MCW
Somebody's talking crap here & it ain't the tree!
with the warranty i think there mostly bullchit anyway, if you want any warranty work done its a likely ship them back to US, or finland and fuc that .. lol . I live down the far south coast of NSW, 4 hour drive just to hit Sydney, once bought it'll be staying put
I probably should have clarified that you may need the warranty with the Remington and if you do you are unlikely to get any help. Major problems should show up immediately and if that's the case they'll just replace the whole gun. Remington will be good for it, Raytrade may not be. If I was you I'd start asking as many people as you can in as many rifle ranges as possible about what to buy. You'll hear more Remington new rifle horror stories than any other brand. I've spent a lot of time on numerous rifle ranges in the last 15 years.
A few guys at my local gunclub a few years back had issues with Sendero .300 Winchester Magnums they bought and they had all sorts of issues getting them fixed under warranty. Apparently one whole stage of the chamber finishing process had been missed and fired cartridges wouldn't extract.
It wouldn't be the first time that I've heard Australia gets all the reject Remingtons from the US. If you listen to the yanks they hardly ever have one single issue with them.
Also don't think I'm having a crack at Remington rifles as a whole. They are a great design and you can get all sorts of aftermarket goodies for them like triggers, stocks etc. I love my 700 now that all the gremlins are sorted. If I was building a custom hunting rifle (even low end target) it would be on a 700 action.
Problem is that I have heard of more problems with new Remington 700's than any other rifle brand and as Darren mentioned the importers do not have a good history with helping out dealers who have issues, assuming that is what Darren meant. Good chance that if you buy 2nd hand all the problems have already been sorted.
I know this isn't what you probably want to do but consider this...
Buy a 2nd hand 700 in medium action length (if you want a .308). Get a new high end barrel fitted. Buy decent aftermarket stock. Buy decent trigger set (Timney etc). You'll then have a custom type rifle that will shoot the nuts off a fly at 500m and you can basically call it your own. Nobody else will have one like it