I love my Tikkas and Sakos, but I own more Remingtons than any other brand. As far as Remington quality goes, I have only had one defect problem. It was on a 700 BDL SS (I think DM) in 7mm-08. It was a brand new gun and the trigger would sway left to right like a houla hoop dancer. I took it a gunsmith and he told me that Remington would most certainly replace it under warranty. However, given that I wanted to use that gun for a hunting trip within a couple of weeks (and because it would certainly take longer for Remington to replace it under warranty), I just went ahead and had the gunsmith install a jewell trigger (which is phenomenal by the way). In any event, that is the only problem that I have had with any Remington that I own. On a related note, another gunsmith once told me that Remington had some problems early on with their 300 Ultra Mags - apparently the chambering (or something like that) was not proper or properly fitted, but Remington fixed that problem. I own a 700 Ultra Mag in 700 BDL SS, but I have never shot it, so I don't know if my gun was in one of those bad batches.
Now going back to my houla hoop trigger, like I said, this was the only problem that I have ever had with any remington, and only the second problem that I have had with ANY rifle. Should Remington have realized that bad trigger during its quality control? Absolutely. Why didn't it? I don't know. However, let me briefly tell you about the second problem I have had...and this was with KIMBER! Kimber is known for making high quality rifles. I bought a Kimber Montana (which is stainless/composite) in .300WSM. Believe it or not, when you worked the bolt, you could not pull it back all the way. There was a defect, a bulge, on the outside part of the bolt (remember, Kimbers are like Winchester Pre-64 actions with the control round feed, which have that flat thin bar running along side the right side of the bolt). Well, I called Kimber and, I got to tell ya, they replaced that part and sent it back to me within something like 5 business days if I remember correctly! That has to be amazing! Still, the point is that Kimber's quality control should have easily caught that, but they didn't.
I have not bought a new Remington rifle in quite a few years - probably over 5 years - so I can't comment on their quality during these recent years. I can't honestly determine if Remington's quality before that was going down, or if I was just very impressed with Tikkas' quality which, at least for me, has always been better than Remington. I know Graybeard once took a hard look at a Tikka at my request and, gosh darn it, just as bad luck would have it, he got a hold of a Tikka that was just crappy and left a bad taste in his mouth. GB is a very honest and fair person, so I certainly believe him. I'm just trying to make a point that ALL manufacturers have a lemon here and there.
Zachary
