Fingersmuldoon
Member
- Location
- In a house.
After some research and some soul searching I finally ordered a Remington Model 5 from Elwood Epps last week. It arrived last Friday.
I had read a few reviews on t`internet, some good, some so-so, and a couple of bad, but at $253 I thought I would take a chance. Well, I have to say that, so far, I am blown away (excuse the pun) with the remington.
The rifle is blued with a brown laminated stock. The stock is excellent, with no obvious fills or dings in the wood. The finish is satin, either oiled or a thin varnish, its difficult to tell. The fit to the metalwork is good and tight, especially around the bottom metal. It takes quite some force to remove the trigger guard from its inlet in the stock. I was also pleasantly suprised with the finish in the barrel channel. I had heard reports that this could be quite rough in places, and that a soft gummy pad of sorts was used to provide contact with the barrel. On my rifle the barrel channel is reasonably smooth, and the barrel is fully floated. The stock is supplied with metal studs for attaching QD sling swivels.
The metalwork fit and finish are superb. The matte finished blue is consistent and there are no apparent machine marks on any of the metal that I can see. The only place where the finish is let down is on the bolt. The underside of the bolt could benefit from some polishing, and there are some tooling marks evident. The fit and finish of the dual extractors into the bolt also looks a little `industrial`, but they work fine. The rest of the rifle is superb. There is a hooded bead front sight, and a folding U notch rear sight that is adjustable for elevation, and drift adjustable for windage. The receiver is grooved for rimfire scope rings, and is also drilled and tapped so I would assume full size bases can be installed. I was pleased to see that all metalwork, including the trigger guard and bottom metal, is steel.
Functioning appears to be smooth, especially considering the rifle is out of the box. The bolt cycles smoothly and the trigger does not feel gritty. There appears to be a good range of adjustment on the trigger mechanism, but all adjusting screws are sealed with a red epoxy paint. The trigger itself breaks cleanly, with a little descenable take up and a small ammount of overtravel. Again, it does not appear that bad for an out of the box rifle.
The rifle comes in a standard Remington cardboard container, with a manual, 5 round mag, and a lock. The action, barrel, chamber and bolt are packed with a thick grease for shipping, so care must be taken to thoroughly clean it all off before use.
The only critisism I have to date is to do with the takedown and re-assembly of the rifle. There are two large hex head screws fore and aft of the trigger guard. The front most screw fastens to a bedding block at the front of the action, the rear is a wood screw that holds the trigger guard to the stock. It is not immediately apparent that both these screws have to be removed to disassemble the rifle. Once the trigger guard is removed a second, smaller hex screw is visible behind the trigger mechanism. This holds the rear of the action to the stock, and must be removed to fully disassemble the rifle. It is this small screw that causes problems when reassembleing the rifle.
The small hex screw uses two small steel washers to headspace it. When the screw is tightened it screws into a threaded hole that is drilled into the bottom rear of the bolt race. If it is over tightened the screw sticks so far into the bolt race that it binds the bolt, or if the bolt has been removed, prevents it from being reinserted into the rifle. On my rifle, if the screw is tightened just enough to snug the rear of the action into the stock the bolt will bind. The screw can be no more than finger tight, and thus the action is not fully bedded. The simple solution is to add a further washer so as to allow the action to be snicked up in the stock. Still, its not something that I would have expected to have to do with a new rifle.
All in all I am very impressed with the quality, fit and finish of the Remington. Its by no means and good as the CZ`s I have owned in the past, but then again, at $253 its around a 3rd of the price and certainly not a 3rd of the quality.
So, its `so far so good`. I will be paying a visit to the range later this week and let you know how she shoots.
I had read a few reviews on t`internet, some good, some so-so, and a couple of bad, but at $253 I thought I would take a chance. Well, I have to say that, so far, I am blown away (excuse the pun) with the remington.
The rifle is blued with a brown laminated stock. The stock is excellent, with no obvious fills or dings in the wood. The finish is satin, either oiled or a thin varnish, its difficult to tell. The fit to the metalwork is good and tight, especially around the bottom metal. It takes quite some force to remove the trigger guard from its inlet in the stock. I was also pleasantly suprised with the finish in the barrel channel. I had heard reports that this could be quite rough in places, and that a soft gummy pad of sorts was used to provide contact with the barrel. On my rifle the barrel channel is reasonably smooth, and the barrel is fully floated. The stock is supplied with metal studs for attaching QD sling swivels.
The metalwork fit and finish are superb. The matte finished blue is consistent and there are no apparent machine marks on any of the metal that I can see. The only place where the finish is let down is on the bolt. The underside of the bolt could benefit from some polishing, and there are some tooling marks evident. The fit and finish of the dual extractors into the bolt also looks a little `industrial`, but they work fine. The rest of the rifle is superb. There is a hooded bead front sight, and a folding U notch rear sight that is adjustable for elevation, and drift adjustable for windage. The receiver is grooved for rimfire scope rings, and is also drilled and tapped so I would assume full size bases can be installed. I was pleased to see that all metalwork, including the trigger guard and bottom metal, is steel.
Functioning appears to be smooth, especially considering the rifle is out of the box. The bolt cycles smoothly and the trigger does not feel gritty. There appears to be a good range of adjustment on the trigger mechanism, but all adjusting screws are sealed with a red epoxy paint. The trigger itself breaks cleanly, with a little descenable take up and a small ammount of overtravel. Again, it does not appear that bad for an out of the box rifle.
The rifle comes in a standard Remington cardboard container, with a manual, 5 round mag, and a lock. The action, barrel, chamber and bolt are packed with a thick grease for shipping, so care must be taken to thoroughly clean it all off before use.
The only critisism I have to date is to do with the takedown and re-assembly of the rifle. There are two large hex head screws fore and aft of the trigger guard. The front most screw fastens to a bedding block at the front of the action, the rear is a wood screw that holds the trigger guard to the stock. It is not immediately apparent that both these screws have to be removed to disassemble the rifle. Once the trigger guard is removed a second, smaller hex screw is visible behind the trigger mechanism. This holds the rear of the action to the stock, and must be removed to fully disassemble the rifle. It is this small screw that causes problems when reassembleing the rifle.
The small hex screw uses two small steel washers to headspace it. When the screw is tightened it screws into a threaded hole that is drilled into the bottom rear of the bolt race. If it is over tightened the screw sticks so far into the bolt race that it binds the bolt, or if the bolt has been removed, prevents it from being reinserted into the rifle. On my rifle, if the screw is tightened just enough to snug the rear of the action into the stock the bolt will bind. The screw can be no more than finger tight, and thus the action is not fully bedded. The simple solution is to add a further washer so as to allow the action to be snicked up in the stock. Still, its not something that I would have expected to have to do with a new rifle.
All in all I am very impressed with the quality, fit and finish of the Remington. Its by no means and good as the CZ`s I have owned in the past, but then again, at $253 its around a 3rd of the price and certainly not a 3rd of the quality.
So, its `so far so good`. I will be paying a visit to the range later this week and let you know how she shoots.
