remington 700P 308 hard to lock bolt

[WHEELER]

Remington 700P 308 under 200 rds between 5 trips out to the range.

The bolt goes forward smoothly, but turning the bolt down is extremely difficult, like 20+lbs of force required. Unlocking the bolt is OK. This is with wolf, lithuanian, remington, and P-P ammo.

I think it is due to the extractor? Any mods, polishing, etc. I can do to improve this?

 

[Ritten]

This is a pretty obvious cause, but just in case you haven't thought of it, have you checked your bolt face/breach face for build up of any kind?

 

[Swampy]

Yup sounds like its dirty to me to...

 

[LongRange]

If he shot Wolf steel cases in a rem 700, hes gonna need bolt work. He more than likely crimped the extractor, or worse yet, the rimline.

 

[jimdana1942]

I had a similar problem once with the ammo case not properly sized in length, either that, or have the breech micro'ed by a gunsmith.

 

[Ritten]

Is your bolt one with the dreaded "J lock" crap? I've heard of the 788's having problems with closing the bolt, but most guys have solved a hard to close bolt with extreme cleaning. Use a flashlight and some picks to inspect the locking area and breach face.


Right after I had my .30-06 built, in haste to shoot it I took it out to the range with some rounds I had previously loaded up when it was in factory configuration. The bullets were seated too long and the first round I chambered got crammed in the rifling and bolt wouldn't close. I backed the bolt off with a little persuasion to find the bullet left in the barrel and powder spilling over the action and chamber. Talk about a mess!! It took a while for me to get EVERY granule out of it and I couldn't lock the bolt down until it was. The tolerance's are pretty tight so it doesn't take much to make it difficult.

 

[Ritten]

If he shot Wolf steel cases in a rem 700, hes gonna need bolt work. He more than likely crimped the extractor, or worse yet, the rimline.

I SERIOUSLY doubt that.

 

[WHEELER]

I dont know about the j-lock but it is a 2008 or 2007 model.

It has been cleaned before, and did not notice an extreme difference. However, I have not clened with a chamber brush yet.

 

[Ritten]

No, it's not a j-lock model. It very well could be the ammo as well. If you can't find anything that chamber's smooth then you might get a smith to check your chamber headspace. Here's one of the few topics I could find with a similar problem.

http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ub...Words=700+hard+to+lock&Search=true#Post888596

 

[LongRange]

SPS's had a chambering issue buy you say it was fine for 200rnds, so i gotta say damaged bolt.

 

[WHEELER]

Sorry, i did not describe it very well. The bolt has been hard to close since the first round. Out of every 10 rounds 2-3 are 20+lb, 1-2 5-6lb, and the rest 10lb. Usually the remington has been better but some of those still turn out to be a PITA.

I did read a post on snipers about brass shavings getting caught in the ejector, I checked that out, and did not seem to be my problem.

 

[LongRange]

Then its the sizing, take it to a smith along with a typical round you use and have him set you up, should cost about 100 bucks.

 

[artabr]

I'd send it back to Remington. Let them do it for free. Sounds like their problem.


Art

 

[dzelenka]

I would send it back to Remington. I would bet you have a headspace problem. I.e. they did not cut the chamber deeply enough. This same issue can come up if you don't bump the shoulder back when resizing brass. Remington will take care of it.

 

[LongRange]

Dan would he be better off taking to a smith and having it done perfect since its tight, then it would be a perfect fitting, vs factory sizing? just wondering.

 

[Ritten]

If you have someone around you with a headspace gauge and can double check your ammo. If that's within SAAMI spec and your gun looks clean, then I'd follow the other's recommendations here and send it back to Remington to have it checked.

Having the varying difficulty sounds like the chamber's too tight.

 

[dzelenka]

Remington will do it for free and it will remain in warranty. If he knows someone with a finishing reamer for .308 and a set of go no-go gauges, he could get it done locally. If he is going to shoot all of that different ammo, he may not want the chamber at minimum. In fact, he probably has a minimum chamber right now (really minimum) since most of the remington ammo works OK.

I see that the different brands require different amounts of force. Some factory ammo is slightly longer than others. At Camp Perry 2 years ago we had a lot of Greek M2 ammo that was a bit long. Those guys with minimum chambers had hell to pay in rapid fire. The ammo was hot, so the bolt was hard to open and the ammo was long so it was hard to close. It wasn't the highest scoring Springfield Match I have seen.

How is the bolt when opening it after the round is fired? If opening it is OK and if the bolt will open and close easily with no ammo in it, the problem is very probably headspace.

Dan

 

[dzelenka]

If you want to check the headspace of your ammo, an RCBs precision mic is a handy tool. I use one to set up my sizing dies to set the shoulder back only a minimum amount. You could see if some ammo is longer than others.

Dan