Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles MRC group buy #2, Part Another One.

Being a fellow Lefty...I have them pegged to make me my Left Handed 338 Win Mag that I've wanted for a long long time. Really giving me pause...but I can't get one anywhere else.

My opinion, with emphasis on opinion only, is that they have a really good product and do try to stand behind it.

But they are growing and I think still suffering growing pains. Reading between the lines of my communications with them it seems the bosses have big plans and are trying hard to be successful and give their customers a good product and good service, but their hired help could use some improvement.

This particular rifle does seem to be an anomaly since most everybody else reports good results with theirs. Where the ball has been dropped on mine it was when a task was handed off to one of their employees. Once for getting this feeding problem fixed and then when someone failed to contact me after they had been tasked to do so. That doesn't help potential customers knowing that but I haven't completely given up on them.

The count stands at 0 and 2, hopefully they swing for the bleachers this final time.

Will try to keep this as short as possible but it's going to be long even with that. Not ranting here but just stating what happened as objectively as possible.

It took about 6 weeks to get the rifle back. They had it for a month before looking at it but when I got a call the person said they had been busy with the SHOT show. After another few weeks I emailed and asked how it was going.

The reply was that their gunsmith said my reloads were way over SAAMI spec. He couldn't get a factory round to jam but the dummy rounds I sent would jam. They weren't going to modify anything to feed someone's out of spec handloads due to liability issues. So I said okay, just go ahead and send it back, which they did.

I made up some dummy rounds out of new, unfired cases with bullets seated to the manual's stated COL - which are all at or below max COL - and also some with fired but fully sized cases. The cases had been fired in this rifle, btw. Some of them jammed whether with unfired or fired and sized cases. I checked all dimensions of a new unfired case against my sized cases and everything was same same except the shoulder of fired/sized cases was .452", unfired cases are .449". The drawing in my Hornady shows .454" at that location. The body at the pressure ring on sized cases is .469", unfired cases measure .466" at that point, again the Hornady drawing shows .470". All other measurements between an unfired and my fully sized cases are the same, even headspace is within .002". I used a Redding body die on some cases and a FL die on others, both screwed down to touch the shellholder so they would be completely sized, and the body die and FL die both size cases to the same dimensions.

So the only difference I can find is .003" between fully sized cases and new unfired cases at shoulder and pressure ring. I just didn't believe that was the problem.

I've spent about 4 hours looking at this, feeding cases slowly and quickly, rifle held level and barrel pointed straight up, and if you load the rounds just right in the magazine it will feed all of them. But it is extremely easy to get them loaded with the noses pointed downward or the heads downward.

Thinking something was hanging up, I checked the follower for fit in the mag box and it was a loose enough fit, i.e. it didn't hang up anywhere. Even with that I polished the entire inside of the mag box with 600 grit paper and also sanded and polished all sides of the follower to 600 grit. It still jammed. Not all the time, but at least once or twice in every two magazines full. I tried reversing the magazine spring since the bottom arm is a bit longer than the top one - same results.

The jams are mostly caused by the bolt sliding over the case as it was pushed forward so the head was stuck under the bolt as the round tried to rise up into the chamber. Sometimes the nose would catch on the C collar instead of going straight into the chamber but mostly it's the bolt sliding over the case - it looks like as the nose comes up the head goes down under the bolt. Usually only the top round will jam and all others feed, but occasionally the next to last round would jam also.

On a whim (okay, out of desperation) I tried a follower from a Yugo Mauser M24/47 made for an 8x57. Voila! Cases fed great. I tried a follower from a 1915 manufactured Model 96 Swedish Mauser 6.5x55 since it is an intermediate length action. Cases really fed great. I had to reverse the mag spring for that one to get the follower onto the spring.

On a roll here, I used a follower from a Model 70 .270 WSM, one from a Remington M700 .243 and one from a Ruger Hawkeye .308. On some of them the mag spring wouldn't fully seat, the WSM in particular was too short for the mag spring so it hung off the back edge of the follower, but ALL of the followers worked better than the MRC one. The Swedish Mauser follower even fed empty cases darn near 100%.

The Montana follower is 3.09" long, the Swede is 3.0", the Ruger is 2.805" and the Remington and Winchester are a bit shorter than that.

Best I can see, every other follower isn't hanging up somehow. Or at least something about the shape of the Montana follower isn't allowing it to even out straight where all of the other ones will. I can purposely seat the rounds funky with other followers - nose down, head down, whatever, to try to induce a jam but even then it's hard to make it jam. Put the MRC follower back in and wham jam, no thank you, ma'am.

Actually, the MRC follower will work, but you have to be very careful how the rounds are loaded. You have to push them at a point just behind the shoulder and make sure they are seated perfectly straight - not nose up or down - before seating the next one. Do that and it feeds pretty much 100%. But just load them in willy nilly and a jam is almost certain. Do the same with the other followers - just load them any old way - and the other followers even out and run the rounds straight into the chamber.



So - at this point I'm not sure what I'm going to do. My inclination is to get a Swedish Mauser follower from Numrich, they're only $9.50. That would even let me know when the magazine is empty since it isn't beveled and the bolt won't close without it being manually depressed. Plus, it would satisfy something perverse within me to fix a 2015 made rifle with a follower from a 120 year old design.



Like I said, no rant here, not looking for umpteen thousand other suggestions, just stating what I've found to work. Also not making any editorial comments about the brand overall since I seem to be the only one reporting this problem. I may still sand the hell out of the Montana follower to shorten it. At this point I have nothing to lose by doing so.

I have switched out mag springs and followers from other manufacturers many times. I'd be spending the $10 tomorrow.

I've reworked lots of followers to feed better. I'd spend the $10 and throw the MRC follower in the trash!