Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I have had the gun a little under two years. Three days prior to elk season the first year, the extractor broke.

Today I was at the range and in the process of knocking off a few rounds and the handle came off. Looks like a poor soldering/welding job. Anyone have any experience with warranty items and Remington?


http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b328/molon_labe/DSC00044.jpg

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I've heard of this problem and never encountered it.....and I thank you for the photo.....

Return the gun to Remington...it's all you can do I think.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I have heard of this happening but have never actually seen it myself.Actually remington will not normally give you any problems in cases like this.They can be harder to deal with in situations involving triggers that have been adjusted or with parts that have been modified.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I know it's a pain in the backside, but simply have your dealer send it back. They will fix the gun, no questions asked. I have seen several 710s do this over the last couple of years, but honestly haven't seen any 700s do it. BUT then again ANYTHING mechanical can and will pose problems from time too time.

Don't worry "Big Green" will fix that one without a second thought!
RA

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I saw that happen to a guy that had a stuck case and steped on the bolt handel to try and extract the case ( not saying you did that).

I don't own a Rem rifle so I can't have that problem.

Johnch

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

Unfortunately, it does happen sometimes on the Remingtons. The soldered-on bolt handle is one of the weaknesses in the 700 design. You are correct, it was a bad solder job. Normally, with normal use, the solder joint is strong enough to hold for the life of the gun. I concur with others here....Remington will likely fix the bolt for free...and not give you any trouble on it.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

That's not good. What's the model of the gun?

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I have had it happen to two Remington 788's but never in many thousands of rounds with the 700. It was a problem to fix on the 788 because the threads were cut into the end of the bolt handle for the firing pin housing to screw into. The threads had to be realighned perfectly.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

Just out of curiousity, is Remington the only one to solder on their bolt handles, or is this a common practice?

Mike

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

One should be able to beat the handle with a hammer and not remove the bolt handle. The only excuse for a customer to do this is if he heated it.....

That bolt handle should not come off with even heavy abuse!!!!

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

from the looks of it, its a stainless steel gun. as a welder I know it can be difficult to weld stainless steel and very easy not to get the weld hot enough to bond the steel. Just send it back to remington im sure they willbe more thenhappy to fix it or replace the bolt altogether for you. Myself i will still own remington over any other gun, your problem IMO is minor since it can be fixed I own several remingtons and a few that are probably older then you and i have yet to see this sort of problem on any of them, but then none of them are stainless guns.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

As stated this does happen with rem model 700 from time to time its just one of those things in mass production.They will fix it free of charge for it was not your fault. Not like aforge bolt handle like on a mauser or as stated a Rem model 788 which is threaded like the 22 lr is some models. Except that his happened and go on from there,yes its frustrating for one,since you put out good money. It will work out ok in the long run .vangunsmith

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

thanks for lettin us know. now i know never to buy a bolt action remmington!!

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I wouldn't go that far, but suit yourself. If you would never buy a certain brand of gun just because of a very rare problem that MIGHT occur in 1 in MAYBE 40,000-50,000 units, then you won't have too many choices. Mass produced guns, like anything else that rolls off an assembly line dozens or hundreds at a time, will always have a defect rate greater than 0%. Now if someone had posted a thread saying that the bolt handle of a hand-made custom action rifle (i.e. Stolle Panda or Tubbs 2000) had fallen off, then your concern would have more merit.

I, for one, still wouldn't hesitate to buy an M700. For every gun that has its bolt handle fall off, there are probably several tens of thousands of M700's that will never have a single problem. Those odds are good enough for me.

Mike

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I saw this happen with a fellow at the range,he had got all his shooting things inside the shooting house fired one round and the bolt came off in his hand as he was ejecting the spent round,it was on a rem 300 umag..
A buddy of mine had the safety lever break off his adl and the warrenty had just gone off and rem charged him $85 to replace it.
I have quit a few remingtons and so far haven't had any bad luck with any of them,but just bought a sps a few weeks ago and it wouldn't chamber a round sent it back and the said they polished the chamber and put a new bolt in it and it is ok now.I am glad it was still under warrenty though.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

It is a Sendero stainless..... .300 Win Mag

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

those figures seem kinda of high, what were your sources? anyway i wouldn't want a gun breaking on me, you never know what sitution you could be in. you should be able to yank on that handle as hard as you can and not have it break off. Also solder is a very weak bond. my $.2

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

It happens. Either send or take the bolt to someone to have it fixed.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

This is a perfect example of one of the reasons I choose not to own a Remington 700. I don't care how accurate it is, there are just too many mechanical shortcomings with this action for my taste.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

Well these "shortcomings" havent prevented it from becoming one of the most popular bolt actions ever. I bet you theres a reason that countless custom rifle makers use the 700 action in their rifles. As everyone stated everyone makes a lemon every once in awhile.

I would also like to know the other problems with a factory 700 versus the other major manufacterers. Im not saying this in an argumentative way, im just curious as to what other problems people have encountered with their factory 700's. Ive heard of a few, but not enough to prevent me from owning 6 remington 700's.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I called the folks at Remington today and was very pleasantly surprised that they did not question how it broke..."just box it up and we will fix it." They even pay for the shipping.

