As you probably already heard (via Say Uncle) Remington has reached a settlement regarding millions of their Remington 700 rifles sold since the 1960s. If that involves a recall or even a visit to your local gunsmith it could be a long time before you get your rifle(s) fixed and back in your hands.
I would like to suggest you do what I did (now that my trigger was shipped a few minutes ago) and that is order a Timney Remington 700 replacement trigger.
I have their triggers on two other types of rifles. They are amazing. There is zero perceptible take up or creep. It’s like breaking glass. Seriously. It’s what you think happened. A small glass rod must have just broken.
I have the instructions from Timney on how to replace the trigger in a Remington. It looks to be easy and straightforward. I’m going to replace the trigger on my rifle before I fire another shot. Get yours on order before the backlog gets too long.
Clarification: I should have also said that I have no firm opinion on whether the Remington trigger is in fact defective. But if you do not have your gun “repaired” (whether you think it needed it or not) and have an accident involving the trigger it might increase your liability. Why risk it? Yes, the Remington trigger has a crisp break and had a great reputation for decades. But you can get a better trigger and install it for less than $150.
That’s probably good advice, but aren’t the Timney and the Remington triggers of the same basic design? OK, now I have to take apart a couple of rifles.
Back in the dim and distant past, before Savage came out with their “AccuTrigger”, the Savage 110 and 116 rifles had a (well-deserved) reputation for having the lousiest trigger pulls in the industry. I bought a Savage .30-’06 in stainless steel with synthetic stock for an excellent price a long, long time ago and it had the trigger from hell. But I also bought an adjustable-pull Timney unit that was supposed to drop right in at the same time.
Being unwilling to mess with the trigger, I had a local gunsmith install it (he only wanted $25 to do it, since it was apparently pretty simple). Before he put it in, I asked him to measure the trigger pull on the existing factory trigger. But his trigger-pull scale had a maximum of 8-pounds…the Savage factory trigger was ‘way above that.
I had him set the Timney for around 3-1/2 pounds, and it makes all the difference in the world in how well I can shoot that rifle.
If Timney’s replacement unit for the Remington trigger is at all similar to that for the Savage, then I’d heartily endorse your suggestion to get one on order right away. This has been my go-to rifle for deer hunting in all kinds of Minnesnowta weather, and the trigger still works superbly.