Gunsmithing failure to fire remington 700 short action.

[BK7saum]

Have a REM 700 that started life as 223. Just had it trued and rebarrelled as switch barrel 223 and 300 whisper. Getting failure to fire with my whisper ammo. Haven't tried any 223 in other barrel. Is this a primer issue or spring issue? Dies are properly set up. Bolt closes with light feel and dies are adjusted just a hair from bolt closing hard.

Wolf 223 primers. Primers fire on second strike. Had a lot of wolf sm rifle mag primers that some wouldn't fire at all bit I knew they werent any good. Wolf had already refunded money on them.

Action and bolt were both cerakoted.

Flushed the bolt channel and it looked clear.

Anything I can look at before buying replacement firing pin spring. Rifle was
bought new about 24 years ago.

Haven't had any previous issues with cci primers in this rifle.

Thanks

Brad.

 

[Jkob]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

Just make sure the firing pin/bolt shroud is screwed in all the way, it may be one turn short.

 

[Grumpy61]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

if they are detonating on the second strike, make sure they are fully seated / bottomed out in the primer pocket.

 

[LRI]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

Check striker protrusion. should be around .05"

How old is the spring? Is it greased up? Are you shooting in cold weather?

The grease can turn to mashed spuds and really lag everything down.

If your certain the HS is right and that your cases are sized to the chamber properly (which isn't a given as I've come to learn here recently, lots of brass seems to be all over the place) I'd then start looking at a primer issue. Primers are pretty dern reliable. They rarely goof.

CCI and Rem 7-1/2's have about the hardest cup material. Not sure what Wolf's are. Maybe gas up a few rounds with Federals or Remington's and see what happens.

Good luck.

C.

 

[BK7saum]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

Bolt shroud is all the way in. Already checked. Brass is lake city 08 reformed to whisper. Primers are hand seated to the bottom of pocket.

Striker protrusion looks good. I am an armorer for several firearms and just eyeballing it looks good. Doesn't look short at all. I did degrease bolt ant firing pin assembly then reoiled with gun oil so grease shouldn't be a problem.

The dimple on the first strike looks light. If the primer compound doesn't ignite. Will the dimple be lighter until the compound ignites. After firing the dimple is as deep as on any other fired cases from this rifle or others. This has really got me puzzled and thinking its a primer issue. Can't discount the fact I need to replace a 25 year old firing pin spring.

Any way to check tension on the spring to see if it is okay.

 

[BK7saum]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

Chad next step is to load up some cci rem or win and give them a try.

Have several thousand of the wolf. They are supposed to have a hard cup but don't know how they compare to cci.

The loads in question are subsonic whisper with 208 amax.

 

[Grumpy61]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

I have had some wolf primers that were very difficult to seat, they felt like they bottomed out using a sinclair hand priming tool. don't know if they were a tad bit oversize or......

I now hit them 2x with the priming tool, eliminated what issues I did have

 

[BK7saum]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

Went ahead and ordered a replacement firing pin spring. Will swap it out and shoot the remainder of my loads when it gets here. In the meantime off to the press to load up some CCI and Win primers.

Will update when I find the solution.

Thanks, Brad

 

[signut]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

Brad, a couple of things worth looking at:
You mentioned a "light " strike and then a normal strike after they went off. A primer that has been struck and detonated will( in a loaded cartridge ) " usually" cause the primer to back out of case a bit ( the .004/.006 ) that it was below base when loaded. A primer that is fired in an empty case will not show the same indentation or firing pin strike as a full blown load will show.
Also, have you measured the seating depth of the primer, below face of base? If you check say a FGGM they are around .003>.005 below base. I have had numerous failures to fire with the Wolf/ Russian Large Rifle primers because I seated primers too deep; they will easily go in to a depth of .015 and more if you are not careful. This can cause issues also, specifically first strike no-fire,second strike they will ( usually ) go off. This was in a TRG 22 with factory .062 firing pin and factory spring, which is quite robust.
Just what I've had happen; your results may be different...

 

[former naval person]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

As Signut says...Check your depth of primer seating. Some lots of Wolf (in my experience) were a tad short, so that when you seated them to bottom out in the pocket, they were too deep for reliability. I solved that with my Dillon which seats them to .001 from the case base face (rhymes, doesn't it?) and haven't had a misfire since. JMHO

 

[BK7saum]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

All primers are seated with lee hand prime to be just below flush maybe. 002". They felt like they bottomed out in the pocket at that depth.

 

[DAVETOOLEY]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

Lee primer seater is your problem. Primers need to bottom out in the pocket and then even crushed a little more to seat the anvil against the primer compound. I have to use a Sinclair tool and seat Wolf's one at a time and crush them or I get mini hangfires.

 

[BK7saum]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

Nice to know. I haven't used very many wolf primers except in ar15. I have primed and fired thousands of cases primed with the lee and rem cci and win primers with no problems.

So you're saying this is a wolf lee compatibility problem. Will change seating method and see what develops. Thanks.

 

[DAVETOOLEY]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

That's been my experience with Wolf's. But what I said about seating primers to the point of being slightly crushed stands for any brand. Any tool that doesn't have enough travel so you can <span style="font-weight: bold">feel</span> the primer bottom out will sooner or later give you trouble.

 

[BK7saum]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

My lee has always seemed to have enough travel (except 7SAUM). If I fully seat primers i meet a lot of resistance just short of closing the lever against the shaft. Feels like I'm crushing something. the only time I don't get that strong resistance is with my 7 SAUM brass. In that instance I used .010 shim stock on the front side of the Lee shellholder to give me more seating depth. With the 223 shellholder, I've never had a problem. Primers are below the casehead by feel. If I remember correctly I once measured the seating depth to about .003 -.005" if I "crushed" the primer into the pocket. (don't remember the make of the brass, probably rem or lc.)

Guess I'll try a few on my co-ax primer seater. It's supposed to give a .005" depth of seating.

I'm not near my equipment for a couple of days, so I will have lots to try out this weekend.

Thanks, Dave. Learn something new every day.

 

[former naval person]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

You CAN crush them too much. I found that out.

 

[BK7saum]

Re: failure to fire remington 700 short action.

Pretty sure I have a primer problem. Loaded up some rounds with win SR. 4 for 4 no issues. Fired or attempted to fire 4 wolf primed cartridges. Two fired no issues. 1 fired on second strike. And 4th did not fire after 4 strikes.

This is not good. Don't remember exactly how many thousand of these I have. Plinking ammo here we come!

Thanks to all for your help.