Bob Blaine
Hi Chris,
I had asked Mike about this as well. He had stated that most of what had been at play here has to do a lot with the action itself. It is a short, very stiff, action as compared to the 700 actions. The other attribute he stated had to do with a lock time that is even faster than the 700 action. He did say that the trigger could have been better but it had been of a "sufficient pull weight". I have scoped the barrel on this rifle and it is horrid looking but what I had seen is that most of the issues seen where all going in line with the bore axis. The only other things that have been done to the rifle is having to take a 1/4" off of the end of the muzzle and have it re-crowned and my gunsmith at that time had taken the pull weight down to an 18 oz. pull before he had passed away several years ago. It is needing to be freshened up but with him gone no one will redo it for me and I will be putting a Timney Trigger on it so that I can get rid of the creep that has cropped up since it had been re-worked about 4,000 rounds ago! Mike went on to say what had led to the demise of the 788 had been the fact that it did cost more to make than the 700. Remington has since sold the rights of the 788 to Pennsylvania Gun Parts and from what I had been told by them they have no plans to bring it back.