I own a total of 5 700 remingtons ranging from late 60's up til last friday night and a few in between.

my late 60's early 70's (with the old style safety / trigger) is absolutely gorgeous... BDL Varmit deluxe. shoots EXTREMELY well.. 222 remington... i have not touched the gun... no one else has... as delivered other than addition of a scope... fit, finish, performance... top notch...

my 1990 700 Classic in 25 - 06 is also exceptional for fit and finish and performance... other than the bolt is slightly squeaky when cammed into battery.

my 1998 mountain rifle in 25 - 06 (now 280 rem)... well... i was so frustrated with it that i almost pitched the POS... myriad of issues, finish was good... performance SUCKED... no sugar coating it. would not hit the broad side of a barn, even with a myriad of different handloads... bore had almost .100 runout relative to the OD of the barrel... field headspace gauge allowed the bolt to close... musta been a monday morning rifle... rebarrelled with a Shilen tube in 280 and rebluing was part of that process... now it is a beautiful gun... receiver needed some truing also... still does not shoot as well as the previous 2 listed

2005 SPS receiver machining is acceptional... square within .0005 - .001 on all dimensions i measured on bolt and receiver... threads were tight and in the lathe everything was pretty concentric and had less than .001 runout. bolt only touched on one lug though... had to lap them together. rebarrelled with a Douglas XX Tube in 35 Whelen AI, just finished the gun up this past weekend except fitting the recoil pad... has about 80 rounds through it and keep shooting better and better with each round of 5... gun was cleaned up and blued, as delivered it was pretty rough...

When i picked up the barrelled action i had blued last friday i traded my sig 229 even up for a Grice commissioned 700 CDL in 35 Whelen.... i have not shot this gun yet but appearancewise... it meets or exceeds my older classic and BDL. the bore is pretty smooth and chatter free... i have not had a really good opportunity to do any trigger work, stock fitting or lug lapping... it is as it came from the box less some new Leupold QR bases... maybe this weekend we'll get a chance to begin breaking the barrel in