REmington 700, stuck bolt

C

cptmclark

New member
There I was innocently shooting my rifle, when the bolt jammed shut.
Not only that, but there was some smoke around the bolt and trigger assembly. Indicates a pressure problem to me, but not a high pressure cartridge, 42 gr I4895 and 165 gr Sierra. I'll pull the rest of that batch to confirm whats in there.

My first experience with this problem in 60 years of shooting. What is a good way to open the bolt and examine the case?

Thanks a lot.
 
Brute force is the only way I know of.

Be sure and check the ammo as the smoke coming out of the receiver indicates some bad stuff happened.
 
Sounds like a ruptured case to me.
42 grains of IMR4895 is way below minimum(49.0) for .30-06 and a 165. .7 of a grain below minimum for a 165 out of a .308. The latter isn't enough to matter. Neither would cause smoke to billow out and jam the bolt closed though. However, 5 grains below minimum loads can cause as bad things to happen as 5 grains over Max. So what cartridge it is, matters.
"...to open the bolt..." Rifle in a padded vise and whack the bolt handle with a rubber mallet.
 
Hot, high pressure metal cutting gas: That could be one problem and then there is high pressure. High pressure will lock it up and make it difficult to lift the bolt handle and make it difficult to extract the case, so it could be necessary to drive the handle up and then drive the handle back.

There is a good chance the extractor will jump the case rim, this will allow you to move the bolt back but the case could be locked-up in the chamber. Anyhow, get as far as you can and then call.

Many years ago Bruce Hodgdon came to out house, my oldest brother had some 270 rounds that were shooting 10' high, getting the bolt open was a workout.

F. Guffey
 
Aye, brute force.
Non-marring hammer. Block of wood. A tough palm.
Or clamp the action solid and find a way to apply pressure via other means. (Cargo strap, cheater bar, levers, etc.)

You're going to have to carefully beat or pry it open.
 
IMR 4895 can be loaded well below starting loads w/o issues. It is one of the recommended powders for loading reduced recoil loads.
Better look for another scapegoat.
 
Many may not agree but this happened to me once also and I took care of it by using a wooden dowel down the barrel and at the same time while my brother tapped on the dowel lightly I pulled on the bolt. I was afraid by forcing it with brute force it might ruin the extractor. It worked very well only thing it is a two person job and make sure the dowel fits inside the cartridge. This was many many moons ago before my hair turned grain.
 
Be for warned,The bolt handle is brazed on and may come off.

I don't know if Remington planned it,but it could be that at some point,if you have to beat the bolt open Remington would like the rifle out of service till they look at it.
 
Get a piece of steel drill rod just slightly smaller than your bore. Put it down the bore to the bolt face, hit it with a hammer while lifting the bolt handle.
 
Scorch said:
Get a piece of steel drill rod just slightly smaller than your bore. Put it down the bore to the bolt face, hit it with a hammer while lifting the bolt handle.
Click to expand...
Scorch has the right idea. This has worked for me in the past. Just beating on the bolt can take the knob off and then you have some real problems..
 
Well, thanks for the support. I didn't really want to hammer on my rifle.
I just hammered upward on the bolt handle with a rubber mallet. It was very stiff all the way up. Then the bolt extracted normally as if no problem . Now that it's out it works normally in and out. So where was it stuck??
EVIDENCE: THE CASE DOESN'T APPEAR DAMAGED BUT FELL OUT EASILY. THE PRIMER WAS SEPARATED FROM THE CASE AND BLACK SMUDGE ALL OVER THE PRIMER. NO OTHER BURN MARKS. tHERE IS A VERY DEFINITE MARK FROM THE EJECTOR, MORE THAN i'D EVER SEEN. yOU CAN FEEL THE EDGES OF THAT MARK. Maybe that's where it stuck, with a broken ejector? Have you ever seen this?
Now, the ejector as I recall is a plunger on a spring, and protrudes out of the bolt face when at rest. I'm not sure about this. The ejector is now flush with the bolt face, which seems wrong, and there is a tiny piece of bright metal (maybe primer) junction of the of the ejector and bolt face. OTHERWISE I SEE NO ABNORMALITIES, EVEN THE BLUING IS BRIGHT AND NEW LOOKING. THEY DID GOOD WORK 30 + YEARS AGO!

Sorry for so many words. I need to learn how to disassemble the bolt and whether the ejector should be sticking out of the bolt face when at rest.

Now I'll go pull some bullets and see what I really loaded under the 165 gr bullet.

Thanks again for your advice.

M
 
Checked the 06, and yep, the ejector is sticking way out. So the 308 is stuck or broken. Gotta learn how to take the bolt apart.
 
Gas went around the primer cup. Brass flowed into extractor hole and stuck the bolt. I say you over pressured that round. Consider yourself lucky.

Or that particular brass has soft head.

-TL

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk
 
Now I've pulled bullets and measured powder charge. It is 42.0 gr. Powder can on the table next to the scale is 4064. The last power I used was 4985. I'll pull all the bullets and reload just to be safe, but right now I don't see any overload. Brass is RA 65, once fired. (yes, I'm old)

Overload was my guess too.
 
Perhaps you did it to that round only. There is no way to tell for certain now.

Just count your blessings and be extra careful down the road. Check and double check after powder charge, and never lax on eye protection.

BTW, it is quite easy to disassemble the ejector. There is a small pin in the bolt body retaining the plunger. The spring behind the plunger is super stiff. Don't let it fly out. It could be a bit tricky if the plunger refuses to come out with the pin removed. Will see.

-TL

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk
 
If you wanna take the time and do some measuring, you will most likely see some eye opening things.

Measure the rim diameter against an unfired case, then measure the case body just above the rim with both cases again.

I have observed rim expansion as much as 0.006" which gives some indication as to how much the pressure hammered the case.

The ideal would be to measure the case before firing and after firing.

I have all my brass recorded in this manner.
 
wooden dowel down the barrel
Click to expand...

I'm glad that worked out for you.....and,it can workout,sometimes.
A lumberyard dowel can have a pretty shaky diagonal grain structure.

If it fails and you end up with a dowel wedged stuck in your bore ...with the bolt still stuck,you have a real problem.

It worked for you,thats good.Its not something I would recommend. Scorch's drill rod is a safer bet.

I don't have enough information to speculate about what happened with the OP,but if brass extrudes into the ejector hole you were at pretty high pressure.
I'd begin by accepting that
How you got to high pressure,you will need to discover. I would not shrug and ignore it.
You had to shear that brass off to open the bolt.I'd guess you now have brass scrapings wedging the ejector plunger.
 
Now I have the retaining pin removed, and the ejector pointed in a safe direction with a (hopefully) catcher in front of it. Problem now is that the plunger is still in its hole. I don't see how to get behind it. Maybe a broken spring caused this whole thing after 30 years. I doubt it.
I'll scrape off the metal over the space (about as wide as a pencil lead or maybe 4-5 thousands. There's no deformation in the face of the pin, but underneath maybe. If someone knows how to get behind and push the pin out that would be super.
 
My suggestion, and the method used by many gunsmiths that I know:

Add a little oil and push the ejector in farther, to see if it pops back out.
If it does, good.
If it doesn't, no big deal. If it's stuck, it will have to be drilled out anyway.
 
So far I havnt rermoved the drift pin. There's still some brass at the junction of the ejector and bolt face. Just looks like a smear. I have to remove the retainter to drive it deeper. No doubt it will get away from me when it comes out:mad:


\Thank you for all the education. You'd think after all these years id have done it once.
 
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