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Gunsmithing Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

A

Apache

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
Dec 6, 2008
233
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33
Chico, CA
About 8 months ago, I bought a Remington 700 SPS-V in .308. When loading the rifle I noticed that when actually sliding the bolt forward to load rounds from the magazine, it is VERY rough. Looking at one of LL's videos, his action is smooth as butter. This is nothing like mine. Is this typical of Remington's production line?

Also, some of the brass that I eject is scraped pretty deeply, enough to catch your fingernail when you touch it. Is there a fix to this or should I just contact Remington about it?

Thanks for the help. If needed I can provide a video of the action loading a round to show what I mean.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

Some of the production rifles of late are rough to say the least. If you send it back there's a good chance it will return in the same condition. Your rifle can be fixed but, it probably will cost you. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

Take a skinny stone, or 000 grit sandpaper and smooth the lips of the built-in magazine.

Double check the bottom of the bolt, too.

Your job is to eliminate sharp edges. I would like to polish my feed ramp, too, but would have to remove the scope base to do that.....
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

Not to mention that some of those rifles in the videos (you could even say most of them) are using Badger DM and AICS mags.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

I have not personally run across this, then again I always cycle the action several times and otherwise do an inspection before purchasing. If it does not feel well balanced and cycle smoothly when I close my eyes, I do not buy it.

Cycle the action, pay attention to whether it slides smoothly or feels a git gritty, if gritty, or sticky, is it the entire action or just certain spots? No problems? Try it with a shell or a dummy if it is now problematical, try to identify the part of the stroke that feels wrong. You can also crayon a shell with a sharpie and cycle it to tell you where the scratches are coming from, drop it in the chamber first and cycle it, then cycle it from the magazine. The scratches will show up really well against the shell then.


Do a careful visual and tactile check of all your bearing surfaces, lugs, ways, feed ramp, lips and follower use an inspection light and remove the bolt. If you cannot get your finger in there, use a q-tip and see if there are any burrs that snag the cotton. You might have to remove the stock depending on what type of magazine you have.

It wont hurt anything to go ahead and polish your mag follower, feed lips might help, but not really worth it unless you can feel burrs, same thing for the feed ramp.

I would not try to polish the chamber unless you have experience.

If you can identify your problem, you might give Remington a call and talk to customer service, they might not do anything, then again reputation counts a lot in firearms manufacture, they may very well be more than happy to fix the problem, it won't hurt to try.

You might also want to do a really really thorough cleaning of your action with chamber and toothbrush, there is a slight possibility you have some grit in there.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

I don't know about the dealers near you, but the dealers here will tight the bolt with trigger to prevent wear on the display pieces, especially on the higher dollar goods.

My 700 had jewell bolt on it, so, of course, the dealer locked that bolt with trigger.

I agree that if the OP's bolt has such condition, the wise way is to have a qualified gun smith to work on it. I had Randy@ R+D Precision worked on mine so I have personal experience to vouch his high quality work, heard a lot good things about other smith here on the hide too.

Hope you find a good solution to this.

Dyl..
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Apache</div><div class="ubbcode-body">About 8 months ago, I bought a Remington 700 SPS-V in .308. When loading the rifle I noticed that when actually sliding the bolt forward to load rounds from the magazine, it is VERY rough. Looking at one of LL's videos, his action is smooth as butter. This is nothing like mine. Is this typical of Remington's production line?

Also, some of the brass that I eject is scraped pretty deeply, enough to catch your fingernail when you touch it. Is there a fix to this or should I just contact Remington about it?

Thanks for the help. If needed I can provide a video of the action loading a round to show what I mean. </div></div>


Like Roscoe said... I can almost guarantee that it will come back the same from Rem. I'm not going any further into my story with them. The SPS-V's and SPS's in general have a rough finish, the bolt will smooth up after a little bit.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

Use some 400 wet/dry sandpaper with light oil on it and deburr the magazine feed lip cutout on the bottom side of the action, there may be brass shavings on the rough area from previous contact. Top side as well wouldn't hurt. Should take off the burrs and of course the finish where you smooth it out. Careful when you start out since the edges are pretty sharp.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

+1

Mine was the same way from Remington, like is mentiioned above, run a few rounds through the mag, chamber then eject and then take the action outta the stock. the brass color will show you where you need to work on the action. doesn't take long or to much work. Good luck.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

I removed some of my feed lips on my SPS SS WSM but it was horrid....seriously advise against sending it to Rem...the two times I sent it to them they FUBAR'd me.

Use some light sand paper on the feed lips...go really slow and check it often...if you go to much then your follower will kick from side to side ocassionally because those feed lips keep the rounds down as well as the follower.

