Remington 700, I have a savage for sale right now 111LH 25-06.

Call Kevin Rayhill at Stockade Rifles and see what he has to say about Savages. There's also a little rifle barrel manufacturer named Shilen that thinks they're good enough that they build drop-in barrels for Savages. There are several out there if you bother to do the research.

700... my 700 Mountain Rifle LSS had a little safety "malfunction" within a year of buying it...believe me it is not fun...almost broke my thumb when it went off....the guys at McClellan didn't belive me til I pulled it out of the case and "demonstrated" the problem...never forget that "holy s#!t" look on his face....

that being said, I stand behind 'em....excellent gun....

Its all about snob appeal, one has it and the other don't. I have owned both and have used the one without for the last thirty years. Accurate, simple and easy to work on.

Depends on the 700. If you're talking plastic tastic stock and 22" barrel and you aren't going to do anything to it, I'd get te savage. If you're gonna get a bdl, cdl, varmint special, or put your own stock on it, then I'd get the 700.

I'm not a fan of the acutrigger. I prefer the old 700 triggers because they adjusted better. The only issue was that you couldn't open te bolt while it was on safety, and because it allowed sear adjustment to be finely tuned, if you adjusted it too much, or the sear wore, then while the gun was on safe you could have bumped it and let the sear fall, the result was that removing the safety would cause a discharge. If the trigger was properly adjusted and hadn't worn beyond that adjustment this wouldn't happen. I believe the new trigger allows you to open the bolt while on safe, so that you can remove the round safely. Also, the springs are tougher so that you can't adjusting the trigger leaves a larger margin of safety. I'm not a fan of the new trigger but it leaves Remington out of the loop if something goes wrong. Theoretically, removing the safety could still result in a discharge if the trigger was poorly adjusted, but it's very difficult to adjust to te point that bumping the gun will let the sear fall and still get it to [censored]. With the light springs you could adjust it to the point that bumping the gun would make it go off, but it would still [censored] every time. If the new trigger was adjusted to that new, hard to reach point, Remington can say that you should have removed the round before taking it off safety. I like the new Remington better than the acutrigger, but prefer to find an old 700, or one of the custom hunting triggers. Most custom trigger makers sell good hunting triggers for cheaper than match triggers.

Another vote for savage! Really can't beat its accuracy.

Savage has done a good job of assuring good accuracy without requiring attention to detail. Because of the floating bolt head, it will still be accurate if the bolt body is not inline with the barrel threads, because of the v-block bedding area the bedding doesn't have to be perfect, because of the barrel nut they don't have to be careful with the chamber to achieve proper head space(this also allows re-barreling without a lathe or good luck. most Remington barrels can be swapped without causing unsafe headspace, but it must checked, and adjusment requires a lathe). All that said, most Remingtons other than the plastic stocked adl will shoot just as good as a Savage. Those that don't almost always require no more than bedding and checking the free float on the barrel. I've never had a Remington that wouldn't shoot under a half inch at 100yrds with proper loading techniques. That is of course hand loaded ammo, loaded with accuracy in mind. I have heard that very rarely a 700 wil come out with the barrel threads off kilter or with the bolt body out of center-line, and that a worn firing pin hole woud cause erratic ignition based on hitting the primer off center. I have personally seen only one with threads out of square and contrary to everything a benchrester would tell you, it appeared to have no effect on accuracy. Many old bench shooters claimed that squaring the threads and bolt face, and bushing the bolt body and firing pin were the only way to get a 700 to shoot with a custom gun. I currently have a rem700 with a factory .308 varmint taper barrel that will put fie shots in .417" at 200 yards. The only modification is that the barrel was re-chamberd to a tight-neck .308 and a custom trigger was added. I bought it off a guy that had been using it for hunter class benchrest and inteded to hunt with it. It shot so dang good that it became my F-TR gun. Remington chambers are forged in place when the barrel is forged, and assume that a finish reamer is used for the final cut, but I suppose this could get chambers started off imperfectly. I've seen quite a few 700's go from .500" at 100 yards down into the .300" range with nothing but a rechamber job by a good gunsmith.

To the person buying a base-model gun intending never to change anything out of the box the savage is possibly the better bet. With a slightly bigger budget a Tikka can't be beaten, and with unlimited funds, go with a Sako, or Cooper, or anything out of the Remington custom shop. Unless thngs have changed, all guns leaving the custom shop are either fitted with a cut-rifled barrel made by Remington that is as good as any custom barrel out there, or a Hart barrel. Both are excellent. For accuracy always avoid fluted barrels unless they are cut rifled. Forged and button rifled barrels end up with tiny ridges where the flutes are that result in faster copper fouling.