New Remington 700 .223 super-tight on bolt close

CodeBasher

New member
I purchased a brand new Remington 700 SPS in .233, had a gun smith (Barry Lewis) install a 30" shilling barrel and I then bedded it to a Choate tactical stock. All topped off with a 10-40x60 scope. My young son will LOVE this for F-class!

But today I cycled it's first rounds.

New Lapua Brass, Sierra 80Gn Projectiles

Regardless of seating depth the bolt goes forward just fine but to close is ridiculously hard. Once closed I can open/close with the same round and it's fine.

From best I can gather the retaining bevel/wedge/thingy on the bolt face seems it is not allowing the shell base to easily slip over it so the shell can then be 'held'. Mind you once the shell is actually "held" I can half cycle the round very nicely; even so far as to a check brass and cycle the bolt forward and down quite smoothly. But once the shell is "let go" and needs to be "grasped" by the bolt face again it needs a lot of force to rotate the bolt downwards again.
 
The extractor on Remington 700s is a spring located in a groove inside the face of the bolt. The extractor has to "ride over" the extractor groove rim when chambering a cartridge. Often, new extractors will have burrs on them that prevent the springs from sliding in the groove, or the groove is very narrow. Take the rifle back to your smith and ask him to take a look at the extractor.
 
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