Gunsmithing Should I be concerned?

[J_Roger]

Hey all, I need some advice from all you 'smiths out there.

I bought a Remy 700 SPS from Cabela's 2 nights ago, and when i took it to the range yesterday and noticed a couple things that I'm worried about.

First off, Like I said:
Remington 700 SPS Varmint /.308
AICS, not torqued down because my torque wrench is MIA
40 rounds of 168g FGMM down the tube, so not exactly broken in

Here's the problem, one of the first things I noticed when loading was that, while not impossible, the bolt is pretty hard to close and open. When I had run through a few rounds, I noticed that the brass was getting shaved a little bit. When I got home, I took the bolt out to clean, and this i what I found:

There is quite a substantial ring of brass around the bolt face, especially for only 40 rounds. needless to say, I'm a little concerned. Also there were brass shvings in the chambers, here.

So what do you guys think, should I send it to the repair center, or is it something like it's just new and will cure itself? I've never had another rifle do this, at least not as bad as this one. Thanks for the input, Taylor

 

[Beef_Supreme]

Re: Should I be concerned?

Well, one thing is for sure and normally goes without saying but this one is a good one- your bolt face isn't square.
What did the brass itself look like? As in primer seating before and after firing, looking for signs of over pressure. How did it shoot?
A repair center cannot do anything about that, as it is dealing with barrel/bolt, it would be sent back to Ilion. I would check headspace before making the call, the way the bolt face is unsquared coupled with the rough machine/ surface finish it could just be dragging a little in that respect. Start with headspace, the slight brass shavings does not surprise me, no edges are broken or polished, so that is something that except in extreme cases works itself out.

 

[gunnergirl81]

Re: Should I be concerned?

Pics of the brass would be helpful.

 

[SDWhirlwind]

Re: Should I be concerned?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Beef_Supreme</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Well, one thing is for sure and normally goes without saying but this one is a good one- your bolt face isn't square.
What did the brass itself look like? As in primer seating before and after firing, looking for signs of over pressure. How did it shoot?
A repair center cannot do anything about that, as it is dealing with barrel/bolt, it would be sent back to Ilion. I would check headspace before making the call, the way the bolt face is unsquared coupled with the rough machine/ surface finish it could just be dragging a little in that respect. Start with headspace, the slight brass shavings does not surprise me, no edges are broken or polished, so that is something that except in extreme cases works itself out. </div></div>

So how can you tell from the rather poor quality pics posted that the "bolt face isn't square"???? How many have you checked yourself to verify it is a consistent and ongoing issue with the Remington 700? How many thousandths or ten thousandths can you measure with your human eye from pics posted on the net? What is an 'allowable' tolerance for factory bolt faces?

Just curious as to how much variance in Remington 700 bolt faces you have found over the years?

 

[LRI]

Re: Should I be concerned?

The bolt face is rough and/or your headspace is a pinch tight. As a result your transferring metal from the case head to the bolt face.

Show stopper? Certainly not.

Annoying? To most, yes.

If it were me I'd leave it till you wear out the barrel, then have the whole thing tuned up when you hang a new stick on it. As an interum fix try bumping the shoulder on your cases. If your using cases fired in a different rifle, that is likely the problem. Try a new piece of unfired brass. If it runs, run with it. If its still tight, you may consider the shoulder bump trick or having a smith squeal the chamber.

As for bolt faces being out of square:

A twin lug bolt action receiver has 90 degrees of bolt rotation. That being said if your bolt was grossly out of square with the bore, you'd expect to see the high spot represent itself with a 90* smear of brass. In your photos its plainly illustrated that the metal transfer is 360*.

In any other gun the headspace will be gobbled up by the ejector preloading the case, so unless your "high spot" is "higher" than the protrusion of the ejector, your not going to see metal transfer anyway. That would have to be quite a bit. Least in anything I've ever seen.

Bolt face squareness is highly discussed and debated. Personally I think it's filled with a bit of smoke. We do it more for the purpose of making a customer warm/fuzzy rather than any performance expectation.

Hope this helps.

C.

 

[Beef_Supreme]

Re: Should I be concerned?

Well judging by the poor picture, the bolt face has lots of brass imbedded in the finish of the bolt face at it's outer sides, the closer you get to the firing pin hole the lack of brass is obvious. If you put dykem on the back of the brass you would see dykem rubbed off the outsides and not towards the middle of the brass, so that is relatively straight forward. As far as tolerance is concerned, it probably falls within spec, but it doesn't mean it is optimum now does it? Nor does it mean it is 'right' NOR does it mean it is acceptable.
Being as the bolt head is a completely different piece of the bolt that is soldered into the bolt body, it is a part that is made in quantity, and not really checked for squareness. So when the assembler in Ilion picks it up and pops it into a bolt body to start the process it has at that point only been inspected for 'tolerances' IF it were picked up at all. As long as the parts are good, maybe one in 10 or 20 are picked up and checked.
The experience I have? With machining in general and with regards to the Remington 700 in specific? Call me up at 1 800 243 9700 ext 8566 and I will tell you essentially everything you want to know, I don't have time or dexterity left in my fingers to type it all.
Ball is in your court.

