SmallCaliberCentral

Hello all.

I have a Remington 700 sps with a plate and spring above the floor plate. I typically load one in at a time as a single shot not using the clip part. There is no detachable clip. A few days ago I was laying prone and decided to practice cycling the rounds. I pushed two cartridges down and closed the bolt with the chamber empty. When the bolt was closed it scratched the first case. When I opened the bolt the draw back scratched the first case again then loaded it in to the chamber scratching the second case.. Extracted the first case scratching the second case below again on the way out. So each case has two scratches on it. Is this normal? Did I load it incorrectly? I like the benchrest so using it as a single shot is no problem. Can the plate and spring be changed to an actual clip type? I like the lower weight 32 grain bullets and say towards the minium recommended beginning load. RCBS O press and 204 dies. The scratched cases were reloads. Would that affect the scratching issue?

Sincerely 204cat

Hey 204cat,
First welcome to the sight and please enjoy all the info you will get from everybody, and you are sure to make some friends along the way. Now I will say yes this is normal because the cases do not sit all the way below the bolt when they are in the mag. My rifles do the same thing and they are made by Savage and Remington. The reason is beacuse there hase to be enough of the case so the bolt can push it out and into the chamber. If you hold the cases down with your hand and then cycle bolt it will ride on top of the case and scratch it going in and coming out. Do not worry this a normal thing. Have fun shooting your rifle and there is nothing wrong with it. But I do have one question and that is does the rifle feed the cases correctly into the chamber? Enjoy the site and Ride Up!!!

Thank you for the reply. Yes the cases do feed correctly and smoothly. Even the reloads feed good. I knew the bolt had to be able to get the next round and feed. I was thinking that maybe the spring in the floor panel was to strong. If this is normal then that is good news. It is a great sweet shooter.

I'd check around the feed ramp to see if there are any burrs sticking up, that might scratch the case. I once had a Winchester Heavy Varmint in .22/250 that scratched the cases badly enough I worried a little about it. I got to looking closely, and found a little burr sticking up at the right side locking lug recess (bottom). A couple of file strokes fixed it easily enough.
If it's just a scuff mark, nothing to worry about, but if it's scratching the case, I'd look real closely at it and see if there's a burr someplace.

204cat: Good advice so far. As you also shoot your 204 single shot, you may want to consider one of the BR single shot followers to place over the factory follower, as it guides the loaded round directly into the chamber, no scratching, direct feed. I use the ones from Score High Gunsmithing, available direct or from Sinclair. Very well made specifically for each model of rifle from T6 alloy.

It does not show very well, but here's one installed in my M700 223 Ackley with a loaded round in the tray:



If you shoot single shot to allow barrel cooling between shots like we do, this is the hot setup.

I think you will find it is the magazine box that is scratching the brass on a 700 Remington. Mine did the same thing until I rounded the corners off and used a stone on them.

Lenard

Yes some very good info. I did not even consider that it could be the underside of the lip scratching the case. I am sure that it is the bolt head scratching the case because one of the scratches is the full length of the case. I will have to check it again more carefully.