My father had a 8mm Remington Magnum awhile back, and he sent it in to the gunsmith for some extractor issues that never did get resolved. Anyway, after a scope was mounted and a couple of shots taken through it, it was all over the place. We took it back to the gunsmith, and when he took off the barrel he said it was bent. What would cause a barrel to bend? The only thing I can think of is that one of my brothers shot a box of ammo through it very quickly and got the barrel very hot and leaned it up against a tree or something. Would this cause the barrel to bend?

Jim,

No way could that bend the barrel. In fact it's pretty hard to bend a barrel. They are good material and a tube is generally a strong shape.

Sorry I can't help but you may want a second gunsmith to look at it.

Kyler

I would love to if we still had the rifle, but my dad traded the rifle in for a brand-new 30-06 M98. The bad part is, is that this rifle was supposed to be mine when my dad passes. Needless to say, I was not too happy. Thanks for the offer, however.

I have seen a couple that were not made to very tight tolerances that were bent, but generally it was just my fat assed ex-wife sitting on them.

quote:

Originally posted by FlyingAce:
My father had a 8mm Remington Magnum awhile back, and he sent it in to the gunsmith for some extractor issues that never did get resolved. Anyway, after a scope was mounted and a couple of shots taken through it, it was all over the place. We took it back to the gunsmith, and when he took off the barrel he said it was bent. What would cause a barrel to bend? The only thing I can think of is that one of my brothers shot a box of ammo through it very quickly and got the barrel very hot and leaned it up against a tree or something. Would this cause the barrel to bend?

He would have had to lean it up against a tree and then fall on it.

You would be surprised how many gun barrels come from the manufacturers a little out of whack. They're pretty easy to spot once you know how to look for them.

I would be curious as to why he needed to pull the barrel in the first place, unless it was just to straighten it.

If the rifle shot fine and then suddenly was all over the place, first thing I would have done would have been to look for a bulge near the muzzle among other things... Of course it doesn't matter now.

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Originally posted by larrys:
but generally it was just my fat assed ex-wife sitting on them.

You just watch who's ex-wife you call a fat ass! Mine has dubs on that title. But I'm willing to share...

Yah, I wish I would have been in the conversation to ask some more questions of the gunsmith. I really do not question what he has to say much since he is a very good smith, and for the past 10+ years he has always been straight with us.

The only two that I have had to replace were both used as jack handles, (different owners and circumstances). I am sure there are many ways to bend a barrel, but under normal use it should be difficult to bend.

Chad

I crimped some Sierra MatchKing bullets in my target loads. My gunsmith saw them and dopeslapped me around a while, after which he told me that bullets not having a cannelure are not to be crimped because it causes the jacket to separate from the core and the crimp picks up dirt, which can cause a barrel to bulge or bend. This might have been the cause of your problem all those years ago.

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Anyway, after a scope was mounted and a couple of shots taken through it, it was all over the place.

Maybe the scope rings or bases got shook loose. Just a guess. Its unfortunate that is gone now and nobody will know.

The answer to this is simple enough; It was born bent! It is not unusual to see a factory barrel with a pronounced curvature and it always seemed that Remington produced more than their share. Usually, accuracy, at least from a consistency standpoint, was not seriously affected but a windage adjustable scopemount was a necessary addition. The real downside to the crooked barrel was that the chamber was often eccentric to the boreline (curved).
Remington also seemed to specialize in the "rippled" bore finish. This, rather than bore curvature, was the occasional cause of inaccuracy due to fouling problems. When a previously accuraterifle starts shhooting poorly this is a likely cause (fouling). Regards, Bill

My question is,why did he have to take the barrel off to see if it was bent? Thats just for starters?Also if you had extraction problems that weren,t resolved,why would you take the gun out shooting? van

Oh yeah, lets turn this into another Remington bashing thread. How many rifles have you seen that you can make the stupid statement that "remington makes more than their share"? Remington makes more rifles than any others. You see more chevies sitting beside the road than cadillacs. Wonder why.
Having owned a 8rem mag, I'm gonna guess (and that's all anyone is doing) that the scope mounts were shot loose is a good start for finding the answer.

I think why the barrel was taken off was because my dad had the barrel rechambered.