I bought a used 7400 30-06 back in Sept. It looked solid, just had some marks in the letal where it looked like it had been carried in a vehicle mount that didnt have padding to protect metal from marring. Wood was good. I shot about 20 rds through it getting it sighted in and trying different factory loads. I hunted hogs in Texas mid-Sept with no problems.
Move forward: Now hunting done for this year for that rifle. I stripped it down to the bare receiver to work on that metal. Beadblasted it bacause marring was deeper than it looked. Couldn't really take it down far enough. Blasting and cold bluing looked great. Oiled and let it cure over night and reassembled it. Reassembly was smooth, just as disassembly was. Took it out for a few test rounds and now I have a non working rifle! It will load, fire, eject, and load another round, but.....bolt will not travel far enough back to reset the hammer. When the bolt travels back it seems like there is a slight binding right where the bolt meets the hammer.....more so than it had before the work.
I've been thinking it may have something to do with either over tightening or uner tightening that barrel nut. I don't recall checking this before disassembly, but now the hammer looks like it is slightly off center to the firing pin. I may try to loosen the barrel nut slightly and see if turning it loose just a bit may rotate the bolt back to center.
Anyone else ever have this problem? I thought maybe, unknown to me that I damaged that little gas tube, but I don't see any damage and didn't let anything hit it. Just for a little controlled experiment I filled that action bar tube with a grease thinking.....if it's a gas problem that grease will seal that tube enough to make it function at least once before it blows all the grease out. It seemed to eject the empty just a little harder, but still not far enough to set the hammer. With no triiger group in it there is no binding at all. Binds even more with either of two mags I have. It just seems like I either have something not right going back together making the action sit lower on the trigger group and magazine well. Any ideas to check?
Move forward: Now hunting done for this year for that rifle. I stripped it down to the bare receiver to work on that metal. Beadblasted it bacause marring was deeper than it looked. Couldn't really take it down far enough. Blasting and cold bluing looked great. Oiled and let it cure over night and reassembled it. Reassembly was smooth, just as disassembly was. Took it out for a few test rounds and now I have a non working rifle! It will load, fire, eject, and load another round, but.....bolt will not travel far enough back to reset the hammer. When the bolt travels back it seems like there is a slight binding right where the bolt meets the hammer.....more so than it had before the work.
I've been thinking it may have something to do with either over tightening or uner tightening that barrel nut. I don't recall checking this before disassembly, but now the hammer looks like it is slightly off center to the firing pin. I may try to loosen the barrel nut slightly and see if turning it loose just a bit may rotate the bolt back to center.
Anyone else ever have this problem? I thought maybe, unknown to me that I damaged that little gas tube, but I don't see any damage and didn't let anything hit it. Just for a little controlled experiment I filled that action bar tube with a grease thinking.....if it's a gas problem that grease will seal that tube enough to make it function at least once before it blows all the grease out. It seemed to eject the empty just a little harder, but still not far enough to set the hammer. With no triiger group in it there is no binding at all. Binds even more with either of two mags I have. It just seems like I either have something not right going back together making the action sit lower on the trigger group and magazine well. Any ideas to check?