Feeding reliability with various actions

[GeneralPurpose]

I bought my first bolt action about six years ago, an FNH PBR XP .308. At the time, I didn't (and still don't) know the differences between various actions, but I knew up front that it's a Controlled Round Feed action. In six years of shooting my rifle, I have yet to induce a malfunction of any kind, which I presumed normal with a bolt action. Recently, I shot a 700 in .308 and occasionally had the bolt ride over the top round in the magazine and completely fail to feed. That's really the only experience I've had with a bolt action other than my own rifle.

Do certain manufacturer's systems provide more reliable feeding? I'm curious about FNH, Tikka, Remington, Accuracy International, etc., but also the various custom actions. I'm sure it's possible to screw up anything if you try hard enough, but I wasn't intentionally misfeeding rounds with the Remington. I'll build another bolt action one day, and would like to know that I don't have to press check it to feel confident that a round is chambered.

My rifle:

 

[popeye089]

I'm not saying misfeeds don't happen but..... I've seen new shooters trying to cycle a bolt faster than their skill set or just new to bolt rifles thus "short stroking" the bolt. But misfeeds do happen, especially with external mag fed bolts. That's why AICS mags are so popular, reliability.

 

[MitchAlsup]

There are ways to tune up an action for better feeding, luckily just running 100+ rounds through the average action seems to tune it up rather well.

First you need to identify the culprit.
On my 1911 it was the feed ramp, so I polished it up and have not had a FtF in over 2000 rounds.
On my M40 there was a bur on the cartrige clamp in the magazine area.
On my AR15, I had to relieve the front corners of 2 clips so the stacked cartridges were presented to the action better. {three strokes with a circular fine file.}

None of these took more than 5 minutes to fix after I figured out what was the culprit.

 

[RyeDaddy]

In all my experience with Remington 700's which includes 5 personally owned rifles and 3 close friends, the only feeding issues like you described where the bolt overrides the next cartridge were when rounds were loaded too long(binding in the mag). If you keep them at 2.830" OAL or less, they've been 100% for me.

I could see running the bolt short causing the same issue.

 

[valkyries]

Try a Howa action. I have one that's over 40 years old, zero problems. Pull the bolt all the way back, then firmly all the way forward. Zero problems.

 

[gewehr]

Peter Paul Mauser invented the best system ever designed for feeding out of a magazine controlled round feeding. When the rails and ramp are designed for a particular cartridge it will feed smoother and more reliably than anything. I have owned several guns from fn supreme mausers to stillers and my controlled round feeding actions always feed better

 

[long range newbie]

I run a remington 700 with aics mags and I occasionally have my bolt run over but, very rarely. I even modded the mag so I can hold longer bullets. I don't try to be super fast at cycling the bolt I just go as fast as I think I need to be.

 

[GeneralPurpose]

So from the responses so far it sounds like running the bolt too fast or not going firmly all the way back can induce a malfunction on 700s. I don't at all try to run the bolt quickly, even on my rifle that I'm very familiar with. And maybe that's the issue I had with the 700; it's just different from what I'm used to and I wasn't cycling the action exactly the way it wants. The FNH action definitely seems more forgiving.

What about Tikkas? Are they as prone to having this malfunction?

 

[LRJammer]

Peter Paul Mauser invented the best system ever designed for feeding out of a magazine controlled round feeding. When the rails and ramp are designed for a particular cartridge it will feed smoother and more reliably than anything. I have owned several guns from fn supreme mausers to stillers and my controlled round feeding actions always feed better

Agreed. I have 3 Win 70/FN actioned rifles with CRF and they function like a Swiss watch. The only way to improve on them is to go with an AI, which is what I did. The CRF rifles are all hunting rifles and the AI is my precision rifle.

 

[bkw1911]

So from the responses so far it sounds like running the bolt too fast or not going firmly all the way back can induce a malfunction on 700s. I don't at all try to run the bolt quickly, even on my rifle that I'm very familiar with. And maybe that's the issue I had with the 700; it's just different from what I'm used to and I wasn't cycling the action exactly the way it wants. The FNH action definitely seems more forgiving.

What about Tikkas? Are they as prone to having this malfunction?

I havent had any issues with my 700s so long as the smith fitted the dbm properly. I had a bdl not work right once but i was loading a bit longer than it liked. My tikkas with cdi bottom metal and one in the krg xray chassis feed 100% even if i post off the mag i can still feed reliably.