You know I think it is about atitude more than anything. I believe its always bad to try to market share by putting out lower value rifles, cars or anything. My company is doing that now. We have the best fiber optics gear in the business. All people love our gear. But hate the pricetag. But some buy it anyway. Now those are lifetime buyers. Now we are putting out a very cheap version, now that reputation might stick with us for decades to come. We are not the golden standard any more.

Another example, is cadilac. People used to buy them for thier reputation and generally status symbol. Now they put out these cheap cadis. I believe they hurt their reputation. For the short term they gain market share, but long term, thier long time big rollers buyers, won' t buy them. Not a status symbol anymore.

Let me give you an example. Sako has not ever put out a bottom value gun. People will pay that 1K pricetag just for reputation. Now they own Tikka. Still quality gun, but less price. Now any lower than that, and they will be hurtin thier reputation. I hope they don' t follow Winchester or Remington with thier " 710" versions just to compete.

The only company that has gotten away with this plan of getting market share, is maybe Weatherby with thier Walmart special versions.

Look at Harley Davidson. They are still working on repairing thier reputation from the 70' s version of their " cheaper to compete with Japan" motorcycles. I had one of these peices of junk. But still ride HD. And still try to convince people that that decade was just a bad time.

Your reputation is an invaluable thing. Companies like my own needs to protect that over all else. I talk to the VP' s about this. But thier thought is " Mark it saves jobs" and gets us over this hump in the economy. But I say " once you go down this road, there is no turning back" . Savage makes a good firearm for the money, but still struggling to repair thier reputation.

Well i will say i am partial to the remington 700' s but i have none none that were built after 2000. all shoot very well .

But i won' t buy a new remington of anything as of now. it bent me out of shape when remington put theh klintoon key on there guns. there finish on floorplates and mags is cheap. it will just peel off.
now as far as how they shoot i don' t know. but i wouldnt consider selling any of mine now.

I wonder if remingtons employees have gotten to a rate of compensation that the famous gunmaker is lowering itself to cheap guns?
or maybe remingtons executives?
Maybe it' s the lawsuit pressure?
yes they are a big company but so was smith and wesson and the gun buyers kind of forced the owners to liquidate . i don' t know if quality has gone up for smiths cause i haven' t seen a new one in my frequented shops yet.

i know the shops i like to scope guns out in aren' t carrying remingtons!

I hope remington will realize that if they do not change they will be history!
they make many models that i would love to have but not at the price but if the quality was there i could probably could pinch for them.
there is always hope!

Let them keep making this junk. At least I know when I graduate gunsmithing school there will be plenty of job security out there for me. There is always someone out there that will buy it.

It' s a real shame the way Remington has gone down hill like they have.The 597 and 710 are two examples of what Remington is all about today.A couple months ago when I was looking for a 17. They had the Remington 597' s in 17 HMR. I didn' t even take to the time to look at one of them with Remington' s reputation today.For a 22 semi auto the Ruger 10-22 is the way to go.
Ruger Redhawk

I work at a gun store where we also do gunsmithing, so I see what kinda problems certain guns have. I do see the there semi auto rimfire rifles do have a lot of problems, and I feel that the 710 is absolute junk, but havent seen many problems with there bolt action rifles and there shotguns. (well, I know that the remingtons have poor trigger pull in there rifles and stick sometimes, but other than that, not too bad) I rarely see there shotguns in the shop. I have an 870 from the early 90' s and never needed it serviced. Just like with the tasco company, the low end products make a bad name for the company (believe it or not, the higher end tascos were excellent IMO) but there cheaper scopes run em outta business....Luckily Bushnelle picked ' em up.

Oh yea, you must not work at Scotts. I was in there the other day and they said totally different.

Man what an interesting read.

I have a Rem Woodsmaster 742 semi-auto .308 that is 31 years old (inherited from my father). After years of hunting it still looks brand new, it still fires with great accuracy and I really do consider it a fine piece of hardware.

There will come a time when I will need to buy a 10 or 12 ga shotgun (because centrefire rifles aren' t allowed in Southern Ontario) and I probably would have gravitated towards Remington just due to the excellence of my .308. It is through fourms like this where I learn many things about hunting and firearms and I appreciate all comments made by you.

I guess i' ve been lucky, i own two model 700' s one about 10 yrs old and one that 1bout 2 yrs old. Both are very accurate and are made great, have several friends with new 700' s also...none of these had any problems. Maybe we all just had real good luck...lol


I am a little partial too em though........hence the name!!!

remington_nc, you mean none of them had the cheesy plastic trigger guard, cheap c-ring extractor, and cheap plastic stocks, and sledge hammer trigger pull.

I can understand about the 710..I agree junk. And the semi' s...I wouldn' t own one. But I have 2 remington 700' s, both are fantastic rifles with sub moa accuacy. Never had a single problem with them. I also have 2 model 870' s, same for them. Great guns. I can understand not being happy with the " junk" (710' s and jammomatics), but I personally don' t see the higher end stuff as " junk" . Every one of my relatives and buddies except one, shoots rem rifles and have never had any problems. My one buddy that doesn' t ... he shoots Rugers...and they have the roughest bolt I' ve ever felt...not to mention horrible triggers out of the box. Does that qualify them as junk? Not really I don' t think, but I' d take my 700' s over them any day. My dad bought a 700 adl .270 this spring, and it shot super right out of the box (sub-moa) before he had the trigger done. I wouldn' t hesitate to buy another model 700, in fact that will probably be my next gun. I feel for you if you have had problems with any gun...I just can' t relate because I haven' t.
Anyhow, just my .02.