For decades I have lusted for a Remington 700 Police. I've always enjoyed shooting precision rifles, if only on a bench with bags at 100 yards seeing how small of a group I could make.
Fast forward to a few years ago when I decided to take the plunge with a SPS Tac in .308 with a 20" barrel, which immediately went into a B&C stock with a Timney trigger. That set up shot pretty well, under 1 MOA 99% of the time and more typically around .75 MOA. I even shot a group or two that were better than .5 MOA, but the .75 MOA average held over the course of three different stocks: the B&C, a Stocky's laminated and most recently with a Magpul Hunter 700. The Magpul stock was notable in that with it the rifle has produced my best 5-shot group @ 100 yards ever, but also the largest percentage of approximately 1 MOA groups.
What the Magpul stock also did was to get me off the bench onto a bipod (and tripod) and start shooting at longer ranges. It was when I did this that the deficiencies of both the rifle and my technique became much more apparent, and not really satisfied with the performance I found myself at a crossroad - time to quit or spend even more $$ to make the rifle what I want it to be: consistently capable of .5 MOA or better?
I had to make a decision if it was worth selling off some AR stuff to fund a major investment in the 700. As of last week, the process was set in motion with the following purchases (and the GA Precision Crusader serving as inspiration);
- A new Bartlein barrel, 25" long stainless steel blank in .308, 1 in 10 twist, M40 profile with 5R rifling
- A McMillan A5 in vertical black-olive marble, being inletted for M5 DBM and the M40 barrel profile (from their "inlet ready" inventory)
- A deposit check and the pieces sent to Mike Bryant to have the barrel cut to 23" and installed, the action trued and the new barreled action Cerakoted in Sig Dark Grey
For now I will be sticking with the SWFA 10X42 HD scope, which has served me very well. Maybe I'll sell off more stuff to upgrade that at some point.
I'm at least a few months away from having the new build in-hand, but hopefully it will be the rifle I have always lusted for.