Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Smoother/Easier cocking of Remington 700?

I have a 700 ADL matte-finished rifle. Last year I was able to correct some loading issues (magazine to chamber) by polishing the loading rails (removing the matte finish) and the inside of the magazine well.

Is it possible to make it easier to cock the 700? Is this an issue of two mated surfaces (not smooth matte finish), or is it solely a spring issue? If either or both, what do you do to lessen the amount of force you have to use. I don't have the bolt assembly in front of me as I write, so I hope this question makes sense.

My rifle functions perfectly, I'm just looking for another project. I'm not looking to turn it into a silky Tikka, but it would be nice.

I'm assuming you are referring to heavy/rough lift without a fired round in the chamber?

First strip and clean the firing pin assembly. Second, make sure the firing pin spring is not rubbing/binding on the inside of the bolt body. Third, apply a small amount of good quality grease to the cocking notch and the backs of the locking lugs.

After doing all this check and see if things have smoothed up.

Three things come to mind. You could replace the spring and firing pin assembly because that poorly designed factory spring is all bunched up in there. Second thing to do is use valve grinding compound to lap the camming surface between the bolt body and the firing pin. Then you want to clean it out really well and put a good lubricant on there to prevent galling. The last thing you could do is send the bolt off and have a longer bolt handle put on it. The increased mechanical advantage will reduce the force needed to cycle the action.

First, thank you for the replies...

RickB, yes that is one time it is tougher to open, why I'm not sure. Even after decocking by pulling the trigger and closing the bolt (this is how I store the rifle long-term), it's tough to open. Tough is a relative term though, it's not difficult just not as smooth as some actions to open.

A binding spring means there is too much spring doesn't it? Is it possible to remove a link or two w/o changing the engagement of the sear, and/or not having enough pressure to fire correctly (pop the primer)?

I noticed previously that just cleaning the firing pin spring makes a difference, which meant to me that there is just too much spring in there (it's just too tight).

I've used lithium grease before, it seems to be a good grease (it's made for metal to metal movement) and doesn't gum up anything.

It's easier to just replace the factory spring or the entire firing pin assembly. They don't cost that much and you will get a much more efficient unit that improves lock time, gives more reliable ignition, and smoother operation.

A big improvement can be had by hardening the cocking cam and polishing it. Heat it to a bright red with a small, slightly carburizing, oxy-acetylene flame and quench in oil. Then polish the camming surface with a 600 grit paper. This is another of those "used to be common" gunsmithing techniques which are usually avoided by modern day 'smiths. If you are not familiar with heat treating techniques and possible pitfalls, you should avoid it as well!GD

Please elaborate.

The cocking piece is already hard. The cam surface on the bolt is softer steel. You might try some Molykote "G" lube or any real moly lube on the mating surfaces and cycle it a hundred or a lot more times. Impinging moly into the contact surfaces can only reduce friction and ease operation.
Another problem can be too much spring pressure. You don't need more than 22#-24# spring pressure at "cocked" length. A high pressure spring can cause problems. While you are messing around with things, insure that the contact surfaces of the shroud and the sides of the cocking piece are smooth and not binding.
BAT and Browning improve there cocking pieces by installing a small hardened wheel that functions as a rolling bearing. I think that this would really help Remingtons but have not yet tried it.

Perhaps we are all using different terms here.

There is a cocking piece (the part that is pinned to the rear of the firing pin)...a cocking notch (the notch on the bottom of the bolt body that accepts the nose of the cocking piece)...and there are cocking cam surfaces on the back of the rear bridge and the front of the bolt handle.

FWIW...the brazing material used to attach the handle to the bolt body starts to melt at a bit over 1,100� F and starts flowing at around 1,250� F. Last time I checked my charts, "bright red" occurs at approximately 1,500� F, so if you try to harden that surface you better be ready to catch the handle when it falls off.

I think I'm going w/ the Gre-Tan drop in shroud, pin, spring. That spring needs to get replaced. I got out the rifle last night and noticed that you can hear and feel the spring moving against the bolt body when you cock the rifle.

The shroud to bolt body contact looks minimal, but I'm going to polish the bolt body behind the handle, where it contacts the shroud, to eliminate the matte finish.

