I never realized the quality difference before I bought a slew of 700's from an Estate sale. These were bascially NIB 700's from the 70's and early 80's. The ones I kept, was extremely accurate guns, and in fact the most accurate I got. Even more than some custombuilt guns. And barrels didn't copper foul at all. Bluing was deep blue, and looked like a custom finish. You couldn't see any brush marks. Trigger was a nice 3.5lbs with no creep.

Compared it against some newer early 2000 model BDL's. Wasn't no comparison. my new ones have the roughest barrels I ever seen. Blueing is just ok at best. And not even. Triggers have to make their way to the gunsmith. And usually takes me mroe than 3 trips to the range to find a ok SubMOA load and sometimes that finicky with weather changes.