A Wyatts kit might help you also....can't remember for sure but I thought they had a center feed kit? Center feeding really helps smoothness....hardley any POP out of the mag well.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

The cheapest way to go about it is to get some polishing compoud, like Flitz, and polish the bolt raceway and the camming surfaces near the bolt handle. Heck you could even do the bolt body while you are at it. You can try using some sort of dry lube as well.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

Hey guys, thanks for the replies and here's an update. I took a piece of high grit sand paper and worked some of the metal to metal contact points. The action itself when just cycling was never really that bad and it definitely made things a little smoother. Still having a problem though with loading rounds from the magazine. As flyboy mentioned, there is a buildup of brass being scraped off of the casings on the lips of the bottom metal. When loading, the rounds snag up and feel like they have to be forced out of the magazine. I have to try and get those sharp sides off as I feel that's what is causing most of the problem now.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

My rifle was kinda rough too when I got it. The ADL mag box had a small lip on it as well. Som massaging with a dremel took care of that. I polised the bolt and lugs as well. Bolt feels like its on bearings now. Try some militec-1 after a good scrubbing and swabbing of the raceways. Make sure its all clean before you lube. Grinings, shavings, polishing compound left over can cause premature wear ans such. I actually put a dab of silver never-sieze on the lugs, less messy.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

Get after the spot that are taking the brass off the cases. That will solve your prob.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

So here's an update:

Took a good few hours of work on it with some sand paper. After a while of working on it and definitely softening up the edges, it still scrapes the rounds. It's actually audible when loading the rounds and makes a slight screeching sounds. So this brings me to my question, if I keep working on it, is there point where I might do some serious damage to the receiver just by sanding down the edges?
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Apache</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So here's an update:

Took a good few hours of work on it with some sand paper. After a while of working on it and definitely softening up the edges, it still scrapes the rounds. It's actually audible when loading the rounds and makes a slight screeching sounds. So this brings me to my question, if I keep working on it, is there point where I might do some serious damage to the receiver just by sanding down the edges? </div></div>

At this point I would stop doing anything else to the receiver and let someone else (rifle builder) look at it. And yes if you keep at it, and you’re not too sure that it's fixing the problem, or will fix the problem you can mess up the receiver.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

Thanks Randy, that's what I was thinking. Ugh gotta find a good gunsmith now in NorCal. Any recommendations?
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

Have you made 100% sure that the mag box is seated in the mag recess area on the bottom of the receiver properly?
I have fixed more feeding problems for other people lately by first checking to see if they have the mag box seated properly, many are letting it bind or kick one way or the other when re-assembling the rifle.
Just a thought...K.I.S.S.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

I'm almost 100% sure that it is seated correctly. What would be a telltale sign it is not?
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Apache</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Thanks Randy, that's what I was thinking. Ugh gotta find a good gunsmith now in NorCal. Any recommendations? </div></div>

Randy aint too far from ya, just saying....
laugh.gif
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

There's not much to show in the pictues, it looks like any other reciever. And ya randy's only 300 miles away
laugh.gif
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

I can try and get a video up of the receiver loading a round, would that be able to help?

Also, very open to gunsmith suggestions. As far as I know Randy isn't taking any new work on (on his site).

There's only one in the Chico area that has any reputation and even then, I don't believe it is a good one.

Modesto has Sierra Arms, which well...bunch of young guys that would sooner screw you over than do you right. They tried to charge me $300+ for a USED HS Precision take off stock. This had obvious use marks and was bedded to boot. I mentioned that well these go for around $310 new, how about taking it down a little and I would be very interested and they just shrugged, said no, and gave me a look like I no longer deserved to be in their midst. Have also heard stories of them screwing up a threading job and blaming the customer. So needless to say I will not be going back there.

I guess my options are to check the smith here, ask to see some of his work, or ship it to a 'Hide smith.

Again, any suggestions?
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Apache</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Modesto has Sierra Arms, which well...bunch of young guys that would sooner screw you over than do you right. They tried to charge me $300+ for a USED HS Precision take off stock. This had obvious use marks and was bedded to boot. I mentioned that well these go for around $310 new, how about taking it down a little and I would be very interested and they just shrugged, said no, and gave me a look like I no longer deserved to be in their midst.</div></div>


it doesn't sound like they tried to screw you over at all. not everything in this world is "obo" especially if you are at a store.
 
Re: Is this normal for a Remington 700 S/A?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: 300sniper</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Apache</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

Modesto has Sierra Arms, which well...bunch of young guys that would sooner screw you over than do you right. They tried to charge me $300+ for a USED HS Precision take off stock. This had obvious use marks and was bedded to boot. I mentioned that well these go for around $310 new, how about taking it down a little and I would be very interested and they just shrugged, said no, and gave me a look like I no longer deserved to be in their midst.</div></div>


it doesn't sound like they tried to screw you over at all. not everything in this world is "obo" especially if you are at a store.
</div></div>

Understandable, but this FFL has repeatably attempted to screw over my friends who have come in trying to buy their first rifle, I am a young guy still, and when entering I am met with nothing but disrespect and no attention to any of my questions. I have found a shop in Chico where I currently live for school that I have very positive experiences from them and continue to do my buying there.

To the original solution, I think that I will send it to Randy, pending he is feeling better and accepting work, if willing, I may ask him to install a muzzle brake as well.
 
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