Remington 700 Bolt Handle Failures

[Campguy308]

How many people here have seen first hand a 700 factory bolt handle fail? By fail, I mean the brazed joint between the handle and bolt body failing. I hear people talking about it, but I have never seen one myself. The only actions I have ever used are 700s with the original bolts. I've shot the heck out of them, and never had a problem myself. On my next barrel, I'll probably go with a 1 piece PTG bolt, simply because this has gotten into my head a bit. I figure there are more factory 700 actions out there than anything else. There are bound to be a few turn loose occasionally. So what does everyone say, are my bolt handle fears warranted?

 

[supercorndogs]

It is silver solider. I have broken one.

 

[MarinePMI]

I've seen two do this. One, literally right out of the box, being zero'ed at the range.

 

[308pirate]

What does it really matter if anyone has actually seen one break?

Do you believe that the many documented (with photos) reports of them breaking are somewhat not credible?

Remington also silver solders the block that separates the mag tube from the bolt rails on the 1100 and 11-87 shotguns. Guess what, those break off too rendering the gun unusable. I had it happen to an 11-87 after many years of use.

IMPO it's a piss poor, cheap ass manufacturing method for a part that's critical to function. Typical Remington.

A bolt handle that is made separate from the bolt body needs some mechanical retention designed into it. Better yet, forge the whole damned thing out of one piece of steel. Like Howa.

 

[Campguy308]

What does it really matter if anyone has actually seen one break?

Do you believe that the many documented (with photos) reports of them breaking are somewhat not credible?

Remington also silver solders the block that separates the mag tube from the bolt rails on the 1100 and 11-87 shotguns. Guess what, those break off too rendering the gun unusable. I had it happen to an 11-87 after many years of use.

IMPO it's a piss poor, cheap ass manufacturing method for a part that's critical to function. Typical Remington.

A bolt handle that is made separate from the bolt body needs some mechanical retention designed into it. Better yet, forge the whole damned thing out of one piece of steel. Like Howa.

I know it's far from an ideal manufacturing technique for a critical part, duh. I asked how many people HERE have SEEN it while shooting. Not read about it on the internet.

 

[Campguy308]

It is silver solider. I have broken one.

Just fell off in your hand, or did you have a hard extraction or what? Thanks

 

[x462290]

never saw one fail or that had failed. probably operator error or result of over the top load requiring excessive force(hammer) to extract empty case.. even the best are not 100%

 

[Barney88PDC]

I installed a trigger in a friends rifle and I was testing to make sure the gun would not slam fire if the bolt was ran hard. It was not typical use but literally on what was going to be the last time I went to open the bolt back up and the handle came off in my hand.

 

[SporterII]

I have had the silver soldered Scope base fail on an HK 300.
Not seen the 700 bolt fail.
Odds are pretty much in your favor on that from what I have seen.

 

[Campguy308]

I've seen two do this. One, literally right out of the box, being zero'ed at the range.

At least it happened right off the bat, and not in the middle of a match, lol.

 

[archistrong]

I had several R700 (modern receiver numbers) that I’ve used hard in the field and haven’t had any issues with the bolt handles. My father used almost exclusively R700 hunting rifles (7MM Mag, 300WM, etc) for Elk and has never heard of the issue.

Is it a less than IDEAL manufacturing method? Sure. Have the joints failed? Yep. Will you experience a bolt handle separation? Probably not. With over 5 million R700 rifles produced it’s just not that common of an occurrence to be worried about. Honestly, primary extraction would be more of a concern as the extraction cams are commonly not even touching till the last bit of rotation. Get your bolt handle timed / tigged and take care of both concerns.

 

[supercorndogs]

Just fell off in your hand, or did you have a hard extraction or what? Thanks

Came off in my hand when i tried to open the bolt on a fired round. It was a 223 without a lot of rounds on it. The bolt literally felt like it was not even attached. I grabbed to open it after the shot, and it just lifted right off the rifle. It was interesting trying to get the bolt open and overcome the firing pin spring pressure with no bolt handle.

That is one of about 15 that never broke on me. The primary extraction is bad enough on most of them its worth having them timed and welded on IMO.

 

[Campguy308]

I had several R700 (modern receiver numbers) that I’ve used hard in the field and haven’t had any issues with the bolt handles. My father used almost exclusively R700 hunting rifles (7MM Mag, 300WM, etc) for Elk and has never heard of the issue.

Is it a less than IDEAL manufacturing method? Sure. Have the joints failed? Yep. Will you experience a bolt handle separation? Probably not. With over 5 million R700 rifles produced it’s just not that common of an occurrence to be worried about. Honestly, primary extraction would be more of a concern as the extraction cams are commonly not even touching till the last bit of rotation. Get your bolt handle timed / tigged and take care of both concerns.

Yes, helluva lot of 700s out there. I would bet the percentage of failure is extremely small.

