Ironic you should write this as I was just visiting with Arnold at Capital City Sports in Helena. Arnold has been a gun smith there for over 30 years as well. He stated that if he was using a Remington and one was concerned about the extractor for hunting dangerous game, that one should replace it with a Sako extractor and that basically solves that..

As to reliablity, he stated he would have no problems at all using it for whatever game there was to hunt.

Arnold also stated that if he was to build a custom rifle and had his choice, his first choice would be to use an old mauser action, then a pre-64 action and his third choice would be a Remington action. He said of all the custom rifles he has built, he has had the least problems getting the guns to shoot accurately using the Remington actions than any of the other models.

Arnold stated that he has had problems with the new Winchesters for a couple of reasons.. one being that the threading in the barrels are finer and do not work well for rebarreling--he said the new Brownings you really can't rebarrel at all.. He also used to do warrantly work for Weatherby in addition to building custom rifles and repair..he finally got out of that as he said the warranty work on the Weatherby's kept him too busy to build custom guns..and flatly states he would NOT use one for a custom rifle if it was his choice..

So, I really do appreciate your info as it is always interesting in getting another persons point of view.. I do admit I find it a bit interesting that you state you worked on thousands and thousands.. a point I raise is, there are thousands and thousands of 700's out there..in fact based on a recent article in Field and Stream, it mentioned is was the most popular bolt action in America.. so based on that I would be curious as to percentage of repair in comparison to the other less popular models.. it stands to reason, if there are 5 times more guns you will probably work on more of them as a whole..

Again, I realize they are not a Empire custom or anything of the sort. I am merely saying that based on their history and their use in the military, policy force, custom gun makers, etc.. they must have done a few things right..

Ripp