Remington 700 bolt handle repair experience

El_Cheapo

Private
Minuteman
Oct 21, 2021
1
3
Kansas
Recently bought an RR prefix Rem 700, stainless in .270. $500 never been shot, didn't even have scope bases installed. Scraped off the epoxy to set the trigger (the external adjustment didn't make an ounce difference). Set it where I like it, did drop safe tests, pulled trigger on safe then switched to fire, and slammed bolt forward excessively hard making sure it was safe. Anything I could do to make sure I wasn't going to have a ND. Long story short the brazed bolt handle came off the bolt from me slamming it about as hard as I physically could. In retrospect that wasn't the smartest decision.

Called around local one gunsmith said he couldn't do it as the bolt would need to be heat treated again. Remington (or whoever purchased them) said we just bought the name not the warranty repair work and recommended 2 smiths that used to be a Remington authorized service center at my cost/contacting them. One said they could resolder it but didn't sound too confident. Another sounded confident, wanted $200 or $250 for it to be jeweled again as they would ruin the finish with a 4 month turnaround.

So I started checking out forums. Dan40x/accu-tig sounded like the go to guy. Some people seem to not get along with him but figured that's not my problem. Contacted him and sent it off.

Interestingly enough one of the threads that had devolved into quite the disagreement was about timing the bolt handle/effect on being able to recock a gun without fully cycling the bolt back. Dan claimed it was a timing issue and there was some disagreement.

I sent it to Dan after emailing him to ask for instructions, had it back within 10 days. Finish wasn't really impacted it's a little darker which I could probably polish out? Not sure, don't really care it adds character to the handle and the rest is hidden under the receiver. The bolt now cocks itself after pushing the handle up then down, which it didn't before. So I'd say he was right on the above. I had never chambered a cartridge in this gun, a couple times when I went to push the bolt handle down it was really tight although looking at the placement of the handle it wasn't what was binding. After a few shots it felt like any other gun so I'm guessing it came factory with really tight headspacing. Sighted it in, gun shoots great groups, ejects flawlessly, I'm a happy customer.
 

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