A friend bought a Remington 7 short action. Accuracy was poor, no surprise. He got a Shilen heavy barrel and had it installed with an action truing job and bedding job. The rifle shows improvement in accuracy, but there are two mechanical issues.
First, it is not possible to insert four 308 size cartridges into the magazine and have the fourth stay in the magazine. It wants to pop back out. If three are inserted, the third (last) cartridge doesn’t feed into the chamber. It doesn’t rise up enough for the bolt to pick it up. Upon opening the floorplate, the rear vertical portion of the magazine box can be seen to be about a 1/16 of an inch forward of the opening in the bottom metal. The original composite stock (now bedded) has a bit of a raised portion on each side of the exterior aligned vertically with the recoil lug.
On another Remington available to us, the rear vertical edge of the magazine box is aligned with the edge of the opening in the floorplate.
We could install a new magazine box, but wonder if it would likely have the same problem, given that the bedding appears to have no additional room. TIA for any ideas.
The second problem is the safety. As expected with a recent Remington safety, the bolt can be operated with the safety to the rear. As the safety is moved forward, there is what feels like a detent about 55-60% of the travel to all the way forward. Further movement feels "gritty".
During the initial sighting in of the rifle, he fired several rounds loading singly. After several rounds, he chambered a fresh round, pushed the safety forward to what he thought was “Fire” and then pulled the trigger with no trigger movement or discharge of the round. Thinking he had not moved the safety to the “Fire” position, he pushed on the safety. As it moved forward, the cartridge immediately discharged. After a few rounds, again, no discharge when he pulled the trigger. This time, he didn’t push the safety forward. He started raising the bolt and got an immediate discharge as he started raising it. We have been able to repeat this malfunction several times with no cartridges in the rifle. Sometimes it does it, sometimes not.
We have checked three other Remington bolt action safeties, two old and another recent one. They all have only two apparent positions, Safe or Fire, with a definite build-up of pressure against a spring and then release of pressure when moving the safety lever forward or backwards. Overcoming the spring in either direction on the other three rifles results in a definite release of what feels like an over center condition with the safety lever immediately moving the rest of the way forwards or backwards with no further effort.
We haven’t disassembled the rifle to troubleshoot the safety situation. Again, TIA for any ideas on the safety mechanism issue.
First, it is not possible to insert four 308 size cartridges into the magazine and have the fourth stay in the magazine. It wants to pop back out. If three are inserted, the third (last) cartridge doesn’t feed into the chamber. It doesn’t rise up enough for the bolt to pick it up. Upon opening the floorplate, the rear vertical portion of the magazine box can be seen to be about a 1/16 of an inch forward of the opening in the bottom metal. The original composite stock (now bedded) has a bit of a raised portion on each side of the exterior aligned vertically with the recoil lug.
On another Remington available to us, the rear vertical edge of the magazine box is aligned with the edge of the opening in the floorplate.
We could install a new magazine box, but wonder if it would likely have the same problem, given that the bedding appears to have no additional room. TIA for any ideas.
The second problem is the safety. As expected with a recent Remington safety, the bolt can be operated with the safety to the rear. As the safety is moved forward, there is what feels like a detent about 55-60% of the travel to all the way forward. Further movement feels "gritty".
During the initial sighting in of the rifle, he fired several rounds loading singly. After several rounds, he chambered a fresh round, pushed the safety forward to what he thought was “Fire” and then pulled the trigger with no trigger movement or discharge of the round. Thinking he had not moved the safety to the “Fire” position, he pushed on the safety. As it moved forward, the cartridge immediately discharged. After a few rounds, again, no discharge when he pulled the trigger. This time, he didn’t push the safety forward. He started raising the bolt and got an immediate discharge as he started raising it. We have been able to repeat this malfunction several times with no cartridges in the rifle. Sometimes it does it, sometimes not.
We have checked three other Remington bolt action safeties, two old and another recent one. They all have only two apparent positions, Safe or Fire, with a definite build-up of pressure against a spring and then release of pressure when moving the safety lever forward or backwards. Overcoming the spring in either direction on the other three rifles results in a definite release of what feels like an over center condition with the safety lever immediately moving the rest of the way forwards or backwards with no further effort.
We haven’t disassembled the rifle to troubleshoot the safety situation. Again, TIA for any ideas on the safety mechanism issue.
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