What isn't Remington telling me??

3

.300 Weatherby Mag

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So I have a Remington 700 CDL .243 Winchester that I purchased new... It's been a complete disappointment in terms of both accuracy and functioning... The accuracy it produced was 6" five shot groups at 100 yards... Even after being floated and glass bedded and much load experimentation... I fought with Remington for over a year to rebarrel it and finally I won out and they put a new barrel on it.. After getting the rifle back, I shot a box of shells through it and then put it away for around a year.. Everything seemed fine and the accuracy was good..

I took it out recently and went find out what factory ammo I had laying around would shoot good in it... Everything was fine for a couple of rounds then I had the bolt stick closed upon firing... I was able to open the bolt but the lift was really stiff... Thinking I had a bad lot of ammo, I grabbed another brand and bullet weight of .243.. Only to fire four shots and then have the bolt stick really hard... Upon opening the bolt, the case was extracted from the chambered but it was not ejected when I fully retracted the bolt I then noticed the ejector was blown back into the bolt and lodged at an angle... At this point I stopped firing the gun... I had another .243 handy which ate both flavors of ammo which caused the problems in my gun...

Upon returning home I noticed that I had some primers that were cratered and other primers were backing out... Seems to me that I had something going on creating a lot of excess pressure... This led me to the thought that maybe the headspace was off.. Also the case heads were shiny and were leaving brass dust on the bolt face...

I then took the rifle, the fired cases and the factory ammo to my local Remington service center... They checked the headspace and it was fine.. The rifle was then sent back to Remington for repair... Remington examined the rifle, fired it and then replaced the bolt... I don't have any more detail than that... If the headspace is good, how could the bolt cause an overpressure situation??


Nobody wants to answer my question, so I'm hoping somebody has had a similar situation and can provide some light on the subject... I know the staff at the service center and I believe the fact that Remington is stonewalling them as well...
 
Factory loads or reloads?
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Strictly factory loads... 100 grain Remington Core Lokt, Federal 80 grain Speer Soft point, Hornady 100 Grain SPBT...

Basically all the fired cases looked like what you'd expect to see with an on overcharged reload...
 
I don't know whether this applies to you or not. But last year I bought Federal 100 grain ammo and shot it through my 243. I no longer remember details, but the necks were very thick. Perhaps your chamber neck dimension is a little small for the case necks in that rifle, and you are getting this sort of high pressure signs, and the necks in your other rifle chamber are of larger diameter so you aren't having this issue there?

Winchester ammo all exhibited signs of excessive pressure in my rifle, out of the one box I shot thru it.
 
Perhaps a short throat on the new barrel? Have you chambered and extracted a round without firing to see if the bullets are contacting the rifling? You might pull a bullet and seat it long in an inert case and measure the throat for OAL with that bullet.
 
Is/was it hard to chamber un-fired rounds?
I have a .270 WSM with a tight chamber that acts similar to what you describe, but it shoots so accurate there is no way I am going to mess with it. I modified my F.L. sizing die and have no problems.
 
"Upon returning home I noticed that I had some primers that were cratered and other primers were backing out... Seems to me that I had something going on creating a lot of excess pressure... This led me to the thought that maybe the headspace was off.. Also the case heads were shiny and were leaving brass dust on the bolt face..."

"Seems to me that I had something going on creating a lot of excess pressure..."

Before that: “I took it out recently and went find out what factory ammo I had laying around would shoot good in it... Everything was fine for a couple of rounds then I had the bolt stick closed upon firing... “

The part that gets my attention is the “ammo I had laying around” and the “primers that were cratered and other primers were backing out”.

Cases with primer protrusion are not included into the problem of excessive pressure, excessive pressure does not cause cratered primers, a cratered primer can be caused by the diameter of the firing pin hole being larger than the diameter of the firing pin. When fired the case creates an image of the bolt face on the case head. The primer should not have a dent with a high wall around it, the high wall is caused by brass flow around the firing and into the firing pin hole.

What does all of this mean? “Ammo I had lying around”, it is possible that is not what you meant to say, but if you had primers that were backed out you could have created a problem with primers leaking, the leaking primers could have gummed-up the extractor. The Remington is a push feed design, when the extractor gets gummed up it may not jump the extractor groove , meaning the extractor could have been setting behind the case head instead of in front of the extractor groove.

I went back and forth with Winchester, I had a Model 70 300 Win Mag with the ugliest chamber ‘in the world’, in the beginning they thought I was difficult, it did not take them long to go from thinking I was difficult to impossible. I wanted a chamber that fit my dies or Winchester dies that fit their chamber. They polished, they honed and they reamed, no matter what they did the chamber only got bigger/uglier.

F. Guffey
 
There is a cute saying about the firing pin hitting the primer and driving the case, powder, bullet and primer to the shoulder of the chamber, with excessive head space the push feed extractor may not be able to hold the case to the rear with all that traveling? If the extractor can not hold the case to the rear and if the case, powder and bullet runs to the front of the chamber consideration must be given to the possibility the case jumped ahead of the extractor. Because I am the fan of believing time is a factor I determine the length of the chamber first, I measure the length of the chamber from the shoulder/datum to the bolt face. Adding length to the case from the shoulder to the case head is a matter of case forming, I have a 243 reamer die, what does that mean? I can form 243 Winchester cases out of just about any case that started life as a 30/06.

