Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Feed from magazine issue with Rem 700 ADL

When loading the first round into the mag, (short action 7-08) and from the mag into the chamber, the round is pushed forward by the bolt and hits the very front top of the mag box and stops right there. Do you think it is a weak mag spring not lifting the cartridge high enough?
At times, the first round, right side of mag, seems to go down into the mag too far and friction from the right feed rail prevents the round from coming up to be in alignment with the chamber causing it to bind when the lead point hits the top of the mag box.
Anyone seen this before? Anyone fixed this before?
Thanks,
George

It is all in how you hold your lips...

Magazine lips, that is.

Sounds like the magazine box is not seated properly to start.

Art, I've double checked the box. I've removed it and reinstalled it. Looks fine. It's so close to being right... It will work OK with bullets that do not have an exposed led tip. The lead is soft and jams and deforms against the box.
I need to remove some of the box or get a new follower and spring (stronger spring) to push the cartridge up to the max consistently. 1/16 of an inch would do the trick. It's that close.

I tend to find stamped followers more commonly cause problems than springs and feed lips cause way more problems than all the rest...

A machined follower is always worth the money, but springs can be stretched back into service any time.

I've had the same problem w/ a .30-06 ADL. I tried smoothing out all of the box surfaces and such, even polished the feed ramp before I realized it's a box issue.

I do have the problem w/ plastic tips too on occasion, definitely w/ lead tips.

Do not cut the box down! Polish the starboard lip and bend it up slightly and try again...

Thanks all. I removed the box, spring, and carrier, took nothing more than steel wool and went over all edges of the box as well as the rails and ramp in the rifle.
I reassembled it just as I had five or six times previously, bumped the butt on the floor a couple of times before tightening the action screws. After the bump, I heard a click that I hadn't heard before. Tightened it all down and it now works as slick as eel snot.
What I figure is the mag spring had not been going in place in the stock and was causing the follower to not fit or feed the cartridge just right.
Working fine now.
Hunting tomorrow!
Thanks again,
George

Back to square one. Started doing it again. Art, I'm going to see what I can do with the starboard lip.
Will keep all informed as to how it turns out.
It is in the rear of the mag where the friction is keeping the round from popping up completely, not the front. The bolt will ride over the round and lock on an empty chamber.

That is because the lip is holding the cartridge too deep in the box. Easing the lip open will serve to lift the round.

Struggled with nothing but aggravation since first post, swapped out parts with other Rem ADL and no luck.
As a last resort, I found a set of BDL bottom metal that I had purchased from someone here two or three years ago.
I noticed that the follower in that older BDL assembly was different as it looked more like machined metal and less like stamped as was in the rifle giving problems.
Swapped out magazine and spring from one to the other and problem seems to be solved fingers crossed!

That being the case, where would I locate another machined follower for the 308 length mag? I need to replace the one I cannibalized from my other rifle..
Thanks all,
George

George
The machined followers are much more forgiving than the stamped ones... But you should be able to fix the feed and function of the rifle using the stamped unit.

Looking at what I have posted for you I should have been more clear about opening the lips on the front of the box, not quite to halfway back. And you did understand that as flaring the lips out, correct? Using terms like "up" was probably not my best attempt at clarity...

Does the original magazine box fit perfectly in the opening?
art
art

Art,
The original follower would see-saw causing the round to do the same, as best as I can tell.
When I swapped followers to the milled one, the problem went away!
I'm just looking for another milled follower to replace the one I robbed from one of my other 700s
I'll go to all milled if I can find them <grin>
Thank you for working with me on this as I'm an anxious bastid and was going nuts trying to figure this thing out

Wow! This solved my problem on my 2004 .30-06 ADL, which has the matte finish. I opened up top of the magazine box, which you have to compress to get back into the cutout on the receiver, and my problem was solved. Finally, I've tinkered with this many times, I quit hunting with that rifle 2 years ago. I just loaded and unloaded my 4 dummy rounds 100 times, and had zero failures to load from the magazine--first time ever with that rifle. Previously, it would fail every third or fourth round. My fingers hurt though.

So, why does Remington make the box that way? My hunting partner has the same rifle in .243 Winchester and he has the exact same problem as I do.

I kinda like their design. You can move the mag box wall in/out to allow as much of the case to be under the feed rails as necessary. I also tweak the corners out a bit so that you have to seat the box firmly to get it in the underside of the action. It's less likely to move around on a blind-mag setup and give problems.

june6
Happy to see it worked for you... They really are pretty easy to adjust until Bubba jumps to it with the file on the rails.

It is cheap and quick to build them that way and they get more range out of the loading of different cratridges that way, I would guess.
art

Brownells sells the milled followers.

Carlos,
They do and the machined units are more forgiving... But I have been able to get them all to work eventually. DaninAlaska just ordered a bunch of them, a LA for me and he got a couple SA followers... They were all the same length... I got my LA though!

When the cartridges start rocking in the magazine it is time to look at the magazine box lips farther back.

The click Geo described and the return of the problem is likely the box popping back out of proper alignment in the action...
art

Agreed. Have had to work on a few in the past.