 

[woodsy]

Re: Should I be concerned?

As always, Mr. Dixon speaks the truth.

There’s a VLS around here that does the same thing with some factory ammo. I’ve set my sizing die down a bit so this doesn’t happen with reloads.

I figure the headspace was a bit tight from the factory (not necessarily a bad thing) and plan on shooting it until the barrel needs replaced.

But, yes, it does get annoying if a round is tight going in there. That’s why I stick with reloads now.

Shoot and enjoy your rifle.

 

[gunnergirl81]

Re: Should I be concerned?

SASSY!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Beef_Supreme</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Well judging by the poor picture, the bolt face has lots of brass imbedded in the finish of the bolt face at it's outer sides, the closer you get to the firing pin hole the lack of brass is obvious. If you put dykem on the back of the brass you would see dykem rubbed off the outsides and not towards the middle of the brass, so that is relatively straight forward. As far as tolerance is concerned, it probably falls within spec, but it doesn't mean it is optimum now does it? Nor does it mean it is 'right' NOR does it mean it is acceptable.
Being as the bolt head is a completely different piece of the bolt that is soldered into the bolt body, it is a part that is made in quantity, and not really checked for squareness. So when the assembler in Ilion picks it up and pops it into a bolt body to start the process it has at that point only been inspected for 'tolerances' IF it were picked up at all. As long as the parts are good, maybe one in 10 or 20 are picked up and checked.
The experience I have? With machining in general and with regards to the Remington 700 in specific? Call me up at 1 800 243 9700 ext 8566 and I will tell you essentially everything you want to know, I don't have time or dexterity left in my fingers to type it all.
Ball is in your court. </div></div>

I asked for pics of the brass, but I'll just explain myself. The extractor being a tad sharp is common on the 700 and tends to shave a bit of the case. That leads to a bit too much loose brass shaving in the area and it leave nice, bright, alarming marks on all that nice dark gunmetal. Like Chad said, let it wear itself in, or check the corners of the extractor and you can knock the edges off them with a small cratex tool in your dremel.

Its not all that uncommon (what you're seeing) and nothing to freak out about.

 

[Beef_Supreme]

Re: Should I be concerned?

For all practical purposes, keeping the bolt face clean and bumping shoulder back is the exact route I would take as a general consumer and shooter. As I stated, it probably as an individual part is in 'spec' and poses no threat to safety whatsoever.

 

[gunnergirl81]

Re: Should I be concerned?

Oh, BTW, if you really work for Remington, bad mouthing the specs as "unacceptable" and then listing your extension is probably not the best plan.

Just my $0.02.

 

[Beef_Supreme]

Re: Should I be concerned?

It's simple fact. I have the discussion all of the time, and acceptable to top performance and acceptable to safety in production terms are two entirely different things. You call any of the techs and first off treat them like humans, second off have this discussion- you will be told exactly that. Then you would be directed to the Custom Shop, or to a Custom Gunsmith. As a point of safety a headspace check probably would be recommended, beyond that- as long as it is safe it is good.

 

[J_Roger]

Re: Should I be concerned?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Beef_Supreme</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
What did the brass itself look like? As in primer seating before and after firing, looking for signs of over pressure. How did it shoot?
</div></div>
I did try to take some pics of the brass to post as well, but as you can tell from the posted pics, my camera isn't exactly the greatest. The brass was not showing signs of overpressure, but there was scarring on the backs of the brass from where the bolt face was rubbing, as well scratches down the sides from, what I assume, where is was rubbing the chamber wall as the round was inserted/extracted.

 

[J_Roger]

Re: Should I be concerned?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: C. Dixon</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Try a new piece of unfired brass. If it runs, run with it. If its still tight, you may consider the shoulder bump trick or having a smith squeal the chamber.
</div></div>

These were brand new, store bought rounds as I have not yet delved into the world of reloading.

 

[338RUM runner]

Re: Should I be concerned?

Roger, What i did and my .02. I got a .243 CDL a few years back and it did the same thing. I fixed it this way. Take bolt apart and remove Ejector leave the Extractor. Chuck a piece of 1/4" wood dowel in your drill press, put some Valve grinding compound on the face and polish it. Hold the bolt face against it and move it around. Doesn't take very long. Clean it good. Your just trying to take the rough spots off. Worked for me.

 

[J_Roger]

Re: Should I be concerned?

I do want to thank everyone for your responses. From the general consensus I get, it's good to know that it's really not anything I should worry about. As stated earlier, I will probably just wait till I have to rebarrel, and then just have the smith also true the action and make sure everything is nice and proper with the bolt. Again, thanks to you all. Taylor.