 

[Campguy308]

Anyone here had them TIGd on?

 

[supercorndogs]

Yes, LRI tig time service.

 

[lennyo3034]

Saw one fail at a match this year. Came out in the middle of a stage. He was done for the day.

 

[morganlamprecht]

ive seen 2 break off in matches in the last couple years...1 guy was just running the stage and the handle came off in his hand...2nd guy stuck a case, and when he tried to jerk on it to get it out, handle came off

 

[RyanScott]

I’ve not seen it personally but a friend described kicking the bolt handle off his M40 while shooting in Latin America. A lot of ammunition must have been hot and the high heat made it an issue.

While at my smiths shop once he showed me a box of bolts and handles scheduled to be put back together. It’s been a hot minute but he told me he does 20+ a year. That’s s local smith doing local repairs. Nationwide it must be fairly common.

 

[Campguy308]

I’ve not seen it personally but a friend described kicking the bolt handle off his M40 while shooting in Latin America. A lot of ammunition must have been hot and the high heat made it an issue.

While at my smiths shop once he showed me a box of bolts and handles scheduled to be put back together. It’s been a hot minute but he told me he does 20+ a year. That’s s local smith doing local repairs. Nationwide it must be fairly common.

That is a hell of a lot of breakages for a local smith.

 

[kujuak]

Saw it in person at range one day. Rich dentist was showing off his new 300Ultramag when Snap ! There he stood holding the bolt handle in his hand looking dumb (er).He shot only factory ammunition. This was when the Ultramags first came out.

 

[Pinmaster]

Anyone here had them TIGd on?

http://accu-tig.com

 

[MarinePMI]

Guys, there's nothing inherently wrong with silver soldering a bolt handle on the bolt; as long as its done correctly.

That being said, I do prefer them to be more positively attached, via threading or slot (ala Tikka).

 

[msstate56]

Is anyone still drilling and taping screws to reinforce the bolt handle? Or is tig welding the handle the preferred method? I recently broke my bolt handle at a class last week. I can weld a Tac ops style pin on the handle, but now I'm thinking that I should reinforce the handle to the bolt body.

 

[Campguy308]

Greg tannel offers screws. Accu-tig offers welding. Long rifles Inc uses a dual tig and silver soldering process. Do your research on these methods before you do it.

 

[Deleted member 113831]

I know it's far from an ideal manufacturing technique for a critical part, duh. I asked how many people HERE have SEEN it while shooting. Not read about it on the internet.

Yes, I've seen it.

 

[msstate56]

I’ve looked into those services, I’m not particularly interested in the $100+ to re-time the handle. My rifles function fine. I’m just wanting to beef up the handle/bolt body junction.

 

[doninreno]

I experienced a (dirt stock except for a SAKO extractor) bolt handled that apparently just plopped of of a Rem 700 that is a 6mmBR. The bolt was a tad stiff on closing and that isn't horribly unusual. I shot he round and when I went to lift the bolt handle it was a bit more than a "tad" stiff, but it came up with not too much grunting on my part, so I tried to move the bolt rearward to extract and then eject the spent case. It wouldn't budge rearward with normal pressure, so I pulled harder. No dice. I then gave it a whack or two with my hand, but I'm no super hero so that didn't work either. Even though I have personally watched various shooters (and then later hear from more people that had seen it, too) HAMMER the snot out of a bolt handle trying to get it open...had it open and eject the stuck round and then went on shooting as if nothing had happened. No harm, no foul, I guess...no broken or bent anything) We.ll, I'm not one to use excessive force like a hammer, so I tilted the muzzle skyward and stuck a cleaning rod down into the case....gave it a few taps and that produced NOTHING. So, my next move was to pull the rod out of the muzzle about 5 or 6 inches and drop it back into the case at which time the bold moved rearward, extracted and ejected the case, BUT when the bold abruptly stopped its rearward (now downward) movement when the bolt stop did its job and stopped it, the bolt HANDLE just kept on moving---in other words, it just fell right off! Pretty much astounded me and the several people that had gathered around to see what the problem was ( I was at a club match so there were plenty of experienced shooters standing around while they waited for their relay's turn).

OK...now what? We wondered if Remington would fix it, or what? Anyone encountered a handle falling off of a bolt like this without some gorilla using a hand sledge in it? What do you all think I can/should/could do to get this rectified? from a brief examination of the bolt and handle, I can't tell if the "weld" was OK/good/complete or not, but the metal of the body of the bolt where the "weld" pulled off looks to me to be somewhat crystallized....Hmmmmmm!

For now, I'm going to probably use a PT & G bolt from another short action rem so I can shoot in the next few match, but I DAMNED WELL want to get that bolt fixed? Any ideas or recommendations? If you have any ideas or comment, please PM me or shoot me an email. Thanks!

 

[spife7980]

Send it to LRI and let them time and tig it back on.