F. Guffey
 
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Stubbicatt might be on to something here. The other possibility is that the chamber neck might be a little short, causing a bit of pinching of the end of the neck on the bullet. A significant amount of this will detonate a rifle, but a minor amount could cause erratic pressures. I think a good chamber cast would help here.
 
The part that gets my attention is the “ammo I had laying around”
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I think you're reading into this part too deep... I had some .243 factory ammo at home that was leftover from another .243 I owned in the past... Some of it was untouched 20 round boxes, others partially shot up...
 
FWIW
The only factory rifles shooting factory ammo that I've had problems with "overpressure like" symptoms were in 243 Win chambering.
 
Mobuck, come to think of it the .243 Win. is the only problem I have had with factory loads being over pressure myself. Frontier 90 gr. FMJ. Flattening primers like a pancake and putting an extractor mark that looked like you hit the case back with a punch. Bolt was very sticky. Extractor dropped a couple of them and had to tap them out. Considering they were 25+ years old, I just pulled them down and reloaded them. Did not figure it was worth contacting Hornaday about.
 
The same ammo worked flawlessly in other rifles, right?

If that's so, then the problem is definitely your rifle. And they are all factory loads (you're sure, right? no chance of being reloads in a factory box?)

And you're getting high pressure signs. Ammo chambers freely, bullets are not jammed into the rifling. The most likely cause is a chamber neck that is too small. Meaning too tight. Not enough clearance for the case mouth to expand and release the bullet. This will raise the pressure, and can raise it to dangerous levels!

Considering there are tolerances to everything involved, your rifle might be "in spec", and your ammo might be "in spec" just at opposite ends of the tolerance range. Min chamber neck + max neck thickness brass = pressure signs.

Could be other things, but this seems most likely to me, considering the info given. A chamber cast and careful measurement should show what the actual dimensions are. IT may be your problem is something else, but getting accurate chamber dimensions will at least let you eliminate some things.

Re-read the OP. Here's another possibility, (and since they replaced the bolt I have to wonder...)

you check headspace with a gauge set (go, no go, field), and they tell you what fits, and doesn't fit in the chamber. What they don't tell you is what happens to that "fit" when the rifle fires. IF the boltface has a little bit of "running room" before it get stopped by full lug contact, then this could result in increased case head thrust against the bolt face, giving signs of high pressure (boltface imprint on case, ect..)

I'm not an expert gunsmith, and my opinion is worth what you pay for it, but I'm wondering if such a condition could escape detection with a regular shop headspace check?

one thing your situation has in common with nearly every one I have heard of where factory repair of a gun was involved; the factories almost always tell what they did to fix it, but almost never tell WHY they did what they did....

you get it back with "replaced bolt" or whatever, but not why they replaced it, usually.
 
If that's so, then the problem is definitely your rifle. And they are all factory loads (you're sure, right? no chance of being reloads in a factory box?)
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I do not own any .243 dies nor do I accept reloads from anyone... I had a case rupture from someone's reloads when I was younger... Gas in your face can sure make a believer out of you in a hurry...
 
I too have been hit in the face by gas, and it was from one of my own reloads! Happened back when I was a teenager just starting out, my fault, entirely. Fortunately the lesson wasn't as expensive as it might have been.

It did, however make me a believer, about a number of things, including eye protection EVERY time!

they are all factory loads (you're sure, right? no chance of being reloads in a factory box?)
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The reason I asked this is because I have gotten reloads in factory boxes on occasion, at gun shows. So, I always check the appearance of the rounds, before buying now days.

I as buying a .45Win Mag pistol at a show, which came with several boxes of ammo (a big plus, since ammo for that caliber is scarce). The dealer at the show believed it to be factory ammo, and priced it as such (the gun was used, and we knew that). While chatting and looking the stuff over, I looked at a couple of the boxes, and found one with obvious reloads. So we checked them all, and found about half were reloads.

The dealer then offered me a price for the gun alone, or the package deal, with a reduced price on the ammo (dropped the ammo price by half), which I took.:D He was very good about it, once I showed him the reloads, since he had taken the gun and ammo at face value from someone else, and it was his error not making sure that what he got was actually what he was told it was.

I put my reloads in factory ammo boxes, using them over and over until they no longer last, (of course I usually mark the boxes, but not always, over the years, I know what's in them:rolleyes:)

but if someone were selling my stuff after I'm gone, and either didn't look, or know what to look for, they would have no idea they were reloads.

Best to always look for yourself, I've found.
 
Just an off the wall comment but back in 1981 I bought a Remington M700 BDL in 30-06. I don't are what was shot in the gun, i got cratered primers. Even my gallery loasds for plimnking and small gae (110 gr. cast bullet over 5.0 gr. of Unique) cratered primers. On close imspection, some yahoo at the Remington factory must have chamfered the firing pin hole a tad to get rid of a burr or something.:eek: I just ignore the craters and use other signs to determine pressure.
Paul B.
 
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