Sadly I inherited my father’s Remington model 7 in .204 Ruger last month and am having trouble getting the bolt to close with a round or a piece of empty brass in it..
When he’d shoot it, He always seemed to be having trouble getting the bolt closed on it and I’d tell him it looked like he needed to bump his shoulder back a bit. Primers usually looked like they had hard nipples sticking out of them but his loads weren’t crazy high powder charges.
Trying to narrow the problem down a bit, I’ve tried the following steps:
Cleaned the barrel - didn’t help.
Bumped the shoulder back as far as the RCBS F.L. Die and shell holder would allow. - didn’t help.
Trimmed case mouth of empty brass .009” shorter than min. - didn’t help.
Filed the case head down an additional .015”- .020” - seemed to help a little. But still too tight.
Marked from the shoulder to the mouth with a sharpie and forced the bolt closed. Wore off some at the shoulder, but not what I was expecting.
Checked to make sure the brass and the barrel said .204 Ruger about 20 times!
I’m fairly convinced that the headspace isn’t set properly from the factory, but short of ordering a set of go gauges I can’t prove it.
Any ideas as to what the problem might be, or any thoughts on what else to check?
Obviously a trip to a gun smith is in order, but I would like to figure it out on my own if possible.
Chris
