This summer I bought a Remington 721 at our local pawn shop. But I just got around to shooting it Sunday. t shoots great and there's a lot of potential for improvement of group size. However, it has one issue. When feeding from the magazine when you push the bolt forward to chamber a round the round pops up over the bolt and usually flip around backwards. I'm thinking the feed rails may be worn toward the front. Whatchall think? The rifle is overall in pretty good shape and the barrel seems to be fine judging from the group size. Were 721s known for such problems?

I've never heard of that sort of problem being common with 721s. My guess is it's some issue with the magazine spring and/or follower.

I own several 721's and have never had an issue like that at all.

They are known for extraction problems

I have had several 721's, they fed like they were greased and I never had any extraction problem with any of them....

Very unlikely the feed rails are worn, more likely someone may have messed with them.

Counter intuitive I know...stretch the follower spring out about 25%...and then with the assembly out of the rifle sitting level on the benchtop, tweak it 5 deg. additional forward tilt.

Really, never been a problem for me.

[quote=Poconojac
Very unlikely the feed rails are worn, more likely someone may have messed with them.[/quote]
That's what I was thinkng that somebody might have taken a file to them. If so you reckon there's a way to repair them? Anyway, I'm going to look at the follower and spring first.

Are the magazine spring and follower installed properly?

Fully agree.....but there might have been some rechambering in the past.....possibly from .30-06 to .300 Win mag.....or from .270 to .270 Weatherby. This might cause the problem you describe.

Brass ammo just won't wear fine steel rails. It's not the rails directly, just indirectly.

If it was mine, I'd take it apart, take the sheet metal box mag, clamp a square bar of steel in a vice, parallel with the floor sticking out from the vice. I'd place the box mag over the steel bar (actually the bar inside the box) and slowly tap the outside of the box with a hammer to take some of the toe in out of the top of the box. What you're trying to do is open the upper box mag to give the rounds more room under the rails.

I hope I've explained that. It's easier to do than to explain. Just don't go nuts. Tap a little and then try it. As you flair out the box mag lips you give the rounds more room under the rails. With more room under the rails, they won't pop out as quick. You're in essence, tuning the box mag so the ammo comes out from under the rails at the right time in the feed cycle.

It's not as hard as it sounds. Those sheet metal box mags aren't that expensive if you screw it up. But, you won't. If you take out too much taper, you can put it back by bending in the box mag lips. But, that won't happen.

DF

DF,

You can also do the same thing, easier and quicker, with flat-faced (non-serrated) pliers.

But I always try to start with the simplest solution, which is related to the most common problem. Which is why I suggested the problem may very well lie in the tension of the magazine spring--which may have been replaced. Quite often the "new" magazine spring is not tensioned correctly for the round--which doesn't necessarily mean it should be replaced. Often magazine springs can be "corrected" by tweaking the tension by bending them slightly with, again, pliers. Dunno how many "feeding problems" I've correct with that simple technique, but it's been a bunch. In general, if the cartridges are riding "up" in the rear end, increasing the tension in the front end of the spring often works--and vice versa.

The follower may also have been replaced, for whatever reason. Generally Remington 700 followers work in 721s (and 722s), but not always. But sometimes the problem isn't the follower, but the spring. The side-to-side angle of the follower can also make a difference, which again can be corrected by applying pressure to the the follower spring.

Remington 721/722/700 actions are remarkably flexible in feeding cartridges. As an experiment, I once filled the magazine of a 700 .30-06 with various round, including the .30-40 Krag and .300 Winchester Magnum. They all fed well enough to get the front of the bullet into the rear of the chamber.

Somebody sure could have screwed with the feed rails, or whatever. But again, I would recommend starting with the simplest possible solutions.

As far as I can tell it was made a .30-06 in August 1950 and never rechambered. It's just a plain jane ol' 721 .30-06. I'm hoping most of you are right and it's just the spring or follower.

I will and thank you for the advice. I'll definitely try that first.

Let us know what you come up with and how you worked it out.

DF

Someone tweakified the mag box, it now needs re-tweakification.

Agree with most of what's been said but pull the action out of the stock look at the feed rails from the bottom if they are still blued I bet they haven't been messed with. Follower and spring or mag box is my bet.

Would take a real "bubba" idiot to be grinding on feed rails...

But, I guess they're out there.

DF

Yeah DF but I think he needs to know they haven't been messed with to atleast eliminate worries that way. MB

Agree.

DF

Pretty sure I "might maybe could" have some 721 follower and spring, possibly mag box parts if you need them.