BUT, As much as I appreciate that idea I am not too fond of sending the entire gun back. Someone on another BB suggested I talk with HD Rifles in Del Rio TX. I can ship them the bolt they will take a week or so to drill and tap the sucker (as well as re-solder) with three screws for about $70.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

Why I don't own Remingtons anymore, happened to me many years ago on a very accurate 788 22-250. Shoot Ruger 77's, Winchester Super Shadow and Stevens 200's now.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

that happened to someone i knew once...he said it cost him the "biggest buck" he ever seen....

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I don't know if I'd call them "problems" per se, but the 700 certainly has some design shortcomings, in my opinion (and others too), that canpotentially lead to problems. Specifically I'm talking about the following:

- The aforementioned brazed on bolt handle.
- A puny little spring steel extractor (this is what I've had the most problems with). A claw or Sako style extractor would be better.
- A plunger ejector instead of a fixed blade. A minor issue, but I prefer the blade type.
- The breech is not coned which can lead to feeding problems, though in all honesty I've never had a problem.
- A bolt that requires a special tool to disassemble. The model 70 bolt, for example, can be disassembled easily by hand in the field if necessary.
- It's been a while since I owned one, but don't you have to release the safety in order to open the bolt?
- And last, but most important to me, a trigger and safety assembly that doesNOT block the firing pin. It's a matter of public record than Remington 700's have been involved in numerous lawsuits involving accidental discharges.

These things are important to me, especially the issue with the safety not blocking the firing pin. It is a factthe 700 isquite popular, though, soI guess these things are not asimportant toa lot of folks and that's fine with me. I think the real reasons they're so popular is that they're relatively inexpensive, they're easily modified to perform better and parts are readily available, they can be quite accurate out of the box, the Remington name is well known and, quite frankly,I think most people just aren't savy enough about rifles to know these shortcomings exist.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I'll stick with Rugers, Savages-Stevens, and Winchester until they make some changes.........how old is the 721-700 design anyway? Only Remington I want is the old 600-660 in 308 or 6mm...........They used to be my favorite rifle maker......no more[:o]

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

And thats whycountless people choseto use them in their $5000+ custom rifles........

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

Would you provide a list of the custom rifle companies making $5,000 plus rifles on Remington 700 actions? There must be several since "countless" people choose to use them.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I hope you are kidding? It is widely known that the remington 700 action is used in countless custom guns. A quick search on gunsamerica would probably turn up more than a few results.

But just to name a few famous gun makers who use the 700 in their guns.

Mark Bansner
David Christman
Hill Country Rifle Company
Bob Hisserich
Gene Simillion
Charlie Sisk
Virgin Valley Guns

I guess they just are not as "savy" as you and thats why they chose to use the remington 700 in their guns.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I had trouble with their ammo, but that's it. Even the NRA gunsmithing guide from 1975, almost all the examples they show you are on 700's.
The 700's been around since the 50's or 60's, that tells me they must be a pretty good action to survive the changing trends. There's not many actions out there that survived that long without some sort of tweeking
or re-engineering. I give it a thumbs up!

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I'm quite aware that 700's are used in custom rifles,I've owned them and shot with others who owned them,but you specifically said "countless" people use custom 700's that cost $5,000 plus. Countless meanstoo numerous to count.......that's a lot. Do any of those gunmakersyou listed make $5,000 rifles on this action? Maybe so, but I bet it's the exception and not therule.I looked at Hill Country's site, they don't list any. The closest thing I saw cost $4,500. They do show a rifle costing $15,000 plus, but it's built on a Winchester Model 70.

Look, I don't want to get into anything with you. The fact is, $5000 custom rifles are not that common no matter the action, so it's doubtful that "countless" people own custom $5000 Remington 700's or WinchesterModel 70's or whatever.Now if you had said that many $1,500 -$3,000 rifles are built on this action, I'd agree wholeheartedly with you.

My apologies if I was too literal in interpreting what you posted. Take care.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

I have seen a handful of Remington bolt handles break loose from the silver solder - for some reasonall of them but onewere stainless guns. Although Remington will stand behind their product, a good gunsmith can silver solder it back on without much dificulty. Remington usually takes a couple of months to repair a rifle and these bolt handles always seem to break off the week before opening day.

RE: Holy cow...my bolt handle came off
 

Solitary Man, you are absolutely right about Remingtons and custom guns. Very few Remington actions are used in high dollar custom guns. Almost exclusively the hi dollar guns are made from Pre-64 M-70 actions and Mauser actions of some variant. Notably the 1909 argentine is commonly used and often for very large calibers such as the .404 Jeffery. Some of these guns run $10,000 and $15,000 guns are not unheard of. However absolutely no one makes that type of custom gun from a Remington Action.

I've built several varmint rigs using the Remington 700 and I know that it's used in target work as well. The Remington 700 is a superb action for accuracy purposes but it's not the basis for a $5,000 custom gun. There are extremely few in this price range made from the M-700.

You owe no one an apology for what you said.....you was spot on!!!