I just received a Remington 725 in the mail yesterday. For those who are unfamiliar it is in lineage of Remington bolt actions between the 721 and 700 and is of essentially the same design.

The seller described it as having a smooth action and it does so long as it is empty. With snap caps or factory rounds it feeds from the magazine fine but it takes considerable effort to close the bolt once the cartridge is in the chamber. In fact I have to take the gun down from my shoulder to be able to close the bolt a lot of the time.

To my untrained eye everything looks fine and the serial number on the bolt matches the serial number of the gun. Any suggestions?

Makes me wonder about a rebarrel.

Or it could be the original barrel that was improperly chambered.

Either way, you need a chamber cast to check against SAAMI minimums.

And, I would pull the firing pin assembly, remove the ejector, place a round in position under the extractor and recheck it to see how it closes. Doing this takes the ejector and extractor out of play.

There's a hint in there... somewhere.