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Bell M700 Review

 

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Short intro:

First off, some history! Remington Arms have been producing the M700 line since 1962, and it is the base for the military M24 and the M40 sniper systems. As well as beeing a popular military rifle, this gun has also seen videspread use in the police and civilian versions.

The M24 was adapted by the U.S military in 1988, and saw action in the first gulf war, afghanistan and iraq to this day. Is probably the one that looks the most like this, apart from a diffrent stock and a diffrent barrel.

The original Remington M700 has a range of 800meters, and uses a rotating bolt system.

 

 

Opening the box:

It came (tough late due to the Norwegian Royal Mail. Bleh) in a brown plain box (I didnt waste time on pictures of a brown box, I am pretty sure your imagination can handle that).. Clearly marked as toy and toy acessories. There wasn't any innerbox, just styrofoam that held the rifle in place. I guess it makes it easier for shops to just tape the gun up, and ship them. I am not a big fan of fancy boxes anyways, its whats inside that counts!

 

 

Inside, the bell came in two parts, the barrel with trigger, and the stock.

The stock itself seems very sturdy, and adds a good weight to it. You can see a small seam on the underside of the stock, but since it replicates a synthetic stock, I don't see this as a big problem.

 

 

It also comes with seperate iron sights, and the front block, on wich you can attach the front sight was already mounted. The sights needs to be screwed on, but I am guessing most players will use a scope anyways. The scope rail could use a extra tightening tough.

 

Paint looks to be good, but the "Remington M700" mark on the side gets partially hidden by the stock, a bit more attention to detail would be nice, but this isnt the selling point anyways. The rubber on the buttstock is also a bit loose, and could benefit from a bit of glue. It says "Bell Works" on the rubberend. (Sure hope it does infact work!).

 

I did a quick weigh-in of the Bell M700, and right out of the box, it weighs 2,9kg, very close to the 3,06kg of the original.

 

Putting it together:

You need to unscrew two screws on the barrel assembly before you stick it together, then you can remove the magazine bay and the triggerguard, slide the barrel in from above, and insert the triggerguard from the bottom.

I had some problems mounting my scope, but im not sure if that was due to a set of weird scope rings, or the rail itself, I measure the gap to be just shy of ,4mm. Shrug, I guess I will test this some more.

Other than that, getting ready for action was done in a few minutes, you will need a small flathead and a larger flathead for the screws. The sightblock on the front of the barrel was mounted with phillips screws.

 

Magazine slots into underneath, but bolt needs to be pulled back before you can install the magazine, and it can be released from a small nub in front of the trigger. There is also a small nub for releasing the bolt near the trigger.

 

There is a safety latch next to the bolt, and it can only be activated once you have charged the bolt.

 

Magazine:

The gun also comes with a lowcap magazine that holds 10 bbs, and a nifty tool for loading it. The tool tough, is marked up to 20 bbs, so be careful you don't stuff the mag to hard, and possibly ruin the spring. I noticed that the magazine was a bit picky on bbs, I tried to feed it some low grade 0,25 bbs, and they didn't feed very well, and when they did, the nozzle chipped little chucks of plastic. The valve on the magazine is of a wide type, so when I tried to fill it, lots of liquid gas spilled all over my hands, I have the same problems with 3 out of 6 bell 1911 mags. :/ I am also guessing the mag doesn't hold much gas, I was able to fire around 20 shots per fill. I guess it does the job, but I might be opting for a Tanaka highcap mag (if it fits) for a HPA solution later on.

 

Bolt:

The bolt itself feels a bit loose when I am pulling it back, not sure if this is a feature copied from the tanaka or not, but its no bigge, it just requires the user to be a bit more careful I guess. The nozzle was also a bit sharp, as stated above, but when I was using some good bb's, I had no problems with this. Right behind the nozzle, you will find the PCS (Power Control System), it requires you to remove the bolt, and using a small Hex screwdriver to loosen the nozzle (?), before you can adjust the power dial. I haven't tested this, but I will have a go at it when I have a chrono near. There was also an extra spring in a small plastic bag, not sure if this is a stronger striker spring, but I will have to check this later on.

 

Now for some pictures:

 

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Edited by Frakk2k
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Shooting the gun

Since the Norwegian weather didnt allow me to do some field testing, I was just popping random stuff inside, and it looks ok, but I am having some problems getting the hang of the Hop-Up (located on top of the gun, trough the rail.) Either it was to much, or it was to little.

 

 

 

I also did some quick test, shooting trough some plastic, and While my 350fps mp5 just made a tiny dent in it, the M700 shot trough the first layer, and made a deep dent into the next bit. My guess is around 450fps, but I won't be able to test this until I have borrowed a chrono. (End of this week).

 

I will come back more with groupings and chrono results, aswell as a comparison with a Tanaka M700. Stay frosty!

 

Anyways, so far it looks very good!

 

Enjoy some more pictures while you wait!

 

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-Frakk

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Oh, and on a sidenote, the manual shows a version with an adjustable buttstock. :)

 

I have popped wood.

 

Awesome review! I have a BAR-10 on order for Spring and Autumn - may have to get one of these for the nice Summer months.

Edited by Involved6
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Did some quick tests indoors now, about 5m, just to see how it goes, and frankly, its not very good atm. Some of the shots group very well, but then the odd one just veers off to one side, I am guessing the hopup unit isnt in its best shape atm.

 

Ill do some more tests, over a longer distance, and see how it goes. I'll pop up the hopup unit after I have done the stock tests, hopefully there is a lot of improvement to make on just adjusting a nob or two.

 

(The ones that did group, was about same as my Well L96.)

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I second that. I recall finding excessive grease and gunk in the barrel of some of my ACM guns. I bet that it will shoot better once it has been cleaned. Please keep us posted! I cant wait to see the results!

 

Also, as it has been stated already, I am interested in knowing if it is truly an exact clone of the Tanaka(minus the lower grade parts). Also, once you get a chance to, I would love to see how the power restrictor works, and moreso, what the ranges of fps can be achived from both ends of the spectrum. Thanks for the great review so far.

Edited by Kai_Wolf
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Good news, and bad!

 

Bad news first, I found the reason to my erratic shots:

 

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The hopup rubber is torn apart! When I took it apart, the rubber was all mangled inside the unit :P

 

Good news its a cheap part to fix, and if im even more lucky, Keith over at Rsov can send me a replacement asap!

I also took some more pictures of the hopup unit itself:

 

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I took a quick measurement of the barrel, and it is 638/9mm in length. I don't have good enough equipment to measure the inner diameter, so I can't really tell that :P

Edited by Frakk2k
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Those hop parts look to be of the same design as the Tanaka ones. So if the dimensions are the same then the KA hop for VSR rubbers should fit :)

 

Looks like accurate ACM gas sniper rifle may be just around the corner.

 

ps... i wonder if they'll clone the vsr hop adaptor too at some point :P

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I don't think the G&G rubber is worth the money becuase the original tanaka hop design was a bit hit-miss and you'll find yourself wanting to try out the VSR hop later on regardless :)

 

When i first got my AICS the grouping weren't really satisfactory. I reassembled the hop a few times and started getting reasonable groupings and when i chopped the barrel down for a short outer barrel i got better groupings still. Even so, the groupings i got when i installed the VSR kit was still better. Bear in mind that the AICS has an "improved" version of the m700 hop.

 

In fact, you can probably get on the sniper forum's tanaka thread and ask if anyone has a spare tanaka rubber left over when they upgraded to VSR style hop :)

Edited by tome
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