Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Question for gunsmiths only.

(shaking head here)... No further comment needed..

One 700 bolt handle came off in my hand while function testing at the bench. Solder joint appeared to be improperly done. One extractor failure with factory loaded .300 Win Mag ammo.

The bolt handle issue is extremely rare in normal use but it does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Brian

Don't try this in a Rem 700 and then pound it open. [/quote]

Just a quick question about the case on the far right. Did you work up to that load or start at that load?

In 35 years I have re-attached a half dozen handles. Two came off during normal use. The others wre pounded off. Probably a dozen extractors. For about 15 years I was a Remington warranty 'smith and serviced a large area.
I have had to re-attach a few Model 70 handles (post-64, of course)so Remington isn't alone. GD

If the freakin thing comes off during periods of extreme abuse, why would you want to use it in a situation that has the potential to nothing but 100% ABUSE?? Dangerous game and Remington 700 are not good partners! We build NO dangerous game guns on 700 actions! I prefer repeat customers, not dead ones! Remember Murphys' law! I guess my customers are harder on their 700's than others because we keep a solid supply of 700 extractors on hand and in my 20 years of business I have replaced 15 or 20 Remington bolt handles!
Gatlin Guns

had one bolt handle off in 10plus years looked like a bad weld job. most extracter failures have been traced to customer abuse [dirty, rusty or overloads] not the mfg.

gatgun,
Who makes a fool proof rifle?
Butch

Alex I'd like drama queens for 200 please

You must not have been in the military. They teach you to keep your rifle clean and oiled. If you are hunting dangerous game with a rusty chamber and overloaded ammo Darwin takes over. No great loss as far as I'm concerned.
whelennut

How many folks do you actually know who have died as a result of hunting dangerous game with a 700?

Just a quick question about the case on the far right. Did you work up to that load or start at that load? [/quote]

9-12-2003 range report
They are all three the same load, shot from left to right in a 1938 Turk Mauser I rebarrelled to 243.
40 gr IMR4895 bulk that acts like H322, 100 gr JSP, 308 LC brass neck pinching the bullet in the chamber.
The third one, the Mauser extractor did not pull out. I had to pound it out with a cleaning rod.

No gas came past my face.


With this .223 round, the Rem700 shooter had to stop hunting and go in search of a doctor to treat his eye.

Doesn't look like any rupture pattern I've ever seen from a enclosed breech nose system like a 700. Tear and residue pattern just doesn't look right. Unless it was rebarreld by someone who didn't know how to fit the breech. Regardless, the round appears to have been an overload in which case the guy probably should have sought the services of a Proctologist first, then maybe he wouldn't have needed to seek an eye doctor. I know one thing, if I'm ever caught loading outside the fear zone and have my choice of weapons, with it's enclosed bolt nose, I want to be holding a Rem 700.

If you are making .243s from LC .308s and not turning the necks ,that is the problem , or a large part of it !

I don't know the process of case forming you went through but the above recomendation on turning the neck to eliminate extra thick brass neck formed in the process of going from 308 to 243 along with trimming to the correct length can eliminate some pressure problems up front. An extra ring of steel around the case head has long been a selling point for Remington. It is kind of thin when you take into account the metal removed for the extractor. I like the idea of safe loads and a well vented action. There are a lot of great actions available that are almost fool proof. Note I said almost.

It was a new off the shelf Rem700 with no modifications.

Wow! Loose/pierced primers are almost always a good indication of excessive pressure. I can't think of an occasion when they wouldn't indicate that something was at least wrong. If you are going to keep shooting with those kind of warnings coming from your fired cases, you should probably yell "Fire in the Hole!" at the range just to let people near you know you are fixing to touch another one off.

98's, as a whole, are good actions and handle gas well, but you can only ask them to do so much...That one took some stress. Checked the headspace lately?

One fellow I know did hunt semi-dangerous game (grizzly)with a 700 and, in spite of a mishap, managed to come back home. This was more than could be said for the bear. The rifle involved was a Model 700 classic barreled in 7mm STW. After the first shot, the bolt was siezed and an attempt to open it with a chunk of firewood did, indeed, break the handle off. Fortunately, the bear was not alive to witness this having expired due to being pierced through with a 180 grain Swift A-Frame bullet. 180 grain? That's right; the shooter had inadvertently loaded the rifle with a 308 Norma round. This was one of the 700's on which I had to replace the handle and the extractor. Apart from that, the rifle and the shooter were unharmed.
Sitka Deer,
I like the drama queens reference .
That 223 case looks like a faulty piece of brass. Make? GD

When the solder connection fails, they look like this.

We build several full custom rifles each year and have for the last 20 years or so. We have built rifles for many different jobs, From Blackwater Ops. to dangerous game guides who carry their rifles daily. There are no perfect actions, there are however actions with fewer inherent problems than the 700's. If you are hunting Dangerous game you are already playing an odds game. Why not tip the odds in your favor and choose a more rugged action? I have a great friend who is a bear and moose guide and has been for nearly 40 years. This gent has been bit, mauled, hooked, horned, stomped and accidentally shot by a drunken client. He says the most dangerous animals are jealous husbands!! He will not even talk of a 700 action and most of his counterparts feel the same way. Are the 700 actions accurate? Yes! Are they reliable enough for Me to trust my life to while hunting Dangerous game? NO!! Judge me as you wish but I will never recommend a 700 action for a customer who is going after Dangerous Game! Gatlin Gun aka "Drama Queen"

Sounds like your great friends problem isn't the gun, but rather his luck. What gun was he carrying while being mauled and kicked around by jealous husbands and dangerous game? You can't blame a rifle for bad luck. You sound like the typical Remington haters that proliferate cyber space. I seriously doubt you have much real world experience with a 700 or you wouldn't make such stupid statements. I think most of your anti-Remington rant comes from what you hear, not what you know.