I recently put together a Fireball on a short Remington 700 stainless action that was originally a 223..

I'm wondering if anyone has had the following issues with a factory Fireball..

Extraction is fine, of course but the ejector plunger pushes the case off of the extractor before it clears the ejection port leaving it sitting in the lug recess area, requiring one to fish it out with a fingernail.....usually requiring more than one attempt...OK, sometimes 5 or 6 attempts....most annoying....so, I removed the ejector plunger and thought I could just pull the case off of the opened bolt.....but,...then the cases gets stuck in the extractor slot on the opposite side of the bolt and I had to remove the bolt from the receiver to get the case off....that was a most annoying range session.

The extractor is fine, you can push a case in the bolt face to the edge of the bolt recess opposite the extractor and it won't pull straight out, so it's not the extractor causing the problem.

Seems to me that the short case of the Fireball is obviously creating a more severe angle of the case as it clears the chamber and hits the right hand lug raceway allowing the left side of the base of the case to clear the bolt face recess and thereby allowing it to pop off the extractor...a longer 223 case would have a shallower angle in this position and would stay hooked by the extractor long enough to clear the ejection port...

I know what's causing it..just not sure how, or even if it can be fixed....I cut four coils off of the ejection plunger spring...we'll see if that helps...

are the factory Fireballs acting this way?

rembo: your evaluation is right on. My Classic Fireball would eject a loaded round just fine, but not an empty case, due to the angle aspect you mentioned.
I read where many Rems had that issue, but Rem had a fix. Mine went back, and worked fine. That rifle is gone, but my newer LVSF Fireball works fine.
I think they moved the extractor location, to make the case lift at a different angle (hit elsewhere than the right lug area),
I'll try to remember to look at the LVSF boltface, and see if it's noticeably different than others.

rembo: I looked at the LVSF bolt, and one from a 700 in 250 Sav. The 221 extractor is positioned virtually 180deg from the ejector, whereas the 250 Sav extractor is maybe 120deg from the ejector (centered in the bolt lug).

Mulerider..you might be on to something. I checked both of my 223 bolts and the extractor is definetely not 180 degrees from the ejector..it's just a bit above the center of the lug....like you say...about 120 degrees...I wonder if Remington has a different extractor part number for a Fireball?..or is the bolt milled differently and fitted with the same extractor in a different position...?..any Remington service center gunsmiths here than can check part numbers with Remington?