How do I know what type of Remington 700 I purchased?

Eye Relief?

Well, for starters, you did say you had a Tasco scope. A genuine piece of crap...with no eye relief, and looking through one is like looking through a cloud.
Simple questions deserve simple answers. Harsh, I know, but that is the easiest, fastest, way to explain it. Sorry for those that didn't want to know.
 
Now, were do I purchase ammo on-line? and what does the difference in ammo grains mean? Can my gun take anything other than .223 ammo 55 grain? What if I want to shoot at 200 yards, what should the grain be to help my bullet reach the target? Sorry, so many questions.
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Connie, you've gotten some confusing answers. 55gr is the bullet weight. If your rifle has a 1in12 twist (one full revolution of the rifling for every 12 inches) your rifle will probably only handle up to 55gr bullets. But 40-55gr bullets should be what you are looking at. It all depends on what you want. The 40 grainers will shoot the fastest. The 55's the slowest. If you are just paper punching at known ranges, just shoot the most accurate round your gun will shoot. Now say you want to shoot groundhogs where you might not know the range. The flatter shooting 40's would serve you better, even if they are a little less accurate.
The 52 grain Sierra Match King will shoot like a house of fire in tha baby. Just use their lout right out of the Sierra 5th Loading Manuel, and they will give the info to you for FREE right off their web site.
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This guy obviously didn't read all the posts, as he is giving you hand load info even though you don't hand load. LOL
 
Connie,
Let's start with the stock length.
While it's not an absolute across the board with all types of rifles & shotguns, this is a good, easy & simple way to determine if your stock is too long for you on the type of rifle you have and for the type of shooting you're trying to do.

First, make absolutely sure your gun's unloaded.

No offense intended, but I don't know your upper body strength, so I'll suggest you might want to have another person help you.

Standing upright, extend your strongside shooting arm straight out from your shoulder parallel to the floor or ground. Then bend it at the elbow into a 90-degree angle with the fingers/hand pointing at the ceiling (if it's low enough, otherwise go outside). Either you put the rifle in that hand, or have your "assistant" do it, with the muzzle pointing straight up in line with the longest section of your arm, leaving the shortest section of your arm still parallel to the ground.

Hold the rifle with your shooting hand on the stock's wrist with the trigger finger inside the triggerguard & on the trigger, in what would be your normal firing hand hold if you had the rifle itself down parallel to the ground. If you can't hold the rifle with just that hand & arm, with both rifle and that arm pointing straight up while your arm is bent in an "L" or squared position, have
somebody hold part of the weight for you.

If the stock length is correct for your height, with the stock held parallel to the long section of your arm the recoil pad or buttplate should just touch the top of the arm section still parallel to the ground, or come very close to it.
If it's too long to the degree that you can't hold the rifle in this position because the stock's butt end when resting on your arm pushes the trigger too far up away from your trigger finger, the stock is too long for you.

Described it the best I can, somebody else here may have photos they can attach.
Just because you can physically reach & pull the trigger doesn't mean the stock is necessarily a good fit for you.

If the stock IS too long, which is probably the case, it'll push you too far back away from the scope while shooting, and this problem is usually magnified when shooting on a bench. If your stock is too long, the edges and dimensions of the bench can make it hard for you to lean far enough forward to get into your proper eye relief.

One of the disadvantages of the synthetic stocks is that some can't be shortened much without removing the ability to still install a rubber recoil pad. I don't know if yours falls into that category or not. A gunsmith could tell you, if you determine that it is too long.
If it can be shortened, it shouldn't be very expensive to get it done, basically cutting an inch or so off the rear, cleaning up the edges, and re-fitting the existing pad or a new one. Depending on the work needed, somewhere between $100-$200, I'd think.

As you've probably noticed by now, a scope will require you to put your shooting eye within a certain distance from its rear to get a full picture in the eyepiece. This is roughly what's meant by the term "eye relief". Scopes vary on how much leeway you have in that distance. With some, you have a longer eye relief & you don't have to get your eye (and head) as close to the eyepiece as you do with shorter eye relief scopes.
If you have a short relief scope that requires you to get right up on it, combined with a stock that's too long and forcing you back away from your scope, you'll have an awkward, uncomfortable, inefficient, and less enjoyable time shooting your gun.

