Thread: Remington 700. 223

hi every one i had a shot of a mates. Remington 700. 223. the bolt action seemed way to tight. its practically new and i couldn't see an obvious thing wrong with it.
any ideas

What part of the action felt tight - closing/opening or feeding/extracting or both?

What is your definition of tight what are you comparing it with

If its 'tight' closing the bolt, then ask - are the rounds reloads? Have they been used in a different rifle? Have they been full length resized? Are the projectiles seated too far out? If it is happening with 'factory' rounds it is also possible that there has been an 'error' in the original chambering and the chamber has not been correctly finished (Yes it happens, including rifles shipped with a 'test group' that did not have any chamber cut at all)

If it is tight on opening, then check - has the primer been extruded into the firing pin hole using reloaded ammo - too much pressure, consider changing friends before the funeral. Are there small shiny scratches on the case - possible rust in the chamber due to improper storage, either before or after your friend bought the rifle. If the corrosion gets bad you will need a cleaning rod to force the case out of the chamber (DAMHIK, bldy Crookwell).

If it is tight with no cartridge, check the bolt for scratches/wear marks. Someone may have over tightened the bedding screws holding the action to the stock or used screws that are too long (or left packing washers out), either for the bedding screws or to fasten a scope mount. You can also have problems if the safety is not locking properly in the 'off' position, causing the interlocking piece to drag, or some of the other screws or pins are out of place/over tightened. There could even be a bit of foam packing stuck in some odd cranny of the action that is just dragging.

Just a few ideas to tide you over

I have a new Howa 223 heavy barrel s/s and have had no end of problems with tight bolt and bad grouping, have tried everything and had other people check my reloads for every concievable thing to no avail. The club cronogragh showed wildly different projectile speeds eg 3200,3150,3780 3556 ect ect. Last week the problem was solved, when bought the gun shop gave me bags of new brass to do my reloads and it would seem that i was given 5.56 brass NOT .223 brass. They are NOT THE SAME THING no matter what any magazine or salesman says. You live and learn.

thanks for the help. the rifle isnt here at the moment. so ill be able to give more details in a week or so.
its a brand new rifle less than 100 rounds. and they were new rounds of very good quality.
ok thanks again more details soon.
aaron

Originally Posted by TAFE student

Last week the problem was solved, when bought the gun shop gave me bags of new brass to do my reloads and it would seem that i was given 5.56 brass NOT .223 brass. They are NOT THE SAME THING no matter what any magazine or salesman says. You live and learn.

Please explain.

It is my understanding that the 5.56 and the 223 cartridge are the same specs, however the difference is in the chamber. The SAAMI 223 chamber is basically a slightly tighter version of the NATO 5.56. The reason for this (the "slack" NATO chamber) is to reduce the likelihood of jams/misfeeds in military weapons which are more likely to encounter harsh and dirty environments.

BTW, for me it's standard practice to use a full length die on any new (or second hand) brass. That way you can be sure you are starting from a known position.

I will normally only neck die the brass after it has been fired for the first time (i.e. fire formed), and continue to do so as long as it still feeds smoothly ... but I only use those reloads in the one rifle.

Originally Posted by Vernonv

It is my understanding that the 5.56 and the 223 cartridge are the same specs, however the difference is in the chamber. The SAAMI 223 chamber is basically a slightly tighter version of the NATO 5.56. The reason for this is to reduce the likelihood of jams/misfeeds in military weapons which are more likely to encounter harsh and dirty environments.

That was also my understanding. Given the wide range of velocities recorded by TAFE student, I wonder if he has fallen into the trap of assuming that all different sources of cases in a given caliber will have the same internal volume and has inadvertently overloaded some rounds. 3700 fps is some serious velocity for a .223 to achieve. I seem to remember that 5.56 and 7.62 military brass has a heavier web than commercial brass in those calibers, thus decreasing internal volume and effectively increasing the load.

Originally Posted by Karl Robbers

I seem to remember that 5.56 and 7.62 military brass has a heavier web than commercial brass in those calibers...

I have heard the same.

I buy my 223 brass secondhand/once fired and I'm led to believe it's military brass (it's manufactured by ADI). I've never really taken any notice of the webbing thickness or volumes, and just develop a load for the best grouping (use it for hunting). As I mentioned above I always full length resize them first and have never had any issues.

Some history and a comparison here.

So in actual fact, the cartridges are the same, but the leade or freebore of their respective chambers differs. That and the difference in their maximum pressure specs.
If reloading their should be no difference other than that produced by cartridge volume variations.

Military brass usually has different hardness characteristics to make it suitable for use in full auto weapons, but I can't remember if its harder or softer than civilian brass without digging through a few reference books.

On a 'historical' note, according to several retired US military personnel the US DoD did not originally have written specifications for either the chamber or the case for the 5.56 round, it was 'assumed' that the right people knew and that their companies would get the contract to supply the rifles and ammunition - of course that did not happen, so Hercules loaded the rounds with their powder rather than Winchester, the cases were just sized off a sample case not written specs, sub-contractors for rifle components just guessed at the chamber dimensions based off, again, sample cases. It is now a subject of amazement that the M16 actually managed to function at all, and its only taken, what, 40 odd years for it to become a reasonably effective system.

My advice to anyone who has new brass to reload, (brass by a manufacturer they havent used before) is to take a fired and sized case from their old batch of brass and a sized case from the new batch, put a primer in both, fill with the powder you use, empty it into the scales pan and weigh. Make absolutely sure you use the same shake down or tap to get the powder level because powder does compress and might skew the result.
You can do it with water but that is not easy to translate into actual powder volumes/weights. There may be just a miniscule difference or you may get a surprise.
Ive used ADI 7.62 cases and civvie .308win cases and found some fairly big differences in volume. The ADIs held less. Not that it had much practical importance in a 308/7.62 case but as the cases get smaller, differences in volume and hence powder weight become more and more critical.
1 or 2 extra grains in my .35 Whelen make 4/5s of bugger all difference to pressures.
1-2 grains in my .222R Martini Cadet is the difference between shooting all day and having hot gases escape through the firing pin hole and having to dismantle the rifle to get the case out. Something I learnt 24 years ago and havnt forgotton.
If you combine a smaller volume case, a short 'lead', long seated bullet with a hot load of fast powder things can get very exciting.