Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing remington 700 bolt lugs

long story short, i have a rem 700 300wsm that does not shoot consistant groups all the time. scope mounts, bedding, crown, loads, etc have been checked. i did notice that on the bolt, the top lug (when closed), shows 0 contact wear where as the bottom one shows good wear. my other rem 700s show adequete wear on both bolts and all shoot better than this rifle. my question is, do you think lapping the bolt lugs might improve the accuracy?

How bad is it shooting? Handloads or factory?

is it stringing shots vertically ?

Ed

i'm not getting consistant groups. all my other 700s have very good contact on both lugs. just something a local gunsmith told me today that could be leading to my problem. he stated all the stress of chambering, fireing, etc. is on only one lug and there could be a minimal amount of movement or flex going on.

The wear patterns on Remington lugs can be deceptive. The sear deflects the cocking piece upward when the rifle is cocked. This lifts the rear of the bolt up. Depending on the amount of clearance in the bore of the receiver bridge, the amount of head clearance when a cartridge is chambered, and the number of times the rifle is cycled empty, the bolt lugs will show more or less unequal contact. It is difficult to determine the exact amount of contact (or the lack therof) without some careful measurment without having the bolt influenced by the sear.
Occasionally, uneven contact is indicative of bolthead which is misaligned with the bolt body. In this case, the lugs may indeed be misaligned and so will the bolt face. Lap the lugs for full contact and the bolt face will still not be sqare to the body or the bore. GD