Bell and Carlson Stock for my Remington 700

[Rimfire5]

A few months ago I bought a Remington 700 SPS Varmint in .22-250.
It had a 5.6 pound trigger that was far from clean breaking so rather than mess with the Remington trigger, I replaced it with a Timney and set it for 2 lbs.

The accuracy improved from 0.7 inches to 0.6 inches but I still felt that there was more accuracy in that rifle and felt that the factory stock - a billous green synthetic - was the cause. It was not free floating and I felt that it was binding on the barrel.

I ordered a Bell and Carlson Medalist stock with aluminum pillar bedding and a pachmyer recoil pad. I can now slide a dollar bill all the way back to the first pillar. It was basically drop in but I did have to buy longer action bolts. The pillars are longer then the factory stock.

I shot the same factory ammo and hand loads that performed well with the new trigger and got a 0.18 inch average improvement in accuracy over 39 groups.

Not only that, a number of the groups were under 0.2 inches.

I am now a believer.

 

[Palmetto-Pride]

I am also a believer in how a poor stock effects accuracy. I have a Rem 700 SPS Varmint that I put in a Chote Tactical stock and it will shoot one ragged hole if I do my part.

 

[DnPRK]

I also have a couple Medalist stocks. They work just as well as more expensive stocks from HS and McMillan.

 

[Tbag]

Glad it's working out for you. Btw there is no chance that your $ bill made it to the first pillar, more likely the recoil lug.

 

[Rimfire5]

You're right, of course. The recoil lug is right in front of the first pillar.

 

[lewwetzel]

I'm doing exactly the same thing - in reverse. I put that same B&C stock on my (stainless Cabela's special) SPS .22-250 and already have seen an improvement. Checked the trigger pull and it, too, is 5+ lbs. Was gonna back down the X-Pro, but figured it would be better and not that much more to just go with a Timney. Midway is selling the excellent Shilen for 90 bucks this month, but you have to use the stock safety, and must buy a kit to fit it to the X-Pro's; plus the Timney, with its own safety, also comes in stainless and has a nice, wide shoe that matches the looks of the stock one.

 

[Rimfire5]

lewwetzel

I don't know about the Shilen trigger but I am happy with the Timney.
Here is my experience with the Timney.
I found that you had to do a bit of grinding to fit that wide Timney trigger into the trigger guard slot on my Remington. It didn't take 10 minutes with a Dremmel tool but I was a bit concerned before I started that I was going to grind the opening and mess up the rifle. Turns out that I shouldn't have worried since, after grinding, the part you grind is fits up into the stock anyway and you don't notice the ground out portion.
Now the trigger fits nicely into the trigger guard assembly.

The Timney set to factory pull (about 4 lbs) fit beautifully into the Remington Factory stock. When I adjusted it to 2.1 lbs, I found that it protruded a bit more and bound up a bit when I fitted the mounted trigger into the stock on the Remington stock. So I ground out a bit of the stock in front of the adjustment screw (about 1/16 of an inch) and is slid right in.

With the Trigger still set at 2.1 lbs and the bolt/nut still protruding, I had no fitting problems with the Bell & Carlson. However, the B&C front aluminum pillar must be longer than the block of green synthethic that pretends to be the front pillar on the Remington stock. The front factory screw was too short to mate with the barrel. The longer screw I ordered was too long (bound up the bolt and still protruded from the trigger guard) so I ground the extra length off with my trusty Dremmel.

The first group I fired with the new stock after I put one or two rounds down range to foul the newly cleaned barrel was 0.258. Wow, was I happy.
I'm not so sure I really like the gray stock color with the speckled paint but if it shoots like that, I will live with it and learn to like it. At least it is better than that ugly green synthetic factory stock.

The next 5-8 groups were good and some were even better than the first, with the best a unbelievable 0.153, one at 0.192 and two at 0.206 & 0.210.
As the rifle got dirty (39 groups will do that to a .22-250) and admittedly I got less attentive and messed up my technique a bit go the group average got a bit larger but still was under 0.5 inches. Even with a long session and a dirty barrel I still managed quite a number of under 0.3 inch groups when I did my part.
That was the best that this rifle had ever shot in one session.