REm 700 magazine

C

cptmclark

New member
My favorite 700 adl (blind magazine) has taken to feeding problems. On a recent caribou hunt, it pretty much gave up feeding, unless it wanted to surprise me.

When it malfunctions, the follower is tilted just so slightly to the back, so the bolt barely misses the cartridge head on the way forward. Pressing the bullet end down the slightest amount puts the cartidges back in alignment again, for normal pickup (push up in the case of the 700).

Have any of you had this problem to deal with, and if so, what is the fix. I hate to just replace the spring and follower without knowing what the problem is.

Another seperate question is about the feasability of installing a box magazine. This would be handy for situations where I use one load for say, caribou, and a different load for big bear. Not sure if it would weaken the stock, but it's relieved and glass bedded anyhow. Whadayathink?
 
something to consider

If you would look into the magazine, the bottom of the spiring isn't held captivated which at times will cause you problems like you're having. One trick I have used is to take a piece of bent spring stock, shaped like sort of like this _--_ and to epoxy the ends of it into the wood. I then slide the spring under it which helps to locate it correctly in the middle of the stock and toward the front which has helped alleviate location problems. You could of course epoxy it in place without the clip if you take the time to do it right.

As far as a box magazine, are you talking about a clip? You already have a blind box magazine which is the strongest design around. For a hunting rifle, the floorplate magazine or the clipfed magazine is a lot more convienent, but not as strong as the blind magazine. You can change stocks to a BDL and get the floorplate or the clip fed floorplate, but it is going to cost you to do so.
 
A turn in the thread

Now that I have an idea of how to fix my magazine problem, now I need to address my accuracy question with the same 700 adl in 30-06. I like the rifle, and have fussed with it for several years to coax all the accuracy I can get out of it. I visualize it as a sub moa rifle. Trouble is, it ain't. On a good day, with favorite loads I can average 1 moa, which of course means half are larger. it's glass bedded and free floated, which makes it dependable and stable, hot and cold, wet and dry, but doensn't help a bit with accuracy.
 
A turn in the thread

Now that I have an idea of how to fix my magazine problem, now I need to address my accuracy question with the same 700 adl in 30-06. I like the rifle, and have fussed with it for several years to coax all the accuracy I can get out of it. I visualize it as a sub moa rifle. Trouble is, it ain't. On a good day, with favorite loads I can average 1 moa, which of course means half are larger. it's glass bedded and free floated, which makes it dependable and stable, hot and cold, wet and dry, but doensn't help a bit with accuracy.
The learning I've had since working with this rifle, messing with target guns, is that with a really good barrel, and decent bullets, load development is nearly a thing of the past cause those will shoot .4 to .6 with any good load (good standard deviation and weight to match the twist). My question here about off the rack hunting guns is, are there nowadays better ways to get a pretty good rifle to be a sub MOA rifle, which I consider excellent for a hunting gun? Crown looks great to my eye, and the locking lugs wear pretty evenly. I'd really like to get this one to do a bit better. Oh yea, it has a really long throat, meaning I seat the bullets way out, get more case capacity, and it eats considerably more powder for more velocity, than the book values. Accuracy is best seated almost on the lands. I'm afraid to put it into the lands with such a stiff powder charge, even though pressure signs are nil. That's for what it's worth. So let me be silly for wanting a hunting gun that's sub moa. I can be silly if I want to.
 
Lol

What you have is an accurate rifle according to Remington. They make no guarantee that any of them will do much better than what yours is doing. If the gun has been fired enough that the lands are burning away, a smith could do a barrel set back and then rechamber the barrel and start fresh with a new chamber. This doesn't always work, and if so the crown may need to be cut off back about an inch and then recrowned. This may or may not work, you may let a smith check it out that can do rechambering work.

Afew things to look at are

number 1) the crown: make sure it is clean and has no dings or burrs on it, if there are any, have a smith cut a new crown.

number 2) check the gun and clean it to get all the carbon and fouling you can with a very good cleaner. Then after that, I would get a good copper cleaner and clean the barrel with it. Take the time to use enough patches and make sure all the copper which will look greenish blue is out of the gun.

number 3) buy yourself several differnt boxes of different ammo. No rifle will shoot the same ammo the same way. Find the one that helps your barrel find its sweetspot during the vibrations that it likes. You may find one that it really likes and you may not get much improvement unless you do a lot of experiementing.

number 4) even withall that you do for the rifle, you have to face the fact that it is a factory tube and just may not improve very much. The things to do to one have been taken care of by you already I am assuming, try one more final thing. Some tubes like a little upward pressure on the barrel out front. If your rifle has a pressure pad in the front, I would add a business card right underneath at the front of the stock. Add a card until you get a thickness that seems to help. If accuracy falls away, then remove the cards, sand out the pad up front and try again. Yours may not like upward pressure at all and needs to be freefloated. If this is the case, get a piece of tubing that will almost fit you stock's forearm, use a good 80 grit sand paper to wrap around it and then sand out the barrel channle back to the recoil ring. Take away the material until you can pass a couple of business cards down to the ring underneath the barrel. Now try the gun again. If this works, all you need to do is get some varnish to seal the wood in the barrel channel. Coat it with several coats.

