A couple of years back I bought a new in box Rem 700 in 243. Never used it, as I was planning on putting a heavy barrel 308 together. Changed plans, sold gun. Turns out the darn thing had a buggered extractor in it. The guy who bought it could not get it to extract at all! Contacted dealer I got it from, managed to get everything fixed up, but he told me that he had 5 new Remmy''s with major problems out of the box that year so far. Not impressed.
This seems to be occuring more often with several manufactures lately. Quality control is not what it used to be. My last Ruger "new" 10/22 had so much "slag" for lack of a better term around the action port, required a file to trim off. Sharp enough to rip flesh as I found out quickly.
This also applies to some factory ammo. I picked up a few boxes of Winchester 300 win mag PP 150gr ammo last fall to sight in a rifle. The gun had a custom Shilen barrel and was reputed to shoot under 1" with factory ammo. When I got to the range, I made a few discoveries.
1, the ammo had 3 distinct different stlyes of bullets. (exposed lead, expansion notches, location of canular.)
2, it shot 5" patterns at 100
3, you could hear a difference in the shots, and feel it as well.
Had 2 boxes left, took them home, pulled the bullets and weighed the charges. No frickin wonder! Lightest was 68.3gr. Heaviest was 74.5gr. Same lot # on boxes, but again some different bullet styles. WTF???
For the record, I went and found a box of federal 150gr's, tried them, 2-3 shot groups of .9" and 1.1". Not the gun's fault. Where is the quality control???
