Dang! Remingtons are usually reliable. I've got an older Remington 742 carbine in 30-06. It's solid as a rock. I hardly ever hunt with it anymore though. I bought a browning A-bolt in 7mm mag in stainless. I got tired of hunting in the rain and having to oil it down every 30 min.
I'm starting to switch to hunting with my AR. I have a legal SBR lower which makes it perfectly fine to put other short barrel uppers on it. I have a 556 upper with an 8" barrel and a 300B/O with a 7.5" barrel. Makes for a very compact rifle. The 300B/O is ballistically similar to a 30/30 so it's good on deer up to about 100 yards. I'm thinking about building a 6.8spc short barrel upper. It's a great deer round up to 2-300 yards. I also have a suppressor that will work for all three calibers. It adds about 8" of length to the gun though.