rifle in for factory repair/Remington sends new rifle

B

bamaranger

New member
Was at our club range the other day and there was an elderly fella there w/ a trio of Rem 700's. Friendly enough gent, so we talked a bit. One of the rifles was a new (CDL?) with the satin finished wood stock and 24" barrel.

Turns out the gentleman had returned to Remington an older Rem 700, chambered in 30 '06, for the purpose of having the rifle rebarreled. His original rifle was a BDL model, with which he had a long history.

This fella claimed that Remington would not return his rifle, and sent him the new CDL instead. Brand new. They did not rebarrel his action, they did not install the new Mark X trigger in his action, and they did not return his 70's era BDL stock. New gun, and he claimed no amount of conversation w/ Remington would change the result.

I have no other details, I have no idea on the condition of his original rifle/barrel, and I cannot advise if there was conversation aforehand.
Without these details, we are left to speculation, .....but if I wanted "my" stock back, and those folks would not return it.....might be my last new Remington.
 
"Why would anyone send a rifle to Remington to re barrel?

Sounds fishy"

I'd guess there was some other "issue" besides needing "re-barreled".
 
This is typical.
I do gunsmithing for a few Wyoming gun stores. All tell me that when ever they need to send a Remington firearm back to Remington they need to remove everything from the gun you want to keep. Including slings, scopes, scope mounts, and even custom made stocks.
When you send them back a gun you will have very little or no contact with them, and no choice in how they respond in their "service" of that gun. You get what they decide to give. You get what you get from them, and you have no say-so at all.

The only gun company that is worse is Tikka. They don't do customer care at all.

Well at least Tikka won't keep your scope or stock. They won't receive them at all, and they won't repair ANYTHING, no matter what.

I have had 4 Tikka's come to my shop now with broken bolts. Not broken bolt handles....broken BOLTS!

Tikka says "too bad"!
They will do nothing at all.

Remington is very bad at customer service but not the worst.
 
I bought a Remington 700 BDL around the early to mid 90's. It was in .375 H&H magnum. Couldn't get it to shoot. Had shotgun pattern groups at 50 yds and keyholing. Took it to my gunsmith, he checked it out and told me the barrel was out of round, and was the worst he'd seen.
He contacted Remington and they said to ship it back for repair. This was just a month before my Elk season. Well, it took over 3 months and I got a different rifle instead of the one I sent.
First thing I did was to sell that gun the first chance I got. Remington customer service was then, and is now, horrible.
I bought a used model 70 Winchester in .375. It's twice the gun that 700 was.
 
Sounds like Remington stole the man's gun. I would call the FBI and report that they used interstate mail and transport to steal my gun. They have property stolen from me and I want you to get it back. Sounds kinda asinine but if the FBI can hassle Remington a little it might work. Worked for a friend whose gun was stolen from checked baggage on an interstate flight. Interstate crime is the key. Just a thought.
 
Ruger did the same thing for my buddy. He sent a .300 Win Mag back because the brass was showing signs of excessive headspace. Ruger sent him a new rifle rather than rebarrel the old one. He had the Ruger about 10 years before he sent it back, he only noticed the problem after he started reloading and could only get 1-2 reloads before the cases cracked above the belt.
 
Back in the late 80's I purchase Rem model 7 repeater chamber for 7BR that custom shop made. Only problem it won't feed in the magazine, was greater shooter and I debated about sending it back. I'd talk to them about it and I finally send it back.

I got call from them saying they couldn't fix it and what rifle would I like to replace it. They won't send it back so I just got another rifle from custom shop.

I don't know about now but Rem Custom Shop would rebarrel 40x and some other rifles.
 
"...need to remove everything from the gun you want to keep..." Pretty much applies to any manufacturer. Most manufacturers will tell you to do that on their web site or other correspondence. Liability issues. Scope or whatever gets damaged or lost they won't take responsibility.
Somebody on the hand gun forum (I think it was here anyway.) was 'complaining' Ruger changed all their custom parts back to factory when they sent the thing for warrantee work. CYA thing for them.
"...cases cracked above the belt..." Headspace is easier to fix with another rifle when you have a warehouse full of 'em.
 
Remington has been doing that for some years.