You can adjust the scope's position back & forth to a degree by loosening the rings and re-positioning the scope as far backward as the mounts will physically allow, and that may help some. But, it's a bandaid for the problem of a bad fit all the way around.

Relative to the Tasco glass, that brand was always an economy-grade line, and some of their better units were adequate. Most serious rifle people considered them as entry level. They did not have the best optics & weren't the most rugged.
Yours may have a short eye relief, which might be part of the reason why you have to work to get a good image.
If your stock fits you, you have a scope with an eye relief that mates with it and your upper body at the bench, and you have that scope positioned so your head comfortably drops right into your shooting position, the scope's full-screen image should not require much work at all to find.
Eventually, I'd suggest a better scope, and you can do well in a number of brands for casual bench shooting at around $300. Figure on going higher if you want to go competitive.

On the ammunition.
Barrel twist (the degree of spin a given bore's rifling imparts to a bullet) affects the stability and accuracy of various different bullet weights within the same caliber.

Spin a bullet too fast or too slow for its weight, and it can adversely affect both accuracy and terminal performance when it strikes its target.
In the .223, GENERALLY SPEAKING, the faster twists such as 1 turn in 7 inches, 1 in 8, and 1 in 9 work best in stabilizing heavier bullets from ABOUT 69 to 80 grains. The lighter bullets in the 40-60 grain weights USUALLY tend to work better in the older 1 in 12 range.

For general shooting out to 200 yards off the bench at paper targets, the cheaper 55-grain jacketed bullets will work fine, if your own particular barrel's twist falls within that 1 in 10 to 1 in 12 area. I don't know if it does, you might want to have a gunsmith check it, or ask Remington if they can tell you.

GENERALLY SPEAKING (I keep saying this because some guns will produce different results and there are few absolutes in this area), a heavier .223 bullet with an appropriate barrel twist will be more accurate over distances out to 300-400 yards, which would only matter to you if you plan to ever shoot that far someday.

Denis
 
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Kudos Chaser..........thanks for all the information Denis and Awesome,
It is so nice of the both of you taking the time to give me so much information.

I ordered some ammo online........making sure it was .223. Some 50 grain and some 55 grain. I have no idea what twist the gun is, but I'm guessing 1:12.........since many of the VS guns have that twist, especially from 1996.

I'm at work now, but will test out the stock when I get home.....I never new this much was involved in rifle target shooting. I don't have the money right now to replace my rifle scope, so this one will have to do. I really didn't find a problem with it.........but I guess if I had a better one to look through, I would see the difference.

I found a great place on line, where with the shipping cost, it will cost me about 30 cents a bullet for the 55 grains, a little more for the 50 grains.
I'm so glad I went with everyone's suggestion to go with a .223.

Later I'll post some pictures.

Thanks again,
Connie
 
The quality of Tasco scopes varies all over the place. I've had a couple which were about as good as any other scope I've ever looked through. Other folks have had serious problems.

As long as you're doing okay for hitting the same place on the target each time you go to the range, don't be in any hurry to replace the scope. Just save up money against some future time. Never be in a hurry. Money goes out much faster than it comes in. :)

One thing about a good rifle and the .223: It's great for tin cans, paper-punching or varmint hunting. Makes for a nice all-around fun critter.
 
Connie,
On the scope again.
Some of the Tascos, as Art & I mentioned, were adequate.

In working with a Bushnell recently on a .308 I found it had a very narrow "working range" as far as eye relief went. Had to be up fairly close, and had to be within an inch or so of the "sweet spot" for anything close to a fullscreen view.
Working with a Burris on a different .308, that one has a longer eye relief to begin with, and a longer "working range" where I can get either a fullscreen view or 90% of one through about 2-3 inches of eye position.

For bench shooting, it's less critical to have that longer "working range", since you have time to locate your sweet spot and you'll be firing from the same position shot to shot to shot. From a field or hunting perspective, a scope with a little more working room is handier when you may be be mounting the rifle quickly and acquiring a fast sight picture on game. You may not have time to settle into the ideal sweet spot sight picture like you do at the bench.

