Not an entirely 100% off-the-shelve experience, but a very high-value product offered at a great price and supported by true customer care. I recommend the purchase.
In the end, the AI chassis is very well designed and made, and the barreled action works flawlessly and shoots ½” 100 meters 3 round groups, and, more significantly, 1” 100 meters 5 round groups with Federal, Black Hill and Hornady match 190 gr and 195 gr open-tip boat-tail factory ammo; and, believe it or not, even with Prvi Partizan 180 gr soft point ammo at $17 per box of 20. And all to the same zero at 100 meters! What more would anyone wish for?
But it was frustrating to get there…
The good: the barrel break-in was done in only 5 rounds (100% clean third patch), and the gun shot 3/4" and 7/8" three round groups at 100 m with Black Hills 190 gr BTHP and Federal Gold Medal 190 gr SMK BTHP with the first box of ammo while sighting the scope without paying too much attention to the groups. That was a good sign of a well cut rifling.
The bad: Black Hills 190 gr BTHP clocked at 2,926 fps and produced sticky extraction. Federal Gold Medal 190 gr SMK BTHP clocked at 2,981 fps and produced difficult extraction. Hornady 195 gr BTHP clocked at 3,076 fps and were impossible to extract without a rubber mallet. Literally! Everyone who knows these factory loads will notice that they all clocked well over spec. A sure sign of high pressure. The bolt lifted fine but the cases were stuck, which, by the way, indicates that the primary extraction timing is out. Considering the wide gap between the bolt cam and the action cam, this is not surprising. The bolt handle is soldered too far back on the bolt and fails to produce primary extraction camming. This is disappointing.
All cases from all brands showed scratches on virtually the complete perimeter of the case for the first ¼” from the base, caused by tool marks and burs on the edge of the chamber ahead of the belt. The chamber was apparently cut with a worn out reamer in one pass and was not cleaned with a finishing reamer. This is very disappointing.
Further, as is sadly to be expected nowadays apparently with a Remington action, the four 6x48 mounting holes for the picatinny rail were not perfectly aligned. This too is very disappointing.
As to the parkerized finish, it is so rough as to constantly look scuffed, even though it cleans up well when oiled. Prepare to be shocked when opening the box! My .308 is a SSG 69, and there is simply no comparing the quality of the Remington with that of the Steyr Mannlicher. But, I understand that we do get what we pay for, so I am OK with the mediocre finish etc. (but not with the rough chamber and misaligned holes!).
Luckily, Gary Reeder, of Pistol Parlor national fame, is located Flagstaff, AZ where I live, and he accepted to work on the gun. He corrected the mounting holes misalignment by cutting and tapping new 8x40 holes correctly aligned over the misaligned factory 6x48 with a milling machine, so, $140 later, this issue was fixed. Gary said that the chamber was so bad that it could not be polished and that he had to do a complete rechamber job. Get this; the factory reamer was so worn out that Gary was able to re-chamber with his high-precision finishing reamer without having to set the barrel back one turn. This is how much the chamber was out of spec on the ultra-tight side, which explains the high pressures. The problem is now fixed, $175 later, and the gun provides one-finger extraction with all the ammo brands tested. We did not need to move the bolt knob forward. The clean chamber does not need strong primary extraction.
So, where does this leave us? In the end, the gun is great, but one should not have to spend over $300 to re-cut the rail mounting holes and re-chamber a brand new gun. Right? Apparently all the talk about Remington’s quality going down is not baseless.
On the other side of the coin, I still end up with a proven ½ MOA platform for $1,800 (purchase $1,500 + rework $300). This is STILL an outstanding value. Did you check pricing on a .300 Win Mag German or high-end American sniper rifle nowadays?
The way I recommend you look at it is as follows. Buy the gun now, you cannot beat the value for the price, and no one knows how long this will last. Do not shoot it when you receive it. Since you will anyway have the barrel threaded for a muzzle brake (I am very happy with the American Precision Arms Little Bastard Gen II); since you will anyway have the action drilled and tapped for stronger 8x40 screws to install a rock-solid 30 MOA rail (I am very happy with the Badger Ordnance); and since you will anyway have the bolt handle machined for a tactical knob (I am very happy with the Badger Ordnance), just go ahead and have a finishing reamer run through the chamber while they have the barrel out for the other work. The additional cost will be minimal with the barrel already out, and you will anyway gain accuracy, and in any case avoid all the extraction issues that appear to be very common based on various blogs.
So, yes, I highly recommend the gun, with the understanding that it is a building block that needs the above further work to be great. When everything is said and done you will spend $1,500 for the basic gun, plus $500 for the muzzle break, 8x40 screws & rail, tactical bolt knob, and chamber finish, but you will have a $2,000 gun that will give a run for its money to any $6,000 Sig Sauer, McMillan, Surgeon, etc. Just put a quality but reasonably priced scope on it (I am very happy with the Vortex Viper PST 6-24x50 FFP), and clip on the AI specific VersaPod bipod, and you will ring 12” plates at 1,200 yards with the best of them, if you know what you are doing.
And to cap it off, the EuroOptic team will be there whenever you need them. They were awesome in the way they dealt with my situation.
Happy Shooting.
Pascal