The Rem 700 SPS

About 9 months ago I finally got my Remington 700 SPS 308 Tactical. After waiting for months to save the money, along side ordering it with out the wife knowing, I got the call from the gun shop. How ironic the call came on February 24, my wife's birthday. When I called her and told her that we needed to go to the gun shop she flipped. Then when she found out that I didn't get her anything for her birthday, well I am just lucky that I am still alive.

Anyways, I did have to order it from a Remington Premier dealer, and wait for about a month to get it in. I have seen them online, which means one should be able to order one online and have it sent to their local dealer without waiting so long. The price was a little steep on mine as I paid around $650 for it. Again, I have seen them online for around $550. Of course you will have to pay for shipping and transfer fees, which in my case would have totaled close to what I paid.

So what do you get for the money? Well, you get the 700 short action with a 20 inch bull barrel. Actually it is the same barreled action as the 700P LTR. The differences between the two are the Tactical comes with a Hogue OverMolded stock and the 700P LTR comes with the H-S Precision stock, and the LTR is about $400 more than the Tactical. This is the reason a lot of people go with the Tactical.

It also comes with the X-Mark Pro trigger, which Remington claims is the most accurate out of the box trigger. It is fully adjustable from approx 2lbs to approx 4lbs. this is the way mine is anyway. The exact weighs can very slightly between rifles.

As for the rest, I topped mine with cheap weaver scope mounts and a cheap Center Point 4-16x X40 AO scope, all from Wally World. I know I should have gotten a better scope for it but I am poor, so have to use what I can. I have no complaints about the scope, it has tactical/target turrets, illuminated Mil-Dot radical, and an adjustable optive. The optic over all is surprisingly good quality for a $60 scope.

As soon as I could, I got out to the range. I took along some Remington UMC FMJ and some Winchester Super X 180gr. SP. I sighted in at 50 yards, just to get the scope close because I am poor and can't afford a bore sight. When I moved to the 100 yard range I then noticed rather quickly which ammo my rifle liked most. With the Winchester I was grouping at around ¾ to 1 MOA, heavy on the 1 side. With the cheap Remington I was able to group at ½ to ¾ MOA. Which with an out of the box rifle, I done think you can complain about half MOA accuracy. Since I am all about hitting what I aim at, I do load my own ammo. Since I emptied some brass on my first trip to the range in loaded up a couple of different loads and went back out.

I used Hornady SST 180gr. bullets with 38.5 to 48.5 grains of H380. All of my brass was once fired, and I used CCI Large Rifle Magnum primers. I was able to sub ½ MOA accuracy with my loads of 42.5 gr. (Use load data at own risk, reloading maybe fun, easy, and a good way to get away from the wife and kids for a few hours, but you have to be careful and start with smallest load possibly and work your way up.)

All in all, the Remington 700 SPS 308 Tactical is a great rifle. I would not trade mine for anything. Only thing I did was lighten the trigger a bit and find some good ammo. It is made on the action that has proved itself time and time again. The only complaint I have is that they don't make one in lefty. Other than that it is a lot of fun to shoot and has very manageable recoil.