If it doesn't, you may need to realize that it isn't going to get much better unless you change out the barrel if you're truely after bughole groups. Think about it and decide how much you are willing to spend on the rifle to make it shoot like you want it to. It could be as simple as having the action pillar bedded or adding forearm upward pressure and then again, you could have a tube that is doing as good as it gets. One thing that may help you is using something similar to David Tubb's final finish polishing bullets. I have used the Wheeler system tp impregnate bullets with a series of grit that help polish up throat erosion and have had good luck using it. This may help and may not. Good luck with it and feel free to drop back by and let us know if you find a answer to it.
 
Thanks C'boy

I glass bedded (Brownells) and floated the barrel many years ago, but it does not get shot very much. Probably well under a thousand rounds. It used to have a lot of forearm pressure, but it was all on the side:( . Stock was warped.:D I used a shoe rasp (for horseshoes) that was curved to fit the channel. Since then, the poi has never moved, and I hate to mess with it, since I do hunt in wet places. I would expect a good smith to charge quite a bit, and it wouldn't take much of that to exceed the cost of a new rifle. Do you know what a new barrel costs, installed? A good one that is. Seems to me that installation would address all of the accuracy questions. I would expect to pay maybe more than for another stock rifle though. I read that the new rifles off the rack are much better than those of 20 years ago. Your opinion or experience?
Not sure why, cause I can't shoot that well without a solid rest, but I really care about the inherent accuracy of my shooters. Just a disease, I guess. I know that in the field I can't take advantage of more accuracy than that, unless I had a varmint set up, with a place to shoot far from a rest. It does it's job just fine. Guess I'm a little embarrased about trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear. But it's my sows ear.

Regarding your barrel polishing ideas, I will try that. I assumed that after a few hundred rounds it was either polished or ruined. My new Bushmaster came with break in instructions that indicated that polishing the bore immediately when new was needed. First barrel shot 1.2 moa. They said send it back and it came back with a new barrel and bolt and shooting inside .6 with a variety of loads. Got my attention and I learned something about accurate barrels from that. New to me was that they want all polishing strokes to go forward. Never withdraw the jag back through the barrel. Man explained that the pores in the steel will get filled in with the steel high spot material, all going forward, and then there will be no room for fouling to be. Makes sense I guess.

In the remington, I've been shooting barnes bullets for oversize or dangerous critters, and man the copper takes a lot of time to get out. A good polishing might help. Thanks for the suggestion. Recently changed from x bullets to the "tripple shock" which is longer and they claim fouls less. I havent' de-fouled it since shooting it. Obvious question is why not change bullets. I use this 06 for game a little on the large for caliber size, and I think that a long heavy hard bullet, that will expand some but not too much, is the next best to getting a larger caliber gun. Barnes says 180 is a bit hard and heavy for the 06, using the tripple shock, and recommends the 165 at higher velocity for better upset. My idea is that for AK brown bear up close with a too small gun, hard is good. Just my opinion and I ain't had to test it. While I'm rambling, since my experience last week I can't recommend the 165 Nosler Ballistic Tip for caribou size game, unless you put it right into the boiler room. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. Fine accuracy, but man do they blow up on soft tissue. Sorry, off thread. I'll try to do better. Thanks for the feedback and advice.
 
Not to worry

Heck, I ramble a good bit of the time myself. I like the Barnes bullets, I shoot the 168 gr XLC bullets myself and really like them. If you are hunting bears, I think the 180 gr Barnes XLC would be the best choice. I like them a little better than the TSX myself and they foul the barrel less as well. Either bullet should hold together well enough to punch through the boiler room. You can change the bullet seating around and play with the load and get it to where the barrel likes it a little better for sure. Don't be afraid to experiement with it at all, you can find a load the barrel likes only by doing this. Get yourself a good copper fouling remover, you may just have a bad case of copper fouling causing you trouble.

As far as a barrel replacement, a new barrel from Pach Nor would come in around $225 and they offer the chambering service as well. Douglass would come in very close to that same figure. You would end up with a very accurate rifle in the same foundation that you have or you could go with a new rifle, that is totally up to you since it is your money. Savage makes a very good out of the box shooting rifle as well as other now a days. It's hard to find one that doesn't shoot better simply because the materials they used and the manufacturing tolerances are a little better than from days of yore. Good luck with the project. The only thing I would add is that if when you bedded the rifle you induced some sort of stress to the action, you can expect the accuracy to fall off even if it is bedded. If the stock drops out when you remove the action screws, you should be ok, if you have to hit it hard to get it out, I would say you have some stress in the action and may want to redo it. Take care.
 
one more thing

I forgot to mention to you about bending the spring of the magazine to help it feed up squarely in the magazine. I don't bend it where it Vees, but rather right below the carrier. If it is sticking on the front, I bend it up toward the rear and if it is sticking coming up in the rear, I bend it up toward the front. This will help make sure it rides up straight.

If you still are having troubles with it. You may need to look at the shelf where the magazine sits. You may need to have a smith fool with it to help make sure it is allowing the rounds to feed up coorectly and so that they are spread out too much.
 
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