Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Help with WSM feeding/ejection problems

Could use some help! This may have been addressed before, but I did a search and found very little discussion on the subject.

I just had a custom rifle built on a Rem 700 SA, chambered for 7mm WSM. The rifle shoots great, but it has feeding and ejection problems in the WSM chambering that it obviously didn't have back when it was a 7mm-08. It won't eject a live round at all (which is not really a big issue, since it pivots the round out of the ejection port where I can pluck it out rather than pick it up off the ground), BUT about 30% of the time, it won't eject an empty case either, which IS a problem. In addition, if you don't work the bolt fast when pushing a round into battery, the round will generally pop out from under the magazine rails, causing the case head to spring above the bolt face! The last round in the magazine can be especially difficult to chamber. 160gr. 7WSM factory rounds are at absolute max OAL for the magazine box and the short fat WSM case has to tilt up at a severe angle in order to slide across the feed ramp and chamber. I do handload, so I'll be able to tweak OAL which may or may not help some, but being a new rifle, I've only used factory ammo so far. Prior to having the gun built, it never dawned on me that the short fat cases would present a feeding problem, especially since the majors all offer new rifles in the various short mags. I did an internet search and found that mine isn't exactly an isolated problem, however. I noticed Brownells has a magazine box and follower for the WSM cases, but by using it, magazine capacity drops from 3 rounds to 2, which I don't really want. I definitely don't want to convert the rifle to a single shot either.

Does anyone have any suggestions for fixing these problems? What, if anything, do the manufacturers do differently with their short magnum actions vs. their standard short actions for proper functioning of WSM / SAUM cartridges?

For the record, other than enlarging the bolt face for the WSM case head, my bolt has had a Sako-style extractor installed, and it uses a modified magazine box for the WSM cases. Nothing else has been modified inside the action. It has the original plunger ejector from when the rifle was a 7-08. The new extractor works flawlessly, but is it possible something about it may be contributing to the ejection problem? A couple of buddies have had the Sako extractor mod done to theirs with no problems, but theirs are also chambered in standard short action cartridges.

Thanks in advance for any and all advice you can give!

Seems to me to be an easy question to answer.

You had a custom rifle built.
It won't feed properly.
Take it back to the builder and have him/her get it right.

Redneck nailed it. Let the guy who build it, fix it.

That said, I'm guessing the follower is wrong, thus the poor feeding fo the last round. I'm also guessing that he didn't modify the inside of the rear bridge, causing the cases to hang up when ejecting.

The Sako-style extractor may also be contributing to the problem, depending on where it is located.

The factories took a while to work out the feeding problems with the short-fat magnums. They use different magazines boxes, feeding ramp angles, etc. In general the factory push-feed actions work just about flawlessly.

The problems you're having are quite common when actions not designed for short-fats are converted. The real solution would have been to use the Remington action specfically designed for the short-fats.

The cheapest solution would have been to buy a Model 700 or 7 in 7mm SAUM and either leave it as-is, or have it rechambered for 7mm WSM. My bet is that it also would have shot about as well as a custom rifle. At least that is what my stainless/synthetic 700 BDL in 7mm SAUM does.

MD

Seems to me and my feeble memory that I did one of these about 2 years ago. It WAS a .300 WM and the guy wanted a .300 WSM. The new barrel was a POC and I made sure the round would not hang up on the chamber by applying a polished bevel to the chamber entrance. There was enough room with the factory rails so all I did was replace the magazine, spring and follower to new WSM specs, fitted/polished the follower to ensure proper feeding and out the door it went.

The guy is still a great customer so I must have done it right.

More info about this rifle:
1. I already had a standard M700 short action that I used, which is why the rifle wasn't built on a short mag action to begin with.
2. I didn't realize there would be a problem with feeding or I might have gone a different route from the beginning, but what's done is done, so I'm hoping I can fix the feeding issues without too much trouble.
3. I do plan to have the smith fix it, but I wanted to get some input from others on possible cures first just for my own understanding.
4. I already have another big 7, and the goal here was to make an ultra-light mountain rifle, which at 5.5 lbs this gun definitely is. The action used is a lightened and blueprinted M700 action, with skeletonized bolt handle, fluted bolt body, milled receiver in non-stress areas, already with Jewell trigger, so I wanted to use the action I already had, since so much machine work was done and money spent.
5. Don't want to sell the rifle, as it shoots great accuracy-wise, and it's quick pointing and well-balanced. I want to make sure I can get the feeding problem fixed before I even think about that option.

RifleDude:
Whatchewneed, in any situation like you got, is wider magazine rails, and/or a wider magazine, so the cartridge doesn't pop up as soon as the bolt hits it. It's gotta slide a little ways before it pops up and at'em.

The extraction problem probably means that the extractor, or the bolt face, don't fit.
NOT a Gun, Smitty of the North

Rilfe Dude--

If your smith had any kind of experience with this sort of set-up, he would have known the problems. And Charlie Sisk posted a lot on this specific problem here under Custom Rifles. Ah, well....

Try obtaining a wide magazine box from Remington first. That may solve the entire problem. DON'T have the smith work on the feed rails unless he absolutely has to. Even an occasional factory rifle makes it out the door with feed rails too wide, and the fat little rounds spray out of there like escaping minnows. It doesn't take much extra width in the rails to do this on the short-fat mags.

My one other observation is that fitting a Sako-style extractor to a 700 action is something that 1) a great many gunsmiths almost automatically do, which 2) often creates more problems than it supposedly fixes. I know, I know, the Remington extractor is supposed to be one of the worst ever designed for centerfire rifles. And yeah, they do break once in a very great while. So why have I shoit the heck out of dozens of 700's and never encountered a problem?

One thing I have noticed over 15 years or so of having custom rifles made on 700 actions is that far too many smiths feel compelled to modify them in irrelevant ways, while paying far less attention to what actually makes a rifle work reliably. If the 700 needs all these modifications, why use one in the first place?

MD

Mule Deer,
Actually, I requested the Sako extractor installation, since I was having the bolt face opened up for the WSM case head anyway. I've personally had 2 Rem 700 extractors break. I realize the Sako extractor weakens the excellent gas handling of the "3 rings of steel" design, and that it's probably rare to have a 700 extractor break, but it gives me greater piece of mind. I just felt the potential for a catastrophic case head failure causing gas blowback was far less than the potential for a broken extractor. For the most part, the Rem 700 action is a great design, and it is the easiest action platform to accurize. For my ultra-light mountain rifle project, it was the most logical action to use, not to mention I already had it, on a rifle I wasn't using much at the time.