I sent in a 788 to be rebarrelled, I did not know a gunsmith who worked on them. Cost of $135 which didn't seem bad, their factory barrels are usually quite accurate.

I sent only the barreled action, so they wouldn't mess up my refinished and checkered mung wood stock.

When the barreled action came back, it wouldn't fit the stock. The serial number was different, too! They had returned a new barreled action, some time after the model was discontinued, instead of rebarreling the original one. The guard screw spacing was a fraction off. So that was a job of redrilling the rear hole and rebedding. Shoots good, though.
 
Sounds fishy

Remington would have had to send it back to an FFL

However, if the return policy was repair or exchange then Remington could exchange, as long as they sent back to an FFL.

FWIW, if you send an old scope back to Leupold they will often offer to replace with the current model because they cannot or will not work on the old model

I heard that if you sent a revolver back to Smith & Wesson for repair, and they saw that you had lightened the trigger, they would do your repair and set the trigger back to the factory spec.
 
This is not unusual from any manufacturer. If they decide the gun is dangerous they are responsible legally if they return it to you. It is better for them to replace it with a new similar model. Every single 700,series, 600 and model 7 made from 1946-2007 is part of a trigger recall. They may have decided it is easier and cheaper to replace the guns rather than just the trigger.

The same goes for any custom parts. The manufacturer can't be responsible for the guns safety and reliability if non factory parts are on it. If you return a firearm with custom triggers, grips, stocks, scope mounts etc. it will be returned to you exactly as it left the factory. You may, or may not get your custom parts back and the owners manual warns you not to return custom parts with the rifle.

However, if the return policy was repair or exchange then Remington could exchange, as long as they sent back to an FFL.
Click to expand...

I used to think this was the case, but a manufacturer can legally ship a new replacement firearm straight to your door. I went through that after buying a defective S&W pistol several years ago. After 3 tries at repair that failed I demanded a new pistol. They sent me the "wrong" gun initially, I complained again and finally got the right gun. They shipped them straight to my door which I thought had to be illegal, but after checking discovered was OK.
 
Remy

A sign of the times, I guess.

Makes me sad as a Remington 600 in .222 was the first center fire rifle I bought so many years ago. Up until recently, I was a diehard Remington man. I loved my
G-3 (1100) 20 ga semi-auto; it was my go to pheasant gun, but after replacing so many parts I stuck it in the back of the safe never to see the light of day.

From a liability standpoint, I can understand why a manufacturer would remove all parts that were not original to that gun.

When you send a gun back to the manufacturer for service, it is incumbent upon that manufacturer to inspect the entire weapon. If that weapon causes injury the last professional working on said weapon can be held liable.
 
Totally different for me

I bought a new 700 VL in 22-250.

I was shooting cast bullets @ 2800 fps with GREAT results. Jacketed were also shooting great.

I mixed up WW296 and WW748. Same looking cans, I charged a 55 grain jacketed bullet with 296.

I went to chrony one of the loads. I got sprayed in the face with powder and when I looked at the chrony, it said 4,000 fps +.

Bolt would not open. I took a mallet and piece of wood and tapped on the bolt. It broke the handle off.

I called Remington, told them I blew up the Rifle.

They said send it in. I did with no scope on it.

I later figured out what I had done by pulling bullets etc.

I wrote Remington a letter explaining exactly what I had done.

The letter with the returned rifle said:
Replace barrel, Replace bolt, No charge for good will.

It was shipped both ways for free.

That must have been 10 years ago. I still shoot the rifle but gave up shooting cast. Best target for the Cast was 5.5" 14 shots @ 300 yards.

I shot sporter rifle with a Remington 541-T for many years until I got this Anschutz.
My dad knew a guy that worked there (I live in NY state) they were allowed to buy one gun a year at cost. My dad got a 742 (semi auto) in 30-06 with basket weave decorated wood from him. He hunted with that all his life.

Remington is not all bad.

David
 
The only gun I've ever sent back to the factory (early nineties) was a Remington Safari Grade
.375 that was giving lots of case stretch at the belt.

Never had a case let go however and all loads shot through it were reloads
at full power which was over published loads of the time (I told all of this to the factory).

I got the rifle back within a month.
The original receiver had been re-barreled and the rather plain original stock had
been replaced with a deluxe figured stock that rivaled any Premier Grade I have ever seen.

JT
 
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