 

[LRI]

Re: Should I be concerned?

If your going to continue to shoot factory loads then I'd speculate the chamber is a smidge tight.

No danger of blowing your face off, just annoying as your bolt will have a golden halo forever.

Two solutions:

1. Whizz the face of the bolt.
2. Squeal the chamber a smidge to loosen things up.

Either are ok, but at this point I'd opt for the chamber squealing. This is literally as complicated as getting a reamer of the appropriate chamber, sticking a 1/4-28 screw in the ass end till it bottoms out, dropping it down the chamber and using an allen wrench on a 1/4 drive ratchet to peel a little off the chamber.

Use a pinch of oil and in 5 minutes your done. It'll take longer to clean the gun afterward than to remove the material.

If you want it done, send it in. $50 with a same day turnaround provided nothing else is cockeyed.

Good luck.

C.

 

[J_Roger]

Re: Should I be concerned?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: xp100man</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Roger, What i did and my .02. I got a .243 CDL a few years back and it did the same thing. I fixed it this way. Take bolt apart and remove Ejector leave the Extractor. Chuck a piece of 1/4" wood dowel in your drill press, put some Valve grinding compound on the face and polish it. Hold the bolt face against it and move it around. Doesn't take very long. Clean it good. Your just trying to take the rough spots off. Worked for me. </div></div> Would this do anything detrimental to my headspace?

 

[xs hedspace]

Re: Should I be concerned?

Or, it's possible that the ejector is bottoming out on some crap in the ejector hole, and shaving brass. We had a guy show up at the local gun club with an older Rem700, had trouble closing the bolt, and the brass had a scrape mark about 90deg around the base where the ejector was shaving brass. Told him to go home, put some Hoppe's in the front of the bolt, and work the ejector in and out until crud stopped coming out. He admitted he had it out in the rain last deer season. Probably rusted the spring. May not be your problem, but check anyway.

 

[338RUM runner]

Re: Should I be concerned?

Won't hurt Headspace. Looking at C Dixon's offer "Go for it" then you know all is good.

 

[Wesek]

Re: Should I be concerned?

My 700 AAC-SD does, pretty much, the exact same thing. When I first got it I called Rem. about it. The tech I talked to said there was 0% chance of it having any kind of headspace issue and the problem was most certainly the extractor.

Didn't make sense to me so I never sent it in, just kept shooting instead. Seems a little better after firing a few hundred rounds or so (or maybe I've just gotten used to it) but still hard to work the bolt quickly.

 

[Wesek]

Re: Should I be concerned?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: C. Dixon</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If your going to continue to shoot factory loads then I'd speculate the chamber is a smidge tight.

No danger of blowing your face off, just annoying as your bolt will have a golden halo forever.

Two solutions:

1. Whizz the face of the bolt.
2. Squeal the chamber a smidge to loosen things up.

Either are ok, but at this point I'd opt for the chamber squealing. This is literally as compliated as getting a reamer of the appropriate chamber, sticking a 1/4-28 screw in the ass end till it bottoms out, dropping it down the chamber and using an allen wrench on a 1/4 drive ratchet to peel a little off the chamber.

Use a pinch of oil and in 5 minutes your done. It'll take longer to clean the gun afterward than to remove the material.

If you want it done, send it in. $50 with a same day turnaround provided nothing else is cockeyed.

Good luck.

C. </div></div>


Chad,

Wouldn't lapping the bolt lugs address the problem with the possibility of some, perhaps minimal, accuracy gain?

 

[300sniper]

Re: Should I be concerned?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Beef_Supreme</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Well judging by the poor picture, the bolt face has lots of brass imbedded in the finish of the bolt face at it's outer sides, the closer you get to the firing pin hole the lack of brass is obvious. If you put dykem on the back of the brass you would see dykem rubbed off the outsides and not towards the middle of the brass, so that is relatively straight forward. As far as tolerance is concerned, it probably falls within spec, but it doesn't mean it is optimum now does it? Nor does it mean it is 'right' NOR does it mean it is acceptable.
Being as the bolt head is a completely different piece of the bolt that is soldered into the bolt body, it is a part that is made in quantity, and not really checked for squareness. So when the assembler in Ilion picks it up and pops it into a bolt body to start the process it has at that point only been inspected for 'tolerances' IF it were picked up at all. As long as the parts are good, maybe one in 10 or 20 are picked up and checked.
The experience I have? With machining in general and with regards to the Remington 700 in specific? Call me up at 1 800 243 9700 ext 8566 and I will tell you essentially everything you want to know, I don't have time or dexterity left in my fingers to type it all.
Ball is in your court. </div></div>

by out of square, you must mean conical shaped? like already mentioned, if it were out of square, there would only be brass transfer on 90 degrees of the bolt face.

i'm going say the problem is either a chamber headspace that is bellow minimum saami spec or ammo that is over maximum saami spec and nothing to do with the shape or squareness of the bolt face.

