Can someone please explain the grading system of Rem 700’s?
I think it goes something like:
Crap
Crapper
Crappiest…
Sorry. Don’t really know but the more i look into Remington, the more I’d be more inclined to buy a well made clone.
Guestimating, maybe stock quality/fit/detail?
From what i can gather, the higher the grade the higher the QC for tolerances: all the way from ‘finished this one at 4:30pm on Friday’ up to being ‘hand picked and tuned in the custom shop’.
Not much left of mine after all the upgrade replacement parts, not that there is that many really. I spoke to my gunsmith last week about doing some work on the bolt. The Remington bolt is known for having a firing pin hole on the large side. What happens is you get cratering of the primers even though there are not really excessive pressures, and that is with the large primers. He was saying that with the small primer brass it is very common to have Blanking of the primers (pierced primers).
I have pretty bad looking cratering and I dont think the bolt face is really that flat from the marks on it. When I measured it though with a drill bit in the hole it fitted a 2mm drill pretty nicely so that is 80 thou and the firing pin measured with my Very nears was about 75 thou so it sounded not to bad.
What he does is drill the firing pin hole and tap it then lock tights a 4mm bolt in there. From one end it drills and tapers it so the firing pin is guided better than the original. The firing pin it ground down to 62 thou and drills a hole not much bigger threw the bolt. This is all done in the lathe without any removal so it is all aligned. He then re faces the bolt to make it flat and square.
All that is about $100 so it will get done at some stage as a replacement bolt is no economically viable and the headspace would change too much requiring more work as well.
Cheers guys.
I was more thinking along the lines of, I’m guessing but I think the sps is the base model and they work up to the police or milspec models.
I just don’t know which ones are which, looking at 700’s online they seem to range from a few hundred bucks up to five grand plus.
The only way to upgrade a Remingbomb is to bin it and buy a Sako 
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If you look on the Remington website at the 700 family there is very little variation really a few different stocks from synthetic to chassis and a really nice exhibition grade wood. The other variation is in the barrels however that is pretty minor stuff like threaded or the 5R still hammer forged. The wiki page gives pretty good information as well.
It really looks like the 700 was designed to a price to be a cheap mass produced gun, to the point of saving 5 1/2 cents on the trigger to make it safer.
I think it is a case of buying the closest model to what you want to make your gun into over time. slowly or quickly swapping out parts for aftermarket ones.
If you have the money up front it would be better to start with a custom clone action. Barnard make a 700 compatible repeater not a clone but same action screw spacing and the rest is built properly straight and true from the outset.
based on the rave reviews here I think I’ll give em a miss.
I’m not particularly after a new rifle, but I see them on abusedguns.com and couldn’t see where there could be $5000 difference in the price of basically the same gun.
Can’t believe they firing pin issues from new. 20 years ago they were considered the bees knees. Quality must have taken a dive. I agree with Brett, if you want quality better to pay more up front, less hassle. Or buy a cheap Marlin. 
The 700 is not graded in that way, that is only the model designation and an SPS out of the box may shoot better than a 5R Mil. Remingtons grading is by model designation with the 700 at the top, the 788 or whatever is the current equivalent below that etc.The price of rifles is based on the level of work done to fine tune them, straight out of the box a Ruger VT, Sako or even Savage could compete against a Remington but the Rem is the current most popular Police/Military rifle and that always sells them. To achieve M24 SWS or M40A1 levels the gents at Quantico perform hours of custom work on these quite ordinary rifles to make them perform. Cheers.
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Remington Grades as follows
ADL Average Deluxe (Blind Magazine–Discontinued 2005) Hinged Mag now standard
CDL Classic Deluxe
VSSF Varmint Synthetic Stainless Fluted.
SPS Special Purpose Synthetic
VTR Varmint Target Rifle
AAC-SD Threaded Muzzle
XCR Tactical Extreme Conditions Rifle
VLS Varmint Laminated Stock
Short Actions-308W,7mm-08,243,22-250.223,300WSM,270WSM,6.5CM.
Long Actions 30-06.270,280Rem,7mm Rem Mag,300 Win Mag,25-06,6.5x55
Hope this helps.
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Thanks mate, that explains a lot.