I had a very good friend from work get one of the 700 classics in 7mm-08. I do not know if he got a lemon or if that was the quality of the firearms put out by Remington at that time. First off like you said, it needed trigger work. He took the gun to the range and could not get under 2.5" group at 100 yard. I have personnally seen him shoot one ragged hole with his .243win so I would say that it is not the shooter. He tried factory and about every combination of bullet weight/brand and powder combination and still could not get better then 2" groups at 100 yds. he then had the action bedded and barrel free floated which made no difference, he then had barrel tip pressure added and that did not help. I do not know if he ever got rid of the gun. Having heard stories about Savage out of box accuracy, I would go with the Savage and spend the difference in gun price and trigger job on a nice peice of glass.

Mark