The key, though, on any scope remains a good stock fit for you. You can make a very short eye relief scope work, IF your stock lets you get close enough to it. If your stock's off, you'll be putting much more effort into adapting yourself to the gun than you should be, and for maximum efficiency and enjoyment you should ideally be adapting the gun to you.

All of this will be even more important if you ever decide to move up to any sort of competition.

As far as the overall Tasco quality goes, your .223 won't beat it under recoil, so that should not be an issue. The optics are another matter.
With no yardstick to judge by, almost any scope that you can see through may strike you as "OK". You (again, no offense intended) won't find a "problem" because you don't know what to look for and have no real basis for comparison.
Two areas to look at, all else being equal, are the relative brightness of the image you see, and the clarity of the outer section of the image presented.
Tasco glass will typically not be as bright, and you may see some distortion around the outer section of the image.

In your case, since 100 yards is really a comparatively "easy" distance to shoot at off a bench with a scope, if you plan to make your Remington a dedicated bench gun those two criteria are less important than the eye relief and stock fit. Your targets will not move, the lighting on them won't change substantially like it does in the field, the view they present remains the same (black bull on white background), even relatively "dim" glass will allow you to shoot quite well at those target types and at that distance, and any minor outer ring distortion shouldn't affect your shooting too much.
At a 100-yard static range those two optical issues are much less relevant than in the hunting field where lighting, distances, shadows, and terrain textures and colors are constantly changing.

Your Tasco should work for you to learn on. Somewhere down the road, you may want to buy better glass for a brighter and clearer image, but again- eye relief is more important.
By all means keep your Tasco while you're starting out.

Denis
 
Thank you so much Art and Denis,
I haven't had a chance to check the stock yet, but I will when I get the chance. I will save for a new scope in the future. Right now the Tasco is working for me.

Here are my targets at 100 yards for the first time shooting my remington.
I was using the 2inch targets to center my rifle scope, as you can see the bullet holes are all over the place. Then I moved on to the 6 inch targets.
I think I was getting a little tired by then.

This was only my third time shooting a gun! It really is a lot of fun. I hope I can just keep getting better!!

I'll give the stock a check in the next couple of days,
Thanks so much for all the help, you have no idea how much I lack in knowledge with shooting. :)

Connie
 

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Just an FYI, the completed assembly of bullet, powder, case and primer is called a cartridge or shell is also acceptable. The bullet is just the part that exits the muzzle and hits the target. Only noobs call the cartridge a "bullet" LOL:D
it will cost me about 30 cents a bullet for the 55 grains, a little more for the 50 grains.
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Oh my mrawsome..........I'm going to start taking notes on this forum, so I can participate by using the correct terminology! :)

Thanks so much for setting me straight!

Connie:)
 
Connie,
Looks like you're doing well at this stage of the game.
As far as getting tired goes, that's another area where a good stock & scope fit helps you shoot better. You don't have to work so hard to get everything lined up. Little things add up.

I've found if I have to struggle to get a good image in the scope shot after shot, it causes eye fatigue.

How are you shooting at your bench? What are you resting your fore-end on? Are you supporting the stock on anything at the rear? Can you sit high enough to line up your scope and rifle comfortably level?

Minimizing your own movement while you're shooting is important, too, and that's easiest when you're securely braced and supported yourself. You know to line up your crosshairs, take a good breath, let about half of it out, and then hold it while you do your final trigger squeeze?

Is your uncle helping you with any of this?

You'll get better as you go.

One other suggestion I'd make is to not lean your target backer against your car while you're shooting at it. Your insurance company will not understand at all. :D

Denis
 
Thanks Denis,

You are very funny Denis. I've been so busy with School work.......I haven't had a chance to check my stock. I'll have more time this weekend to really measure up. I am keeping a log of what I learn on this forum, so that one day I'll be putting the same bullet into the same hole on the same target! :)


Connie
 
Wow,
I shot at 200 yards today..........Lot's of fun!!!! I'm going to try 300 yards next weekend.
I wish I had started shooting guns long time ago!!! Oh well, enjoying it now!!