Thanks Mule Deer and all of you. I took it to the range again today and shot it with different ammo. I had some American Eagle 150 grain as maybe it could be bullets, but no such luck, it still did it. But I came home and re-read this thread and started trying what I read, keeping in mind what Mule Deer told me to try the simple things first. I'm not sure what worked. The first thing I did w was bend the spring a little where it drooped down more at the front. Then I carefully put it back together. Being home and not wanting to put live ammo in it to try it, I quickly made some dummy rounds and tried them and also thinking that even if the rails were screwed up that putting multiple cartridges in the mag might make it worked. So I stoked the rifle with the 4 dummys. The first slipped right in the chamber and didn't fly up. Wow! made me feel better for sure. Then I chambered another one. Same thing. Then the third. Same thing. It worked. But now I was down to the last one. If it doesn't work, then my theory of having more than one round in the magazine was correct and I'd just always have a 4 shot rifle instead of a five which wouldn't have really been a big game changer for me but it would have bugged me a little. But then I pushed the bolt forward and the last round in the mag went smoothly into the chamber. Whatever it was I seemed to have fixed it. I bent the spring a little where the follower had less spring tension in front and maybe that's what did it. But I'm wondering if I didn't have the mag box a little out of kelter when I put it together last time.

I'm not really familiar with 721's, but given some of my experiences with other bolt guns, I'd start out really simple and see if maybe the follower has been put in backwards.

Fila, like everything in life some sh* t remains a mystery. I will say this though 700's have 3.6+" mag on long action , I'd guess the 721's are the same. Never ever when loading the magazine forget to push the rds clear to the back of the box ok ? Remember that and do it, if you have no more problems send me a pm and I will send you a consulting bill. Cause you know, I'm a white guy. MB

Really?

Apparently some people have already missed this post where the problem was solved, perhaps because it was too long to read.

LOL! Mag Bob so am I, I'm just married to a Filipina, hence the name Filaman as in Filipino-American-man. I was borned and raised in Texas and am of scotch Irish-German ancestry.

I was actually Born in Atlanta, Texas (Yeah there is such a place) Not to be confused with those impostors from Georgia.

Thanks, I appreciate the offer but I think I have it fixed. I'll see how it works.

You bet. I have a similar marriage 'affliction', mine is Visayan. More stubborn per pound than anything previously encountered! And I say that with heart-felt sincerity.

Yeah, and if it hadn't started working today I would have pulled what hair I have left out. But as I said in my long post, I'm really thinking I muffed the whole thing up the last time I had it apart when I adjusted the trigger and put it back together. That mag box is hard to get in just right.

I'm on my second Filipina. I was married to the first Filipina 13 years and she decided she wanted some one younger. She was from Negros Occidental in the Visayas. My present wife who I've known for 10 years but only been married to for 2 is from Makati City. However her father's family was from Bohol, which is also in the Visayas. So yes, I'm well acquainted with the temperment of Visayan women, since both of the Filipinas I've been married to have been thus afflicted, LOL!

Nothing like a good challenge. LOL Cheers.

Sounds like you have your hands full...

That old 721 may be the least of your worries...



DF

Well just crap! I thought I had this thing cured. But Curiosity got the best of me so I went out back and put a factory round in the rifle and it did the same thing. I haven't figured out why it does it with live ammo but not the dummy rounds. Anyway, then I tried it with 2 rounds in the mag and it didn't do it. So I guess I'm back to that. I can live with it but I'm not done experimenting. I'm going to play with the follower spring.

I've owned over 100 of 600's, 660's, 700''s, 721's, 722's, 7's, 660's, and 725's over the years and tested 100's more (at work) - never had the problem of feeding as you described (the extraction problem is almost never an issue also though it probably has happened - it did not happen with the ones I've owned and/or tested).

Assuming the follower and spring are installed correctly, I'd look first at the spring, then the follower. Those are the items someone may have replaced or installed improperly, I suppose if a shooter filled the magazine with ammo and left the ammo in the magazine for decades, the spring could have re-set. It is also possible that someone bent the stamped metal magazine box, but first the spring then the follower then the box.

Follow what MD wrote.

LOL
Sounds like you have your hands full...

That old 721 may be the least of your worries...



DF
[/quote

LOL!
If that 721 was as solid as this woman I could sell everything else in the gun safe. She doesn't have the same DNA as the other one, LOL! I knew the other one a couple of weeks before I ask her to marry me. I knew this one 8 years before I did that. But having said all that she's still filipina and they have an "Interesting" temperment,LOL!

Gives new meaning to the word, "vetting"...

Sounds like the second one was well vetted, the first one, maybe not so much...

DF

I applaud your patience with that 721, after a couple attempts AND if it didn't shoot very, very well for me, it would traded/sold off! ha I can't tolerate an unreliably feeding rifle, of any type. I have never been bum-rushed by deer, etc, but big hogs ( sow or boar!) have big teeth! ha Texas has also reached the point ( IMHO) where the Meth cooking Rednecks have rivaled the meanest hog, and in as many numbers! ha I married an English/German mix..."stubborn" doesn't come close to a description! But man! Is she pretty!

LOL

Hey, does she have you eatin' rice with your hands yet?
How about Balut or Bagoon? When mine bitches about Mexcan food I tell her it tastes a whole lot better than that Bagoon, YUK!
Smells like [bleep], tastes like [bleep]! It IS [bleep], LOL!