Black Friday: Remington 783, is it worth it?

[RockyMtnMan]

Found a good technical article comparing the 783 to the 700 with a few references to the horribly designed 770.

It appears to me that Remington has created the 783 by taking the best features of the Savage and 700 actions and molding them together in a receiver that is more rigid than either of those actions, while still maintaining a more aesthetically pleasing look that long time Remington fans will most likely appreciate and accept.

I like the idea of a varmint rifle with a short action 783 milled out to a dual port left feed, right eject so long as there is a single shot follower available for the magazine. Plus with Boyd's already making stocks, and custom aftermarket Savage prefit barrels widely available, I think a person could put together a very effective switch barrel varmint rifle for a very reasonable price.

Here is the article I first spoke about;
http://www.realguns.com/articles/476.htm

 

[Willoughby]

how does the bolt come apart , pics would be nice , and has any one tried to see if the bolt heads interchangeable with Savage bolt heads like the barrel is ?

 

[Ggmac]

No savage bolt heads do not interchange , Dave Kiff has some listed . I think the marlin xl7 may work , I have not tested that though .

The bolt shroud rotates 90 and unlocks .

 

[Willoughby]

No savage bolt heads do not interchange , Dave Kiff has some listed . I think the marlin xl7 may work , I have not tested that though .

The bolt shroud rotates 90 and unlocks .

thank you sir for the response

 

[Ggmac]

Have you noticed the cocking cam , how shallow it is ? It's very easy to lift the bolt after firing and has a short fpin fall .

 

[Willoughby]

does any one know if all the long action mags will be the same length? I have a 3006 in to work on and the mag box measures 3.400 , and I assume the magnum calibers will be the same , but if any one has one Id like to confirm -thanks

 

[Ggmac]

Both 25-06 and 7 mm mag have the same OD length 3.540 and interchange .

 

[Riesel]

I wrote about this 6.5 Creedmoor earlier but as a refresher this is a Remington 783 with a Green Mountain barrel pillar and glass bedded in a Boyds stock. I know some may not be all that impressed but for a 500.00 rifle I think this one is a shooter. This wass shot at 500 yards with a 8-10 one o'clock breeze. the top five hole group was shot with Lapua 123 Scenars and the five on the target was Hornady 123 AMax. Both loads shot with same amount of 4064 powder. This action work nicely for a custom hunting rifle.

 

[Ggmac]

The 783 has all the goodies the savage should . I love savage ,but the quality has slipped , I've been shooting and promoting Savages for over 20 yrs , I've got close to 20 center fires . But the 783 has all the goodies BUT the interchangeable bolt handle , even with this flaw , it has a 90 deg sear , very very shallow cocking angle , short FP fall , easy bolt lift . Takes Sav small shank barrels , nut etc.

 

[Willoughby]

Im changing a barrel on a 783 a friend just purchased - the bolt is super hard to close even on a empty chamber , and its twice as hard when chambering a round - I found by replacing the ball bearing under the extractor, with a larger size fix's the latter -still haven't figured out the former , looks like the loaded chamber portion of the fp is contacting the bs - I think this will get better with use , and a longer bolt handle for leverage would also help -If I hadn't already changed the barrel out & modified the stock , I would have recommended that he send it back for warranty work- the trigger is plenty light, but has some creep. The "adjustment" don't seem to do anything . I'm sure it could be disassembled and "adjusted" but I will leave that up to the owner - for now I just want to get the bolt to close with a reasonable amount of effort .the larger extractor ball helped a lot , old Savage fix.

 

[Riesel]

I'm sorry, couldn't quite follow, what is "fp" and "bs"?
Thanks

 

[Ggmac]

Fp is firing pin ,bs bolt shroud

 

[Ggmac]

Did the rifle have hard issues before the rebarrel ? Only reason I ask is some savage barrels are not a drop in . Are you sure you have bolt nose to barrel clearance ? I usually have to take off .005-.008 to get enough clearance ,
Gary

 

[Ggmac]

What did your bolt depth measure ? How much was sticking out of the replacement barreL?

 

[Riesel]

Fp is firing pin ,bs bolt shroud

Thanks

 

[Willoughby]

Thanks

I didn't try it before Rebarrel
He bought it with the intention to Rebarrel
So I took the new barrel off without trying it
The bolt head is not contacting the barrel
So the problem would have been there with the original as well
I suppose I could reinstall it and see

 

[Willoughby]

The bolt face depth is 0.130 the savage barrel has 0.132 of the case sticking out
The original rem 783 barrel has 0.134 of the case sticking out
There is no contact between barrel and bolt face
As previously stated the-extractor Ball being to small for the hole accounted for at least half the effort to close the bolt
After remedying that the bolt still requires too much effort to close
I'm sure this would get better with time "wear"
I may disassemble the bolt and see if I can help speed up this process by polishing here or there
If that don't work I will use leverage (lengthen the handle)
Thanks to all for the info in this thread

 

[Dans40X]

Gents-
Don't fool yourselves

The 788,Sportsman 78,710,770,783's were manufactured for the week end deer hunters.

The above listed w/exception to the Sportsman78 are consumer disposables that were meant to be thrown away at the end of the deer season.

Will/Do they shoot/go bang-YES but so does a front stuffer/muzzle loader!

 

[Ggmac]

Dan40x how many 783 have you disassembled to check for rigidity , trueness , etc . Sorry no coffee yet .
Gary
In my opinion , ( over 12 783 s ) they far exceed the 700 and savages . Both in design and how true .

 

[Ggmac]

It , the 783 , was designed and built to be a entry level rifle , to compete with the Savage . The Savage has taken the market in the last 15+ yrs for " out of the box accuracy " . Rem has taken the best from the Savage , Marlin , Winchester and combined those features to produce a inexpensive accurate rifle . Yes the stock and barrel are so so , but the receiver design ,bolt are much better than the recent 700 s coming out of the factory .

I'm still shooting 2 788s that are , were competitive .