I like the matte finish on exterior surfaces, but it is not smooth enough for slick metal-to-metal contact. It would cost too much for Remington to do that (polishing areas on parts) in the factory, so after-market or DIY, is the way to go. Lithium grease definitely helps, but smooth finished metal will be better.

RickB,
This is why you use a small slightly carburizing flame. The small is so you can localize the heating. The slightly carburizing is so you do not remove carbon from the steel. You concentrate the heating on the cocking cam surface and harden only this area not the whole back end of the bolt. You can easily heat the cam to hardening tempurature without getting the handle joint too hot. BTW, that temperature for the flowing of the brazing is correct and is the reason the cocking cam is so soft. Once you reach flowing temperature, you are approaching the temp required to anneal 4140. If the furnace is a bit hot, the camming surface is too soft.
The cocking piece on the Remington IS hard but the cocking cam is sometimes so soft that it is very sticky. I have seen the nose of the cocking piece broken off in extreme cases.
You see the same sort of situation on Mauser bolts on which the handle has been welded and the cocking cam annealed as a result. It is proper procedure to re-harden the cam. I recently made a replacement bolt for a 40XBR of mine. I made the boltbody of plain carbon steel in the annealed state. I was out of acetylene and didn't have time to get to town prior to the shoot so I just lubed it and went. Not surprisingly, it was pretty sticky. When I got back home and got more acetylene, I hardened the cam and the cocking effort was halved.
Post 64 Winchesters occasionally have the same problem as the Remington. Little can be done with them since the brazed joint is right in the middle of the cam.
I once tried the addition of a hard surface bronze to the Winchester cam and this worked very well but was such a pain to apply that I decided not to offer it as a service. This brazing produced a nickel/bronze/ silicon matrix which was very slick but also very expensive and fussy to use. GD

I wasn't talking about the heat migrating to the back of that portion of the handle...I was talking about it migrating to the brazed joint that shares an edge with the part you are heating to 1,500�F. What I am saying is that the forward edge of the brazed joint meets the part you are heating to 1,500�F so no matter how localized you keep the heat that 1,500� is also going to melt that part of the joint.

Granted, the handle may not fall off...but the integrity of the joint will be compromised on the forward edge where most of the force is applied by the camming action, wouldn't you agree?

No I would not agree( and I'm an agreeable guy!). The cocking cam is opposite the handle joint and a reasonable distance even from the handle edge. If one is concerned, he could set up a clamp to make sure the handle stays in place. Having done this many, many times, I don't consider it necessary. Heat quickly and quench quickly and there are no problems. Not saying it wouldn't be possible to screw it up, just saying I've not had any problems. A slick, hard, camming surface makes a world of difference. Don't quench in water though. You can develope stress cracking with the too rapid quench. GD

That's why I posted earlier that perhaps we were all using different terms for the parts of the bolt.

I have always referred to the part you're talking about as the cocking notch...not the cocking cam.

clear as mud

woofer

The whole nomenclature thing can be a real problem and I'm as much an offender as anyone.
When I was gunsmithing in a busy retail store I often heard some very strange names for parts.
The forend of a pump action shotgun received such titles as, the pump handle, the recycler,and even the armature. Ejectors were flippers, rejectors, or, on one memorable occasion, the ejaculator.
We once had a fellow call up and speak to my friend, Pete. Pete was a transplanted Texan whose drawl got more and more Texas the longer he was away from his home state. Anyway, the conversation went something like this..
Pete: "Howdy, what can I do for ya."
Caller: "I was wondering if you had any setters."
Pete: "I'm kinda partial to Labs myself but we have a fella that raises pointers and another has Brittanys"
Caller: (pauses)"I don't know what that has to do with setters."
Pete: "Well, they're all bird dogs although some might argue the point when it comes to them setters. They ain't too popular around here."
Caller: "I'm not looking for a dog. I want the thing to set the rear sight on my .22!"

Greydog, another Guncraft story I see. I miss Guncraft, and Pete a little, but not Gunther!

What is your opinion of Gunther's "glass hardening" trick? I witnessed Gunther and Willie (Bill) do it to a friends bolt out of a brand new 700 classic, it did make the bolt travel way smoother.