68" BEFORE the glass
bedding job.
Hornady 150 BTSP 1.4" again BEFORE the glass bedding. An
interesting note is that the best two shots of all those
groups averaged only 0.31" so as you can see the ammo wanted
to shoot but the rifle was throwing one of three wide every
single time.
Hornady 168 HPBT Match group average BEFORE the glass bedding
job was 1.55" and that only because one was 2.5". The others
were: 1.25", 1.5", 1.5" and 1.0". The average of the best two
of them was 0.625". If only the rifle hadn't been tossing
that one of three!!!
Hornady 180 BTSP Group average BEFORE the glass bedding was
1.7".
Hornady 180 BTSP After glass bedding, group average was 0.95"
at 2560 fps.
Hornady 165 BTSP groups average was 1.45" at 2689 fps.
Hornady 150 SST group average was 2.4" and I failed to record
the velocity. Yes this was after the glass bedding. My rifle
just don't like this one for some reason.
Hornady 180 SST group average was 1.65" at 2606 fps. Yes
after glass bedding.
I think that's all of them. All I can figure out from my data
anyway. Far too many of them are skewed from the poor early
performance of the rifle.
Selected Handloads:
From BEFORE the glass bedding job:
Cases used were mostly FC and Frontier headstamp. I won't try
to sort all that out here but can provide it if anyone has a
question on a specific load. Primers were CCI-250 for all.
Sierra 175 HP 54.0 W760 1.5" at 2433 fps.
Sierra 175 HP 55.0 W760 1.8" at 2530 fps.
Sierra 175 HP 56.0 W760 0.8" at 2582 fps.
Nosler 180 BT 57.0 RL22 1.55" at 2500 fps
Nosler 180 BT 58.0 RL22 1.00" at 2533 fps
Nosler 180 BT 59.0 RL22 1.40" at 2592 fps
Sierra 180 BTSP 54.0 W760 2.4" at 2500 fps
Sierra 180 BTSP 55.0 W760 1.6" at 2566 fps
Sierra 180 BTSP 56.0 W760 2.7" at 2610 fps
Sierra 180 BTSP 59.5 RL22 1.65" at 2534 fps
AFTER glass bedding of action with barrel free floated:
Sierra 165 Game King BTSP 56.5 H380 1.8" at 2831 with a note
that this load is TOO HOT in this gun.
Barnes 150 XLCBT 56.5 H380 1.8" no velocity recorded.
AFTER glass bedding and with pressure point in place. This is
the way the rifle is NOW:
Nosler 180 BT 59.0 RL22 1.03" Sorry but no velocity data.
This is about the best load I've found for this rifle and the
same using the Nosler PT is almost exactly the same and is
now my chosen hand load for it.
Sierra 165 Game King BTSP 57.8 IMR 4350 1.4" No velocity
recorded.
Many others have been tried. Some worked as well or better
and some didn't. I have a bunch loaded up now for testing but
at some point I have to call a halt to this and get the
review up. I'll post additional updates from time to time on
the forums. For now I'm real pleased with the Nosler BT and
PT loads using RL 22. I think they will do for all of my
hunting with this gun if I chose to go no further. Same with
the Remington, Federal and Hornady factory loads. They would
do for the long haul. This rifle is one I plan to hold onto
for the rest of my life and pass down to my sons so I'll
continue to play with it and collect data for years to come
but I can't hold off on the review forever. Feel free to
e-mail me and ask if I have any new data at some future date
when you read this review on the Product Test Page. This is
the current status as of 06-15-01.
So let me close this by saying that the Remington Model 700
LSS Mtn. Rifle now meets all of my expectations for it from
the days well before Remington decided to produce it. I
wanted it. I got it. I like it. Testimony to how well I like
it is that I just traded my much loved Rem. 7 SS in 7MM-09
for another LSS Mtn. Rifle in 7MM-08 and it is now the new
test project rifle replacing this one. I give it a thumbs up
and the Graybeard Seal of Approval. It took a little work to
get it there but it is there now and I'm happy with it.
Visit the Remington Website by clicking on the name.
Remington Arms Company, Inc.
Stren Fishing Lines
870 Remington Drive
P.O. Box 700
Madison, NC 27025
TEL: 1-800-243-9700
Fax: 1-336-548-7801
E-mail: info@remington.com