 

[LRI]

Re: Should I be concerned?

Prolly.

I "lap" a bolt to verify I did my machine work correctly or to repair a badly galled lug surface sent in from elsewheres.

I don't think I've ever done one to bring a gun into HS. It's not that I'm "perfect" or anything, it's just that with a lathe its far less work to set all that up during the chambering operation.

Just didn't think of it.

As for the ejector being the cause.

Again, it'd only wipe 90* of the bolt face. This ring goes all the way around which suggests (strongly) that the entire case is squashed tight against the face of the bolt.

I doubt its an ejector.

 

[turbo54]

Re: Should I be concerned?

<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: Beef_Supreme</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Well judging by the poor picture, the bolt face has lots of brass imbedded in the finish of the bolt face at it's outer sides, the closer you get to the firing pin hole the lack of brass is obvious. If you put dykem on the back of the brass you would see dykem rubbed off the outsides and not towards the middle of the brass, so that is relatively straight forward. As far as tolerance is concerned, it probably falls within spec, but it doesn't mean it is optimum now does it? Nor does it mean it is 'right' NOR does it mean it is acceptable.
Being as the bolt head is a completely different piece of the bolt that is soldered into the bolt body, it is a part that is made in quantity, and not really checked for squareness. So when the assembler in Ilion picks it up and pops it into a bolt body to start the process it has at that point only been inspected for 'tolerances' IF it were picked up at all. As long as the parts are good, maybe one in 10 or 20 are picked up and checked.
The experience I have? With machining in general and with regards to the Remington 700 in specific? Call me up at 1 800 243 9700 ext 8566 and I will tell you essentially everything you want to know, I don't have time or dexterity left in my fingers to type it all.
Ball is in your court. </div></div>

by out of square, you must mean conical shaped? like already mentioned, if it were out of square, there would only be brass transfer on 90 degrees of the bolt face.

i'm going say the problem is either a chamber headspace that is bellow minimum saami spec or ammo that is over maximum saami spec and nothing to do with the shape or squareness of the bolt face. </div></div>

This. Chad and 300 have got this one covered like a bum on a bologna sandwich.

 

[LRI]

Re: Should I be concerned?

Final comments:

I find it curious that whenever a problem like this surfaces, generally the first blame is a machining issue with a bolt or a receiver.

Has anyone here ever seen how US manufactured ammunition is actually made? In this case the brass cartridge? A condition like this would replicate the problem.

I bring this up because I once ran into it. Lately I've run into all sorts of dumb chit due to brass being essentially junk.

243's that are way short on the shoulder
30-06 OD cases measuring .458-.462 that should be in the high .460's-causing what looks like a bulged chamber even though a gauge pin plugs the chamber mouth at .471 (- just like the reamer print.)

What's to say the case head isn't square to the centerline of the cartridge body?

In my mind, the only way to ensure the cartridge is really made correctly would be to inset it into a die and machine the ass end of it. To my knowledge there isn't a manufacturer out there doing that.

While your at it, flip it around and buzz the neck too.

Just sayin. . . I gotz a gunz to put together now.

Range day! Woo Hoo!

C.

 

[Beef_Supreme]

Re: Should I be concerned?

I completely agree with your statements regarding ammunition. My eyes have been witness to many ammunition oriented problems, but people tend to believe that because it is ammo and NO manufacturer could make a mistake on ammo, that it must be the gun.
Perhaps I could have been more clear with my statements previously. The 'problem' with the bolt face is that is neither square, level or plum- not to say it is unsafe. The real problem lies most likely in a headspace issue, wether it be ammunition spec or a short or tight chamber. Tightness in headspace forcing the base of the cartridge into the boltface merely illustrates the 'cup shape' of the boltface, and does not per se reveal it as THE problem.
I saw this particular problem often in my last firearms manufacturing job too often in production barrels. Checking the headspace would not reveal a problem because gauges measure length, not chamber. As Chad described above a quick scrape with a reamer inserted with no forward pressure would remove offending material from the sidewall of the chamber and the problem would be solved with no change in the dimension measured off the deadspace gauge. Production reamers wear, dull, and get sent off for resharp and are put back into service without being checked and often wind up producing chambers with this exact symptom, and are never discovered until the end consumer gets it in their hands.

 

[jakel]

Re: Should I be concerned?

I agree in terms of the brass shavings. That is an issue that continued use will most likely solve.
What I've done in terms of the bolt face(rough surface/somewhat tight headspace)is use a Manson bolt face tool to true the face and smooth out the surface. This, because of the removal of a few thou from the face, will give you a bit more room in your chamber also.
hope that helps.