There was a thread about this in the gunsmithing forum and as far as FN bullets goes these have decent feeding qualities. I hope you get your rifle tuned to use the best and not lower your standards or risk your life on a rail tuning issue. Keep us posted!

Dave,Yeah I could feel my ears burning!

quote:

Originally posted by DonW28:


Todd brings up an interesting point here. If a rifle was designed, and in fact built, before some of these bullet designs were available should we then assume that any rifle, to include my Model 70 CRF .416 Rem. Mag, that won't feed ALL bullets available is defective and needs tuning. I'm not sure I buy the argument that a rifle that feeds round nose and spire points reliably and continues to do so, is now doomed to become a miss feed waiting to happen because it is not reliable with FN bullets. Should all DG bolts be sent for tuning even if one has never had a miss feed with his chosen ammo? Plus, what if I tuned for the old Barnes FN solids, then found out the CEB wouldn't feed. Or Northforks, or heaven forbid those DGSs Hornady puts out. Now I still would have an unreliable rifle because it was tuned for a specific FN or would all FNs now feed? Rather than send a third rifle off this year I will relegate the Model 70 CRF I purchased because it was the be all to end all of DG bolts and get a double. I think I will just show this thread to my wife as further justification of why I really need a .470 double. Now that is progress all the way around and I know it will feed ANY bullet.

In case she doesn't buy the argument for the double who offers the $150 fix the feed tuneup? I'll pay it just to see if someone can actually cure the problem as I sort of like the FN bullets myself which is why I contacted a well known "make it feed" gunsmith to start with--and was told use RN solids.

Regards,

Don

My point was that you really have a rifle issue if it will not feed the BBW#13 or the Barnes FN. As Michael points out, the meplat on those bullets are maximized for terminal performance. Anything larger will not significantly improve terminals so there really is no need to increase the meplat. Now, if your rifle will not feed them reliably, there is no guarantee that the RN will not also jam under stress. All it takes is for one round to misalign in the mag, or work the bolt under duress just a little differently, etc and you may (or may not) end up with a round that fails to feed. Do as you like because it is your life, not mine, but if facing a dangerous animal, and again, that assumes you have the rifle for actual dangerous game hunting and not just a paper puncher, then I refuse to go to the field with 1) a bullet that is not the absolute best for the job at hand, and 2) a rifle that fails to function with any round I've run through it. I'm not willing to bet my life on simply using RN bullets in a rifle that has proven itself to fail with ANY bullet type. It's an easy fix to correct it.

It's just a fact of life that making a big bore rifle feed reliably is harder to do than a small bore. Making it reliable cost more than with a small bore because it takes a bit more personal attention by hand. Most of the big bore rifles sold and owned will never go to the field in search of anything capable of biting back or stomping your guts out. Most will be taken to the range occasionally to demo to friends or just shoot for fun. And man, are they fun to shoot!! Most factory produced rifles are put on the market at a certain price point knowing full well they are likely to be range guns. If you plan to hunt with a big bore, and you are willing to spend upwards of $12,000 for a Buff or $25,000 for an Elephant, then I'm sure having a good smith look it over to fine tune it will not break your bank. Why not do so.

My CZ in 416 Rigby feeds the Barnes FN without a hitch. I had the trigger disconnect on that rifle while it was pointed at a Buffalo Bull at close range. It hasn't been off the range since. Oh, I had it repaired but I don't trust it. I'll be sending it to Wayne soon for a replacement trigger. The fact that it was repaired and hasn't given me a hitch since, despite running upwards of 500 rounds through it since the trigger incident, matters not. It failed once at the moment of truth and it will not be given a second chance until properly addressed. I view a failure to feed with any bullet in the same light.

I've had two 458Win's. A push feed M-70 Super Grade and a Remmington M-700 Safari. The M-70 would feed RN solids fine but every once in awhile, would hang up on the jacket while trying to feed soft nosed bullets of just about any design. I had it worked on twice but it just wouldn't feed 100% of the time. Got rid of it. I could have just switched to RN solids which it feed reliably every time! But that was not always the best bullet for the job. Got rid of the M700 as well ... because it was a Remmington! Nuff said!!

But I like the way you're thinking on the 470 Double except IMO, the 500NE would be the better choice! It offers a significant improvement in frontal area and energy, with similar recoil and weight. Just tell the wife that the double is the best life insurance policy going! That's what I did! And, there are no feed issues to deal with. And no CRF vs Push Feed arguments.

Wanted to provide an update on this.

Two fellow AR folks gave me recommendations of big bore smiths to help with the feeding issue. BaxterB recommended I reach out to Darcie Echols (http://www.echolsrifles.com/) in Utah and Capoward recommended that I contact Steve Button in Olympia. Being that Steve is local to me, I called him and chatted with him. He felt he could probably fix the issue for me, but he was leaving for China in 2 weeks and would not be back until 8/1. He said to call him when he returned and he would take care of my issue. My worry was, with my trip coming up in October, waiting till August to have it worked on would leave little time to get it back and tested prior to departure. I decided to chance it.

I called him on 8/2, reached him on 8/3 and had it to his shop on 8/4! I saw some of his work and he is an artist. He looked it over and cycled one of the 6 dummy rounds I brought to him through the gun about 40 times. The issue was that shells coming off the left rail were popping up nose first at too extreme of an angle to allow the flat nosed bullets feed properly into the chamber and instead they were binding on the top of the chamber. He said he would turn my rifle in under a week and that he would beat up my dummy rounds beyond use as he would cycle the gun hundreds of times and that was pretty rough on brass and bullets. True to his word he called me the next Wednesday and said “this is as good as it is going to get!” Not feeling totally at ease with that declaration, I asked for him to expand on that. He said it was feeding just fine now, but it was not as smooth as he would have liked. That was fine with me.

I picked it up on 8/11 and took it out to a clear cut on my way home to shoot it. There was a lot of metal grit in the action from his work so I blew it all out with some oil and put 10 flawless rounds through her. Blowing out the grit smoothed out the cycling roughness too. I will do a comprehensive cleaning and that should totally clear that up. Here is what Steve did:
1. tuned the left rail to have the shell pop up in more of a horizontal manner
2. Re-polished the feed ramp.
3. Re-shaped the rear end of the box magazine a little
4. Played around with the box mag spring a little.
This seems to have fixed it up and that makes me very happy! Thanks all for the advice on tis, and Jim/Baxter, thanks for the gunsmith recommendations! Once again AR has come through for me!

Also, Steve did not lie when he said the brass would be abused...

What he did to my beautiful brass and BBW bullets was a crime against humanity!

quote:

Originally posted by Rob H:
Also, Steve did not lie when he said the brass would be abused...

What he did to my beautiful brass and BBW bullets was a crime against humanity!

Rob,

I'm glad it worked out well for you. Though not as good looking as factory new, I imagine the bullets would function and shoot just fine. LOL... I think I'd just keep the two cases as a reminder. Next time I talk to Steve I'll have to mention the dirty action.

Did you happen to see my two Mauser actions while you were there?

Just poking fun at Steve shoudl he log in and look at the brass! He told me like 10 times that the brass would be toast when he was done with it.

Your actions are the ones with the fold down peep sites integrated into a hot swapable scope base right? He showed me those and I told him I was 99% sure you had posted pictures of them up here before. Very innovative!

Yes those are the ones...

They looked outstanding. I tired to pocket one but he caught me with it.

Needless to say I'm very happy he caught you!