REVIEWS
X Marks The Spot
The new Model 700 XCR from Remington is a hard-hunting winner.
|
|
We could hear the stags roaring just out of sight in a thick jungle of thorny acacia trees. We crept closer to the sound of antlers clicking together as the two unseen animals sparred, but still we couldn't spot them, and after half an hour of cat and mouse, we lost them.
This certainly wasn't the scenario I envisioned when my friend Linda Powell invited me to Argentina for a hunt I'd longed to do. Originally the plan was to head into the Andes foothills and hunt red stags from horseback, but bad weather put the kibosh on that, and outfitter Luis Sier of Sier Safaris decided to move the operation to the Pampas' the large, open plain that covers much of Argentina.
With the change in venue, I called around to ask hunters more experienced than I what kind of shooting we'd be faced with. Their experiences--long shots in wide-open terrain with precious little cover--convinced me that I'd want something with more than a little reach. And for that I turned to Remington's Model 700 XCR--specifically the XCR Camo, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation edition, which is chambered only in .300 Remington Ultra Mag. Since red stag are Cervus elaphus just like our elk, I thought it was a fitting choice.
But instead of Wyoming-like open, we found African thornbush thick. And while more than once I cursed my decision as I maneuvered the rifle's 26-inch barrel through the acacias, in the end I was glad to have had the chance to hunt with the rifle and the caliber.
The Remington Model 700 is hardly new. I must confess that it is my favorite action by far, and I've hunted with the model in many of its configuration--from svelte lightweights such as my Mountain Rifle in .280 to the powerful, compact Alaskan in .300 Short Action Ultra Mag to the classically beautiful and traditional CDL in .30-06.
Like the other 700s, the XCR features the company's touted "three rings of steel" and exhibits the same smooth, easy and fast bolt throw I've come to appreciate and the accuracy I've come to count on. But the XCR, which stands for Extreme Conditions Rifle, includes several enhancements that make it an even better hunting rifle.
The most significant of these involves the metalwork. The barreled action is built from stainless steel, but knowledgeable gun folks understand that stainless steel--while an improvement over, say, traditional blued steel--is not some kind of magic finish. Neglect stainless steel by failing to perform proper maintenance and it's going to corrode.
There are several metal finishes that truly resist corrosion, but you won't often find them on a factory gun. Unless it's a Model 700 XCR.
Remington has developed a finish called TriNyte, a super-thin multilayer coating of electroless nickel and zirconium nitride. In tests, the TriNyte coating proved impervious to metal's archenemy: saltwater spray. Seventy-two hours after being bathed in such a spray, a TriNyte-coated barreled action came out bright and shiny while other stainless steel barreled actions exhibited significant rust.
The finish is also purported to resist scratching and marring, a promise it certainly lived up to on my hunt.
© 2009 Intermedia Outdoors. All rights reserved.