Connie
 
Like your style, Connie

You will do just fine. I saw your targets, very nice work. You have asked, and received sound advise and wisdom. like all things GUN, Just go out and shoot the thing, enjoy it. Don't forget to thank your Uncle ! :D

Have really enjoyed this posting
 
Connie, there is no such thing as a bad M700! Have owned many .... 6 now. And, I have had some Tasco's that did just fine. Sure I'd choose a Leupold over a Tasco but sometimes the budget gets in the way! And, I had one 2-7 Leupold that had to go to the factory for replacement. Currently have a Tasco on a Winc M70 in 338WM that is holding up fine. I don't shoot it 100s of times but for hunting it has been fine. Bought it that way and it will stay that way for awhile. Really the old steel tube, fixed power Weavers are my favs.

Your shooting is just fine, real fine, so have fun!
 
William,

I'm so glad you said that. I was shooting at 200 yards yesterday, with my remington 700 .223 and Tasco Scope. My Uncle was shooting with his 220 swift and Leopold (sp?) scope. He was so frustrated with the scope. He couldn't get it lined up. He shot mine a few times and loved it. He said my scope was so much better than his. I'm guessing my scope is about $80.
I'm hitting the bullseye, so I'm not going to change a thing. I do think a better rifle stand would help. I am using sand bags right now, and they are very frustrating. Got any suggestions for me? I've been shooting 50 grain and 55 grain. Should I also get some 62 grain when we shoot from 300 yards? I know my gun is a 1:12 twist, and I shouldn't put a cartridge with more than 62 grain in it. Correct?

Thanks so much,
Connie
 
Connnie, I can tell you are having fun. Good!

First suggestion: Do your Uncle a big favor and trade him the Tasco for his Leupold! :)

Shot some 22rf yesterday with a friend who held (may still hold) the record with his 6mmPPC. We both had Anshultz rifles of diffrent models. His new scope is a big Tasco! He was making one small ragged hole at 50 yds.

Try the heavier bullets. You never know, even with rifles of same make and same twist. But, in general, yes, you need a tighter twist for the heavier bullet. Another BUT, bullets vary in ogive, length and bearing in the bbl. Just gotta try it. Some heavier bullets may stabilize while another of the same weight may not.

Here is what I use but do not take it as a recommendation or gospel because you have to feed your rifle what it likes ...

222 - H322 23g, 52-53g bullet, standard primer, most any brass that is free! :)

223 - H322 25g, 55g Sierra Blitz bullet, standard primer

22-250 - H322 32g or IMR3031 34g, 55g bullet

220Swift -3031 33.5g or 4064 38g, 55g bullet

I bought a supply of SX and Blitz bullets years ago - like 25 - but assume thery are still available.

Every rifle is a challenge unto itself! Except I have never met a 30-06 that did not like 58g or H4831 behind any bullet you can stuff in! I use H4831 in all the 30-06 cases - 25-06, 270, 280 (7mm Express) and 30-06. Also in 7MMM, 300 WM and 338WM.

I could live with just H322 and H4831. Well, need something for my handguns and shotguns, too. So, add at least Bullseye or Red Dot.

Now, since your thread is popular I will throw out soemthing to get folks rolling their eyes.

I have found that bullets have 'velocity accuracy ranges'. At around 2800-2850 fps most bullets have an accuracy slot. Then they open until pushed to about 3150-3250 fps. Above that they start to open up again. I don't mean drastic changes but I was a benchrester for years and just found this to be true. There a bullet base width lost the match at times.

Finally, you can watch the bullet in flight and see its stabilty to compare one with another. Set a spotting scope up behind the shooter and focus at mid-range. What you can see is the bullet's shock wave in the air (unless you live in the desert where you may not). Occasionally you will see the bullet as a black dot. In a slow bullet like 22rf, or even a 30-30, you can see this with the naked eye under the right conditions. It is rare for me but I have known people who routinely see 22rf bullets in flight. A shooter who was older than I am now told me this in the mid-70's (Watch you bullet! It is going wild!). He had been a Camp Perry shooter and I have never found him to be wrong. He really taught me to shoot. You will wonder how you ever hit anything when you watch the path!

Enjoy!
 
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