trying to help a friend with a 700 Rem. I've not worked with 700s at all. M70s Mauser, etc. all cock simply by raising and lowering the bolt. His does not: after raising the bolt, you have to move the bolt just the slightest amount to the rear in order for engagement to occur. Is this by design or is engagement too minimal. thank you

That's by design and it is with all 700s. You have to pull the bolt back far enough to let the cocking piece slip off the main sear to let the main sear in the trigger raise up and the trigger move backward so that it can re-engage the main sear.

That question has been asked to death over the last 60 years so you don't get a cookie. Some days I feel like calling old Walker up and telling him that he owes me $50,000 for having to tell people how to set his mouse trap all the time! LOL

thanks speerchucker for your quick reply.

For perfect function the action will have to be re-timed.
Re-timing amounts to a slight relocation of the bolt handle on both a radial plane and linier plane.
In the case of a RH action the bolt handle is unsoldered, moved ahead to close the gap between the rear ring of the receiver, the handle is also moved about 10 degrees counter clockwise. This all done with a simple fixture that holds the bolt handle in place while fine adjustments are made to the timing, once set in place the handle can then be re-soldered or tig welded in it's new and improved location.
Doing this greatly increases contact of the extraction cam on the bolt handle and corresponding extraction cam on the rear of the receiver, with these two timed properly the extraction cams mesh completely before the bolt comes back out of battery, on re-cock. Doing this greatly increases the extraction capability of the Rem. 700 action, this is helpful when a slight overpressure happens.
The newly timed system has enough mechanical contact to pull a stuck case.
Re-timing gets the bolt traveling in a true helical movement upon opening of the action. It's this true helical movement that also gets the cocking piece on the back side of the sear so the sear and trigger are reset automatically with NO slight to the rear pull needed by the shooter to reset the sear on the trigger.
This also aids in elimination of a slam fire when the bolt is operated aggressively because the extraction cams are making the 1st initial contact and then rotation of the bolt occurs going into battery then the cocking piece picks up the sear engagement, this can be important when going to a lighter trigger pull than the factory set pull which far too heavy for practical precision shooting.
This work is performed after a full truing of the receiver and bolt.
Proper retime of the action does not require the action be trued or "blueprinted" as some describe the truing/precision re-machining process of the receiver and bolt.

quote:

Originally posted by speerchucker30x378:
That's by design and it is with all 700s.

I don't think it's by design, more execution. The R700 has a small cam surface between the back of the receiver and the bolt handle. When raising the handle, at the top of the arc this cam moves the bolt backwards. This "primary extraction" cam is to give you leverage to back a fired case out of the chamber enough that it will slide the rest of the way out easily. This slight bolt movement to the rear should also reset the trigger by just raising the handle all the way.

The problem is that a lot of factory R700 actions/bolts are made with such a sloppy fit that there is very little primary cam. I've handled new R700's in stores with this problem. The solution is some combination of adding a blob of weld to the handle in the right spot, or to replace the handle, or to re-time the handle, or to machine a bit off the cocking piece, etc.

Long Rifles Inc. used to have a good description of this stuff on their web site to highlight the issues and the solutions they offer. I found this at least:

https://www.longriflesinc.com/...tig-service-for-m700

And I'm sure some googling would turn up some descriptions and pictures.

https://www.longriflesinc.com/...n-timing-tig-welding

The first thing they drummed into me when I was doing warranty work for Browning, Remington, Winchester, Savage, Kimber, Weatherby and Perazzi was if something worked a certain way 60% of the time, it was by design. If you want to pay $150 to have something (customized) to work differently that's your prerogative. Unless policies have changed, the simple fact of the matter is that Remington will not alter a gun under warranty so that it can be cocked by simply lifting the bolt handle. Despite the fact that the odd example will.

Moreover, 99% of the time, when a customer is concerned with this it is because he wants to chamber a round, pull the trigger, let the bolt down and walk through the bush with a sharp pin with 30 pounds of pre-load sitting against the primer of a charged case so that when he bangs the butt on the ground too hard it will discharge and blow off his head ! Remington is not fond of people doing that. Neither are any of the other gun manufacturers. That's only slightly more stupid and dangerous than walking around in the bush for days on end with the gun fully cocked, with a live round in the chamber and the safety OFF! LOL

Currently I work at a Remington repair center and have probably replaced close to 300 triggers under the recall so far. About half of the rifles will cock completely on raising the handle and the other half require moving the bolt rearward a tad to hold.

I agree with Rod on this one. What does it matter if the bolt has to be pulled slightly to the rear to cock, it has no effect on the normal safe operation of the rifle, unless of course as Rod has already pointed out, COMPLETE IDIOTS WANT TO CARRY AN UNCOCKED RIFLE WITH A LIVE ROUND IN THE CHAMBER.

I have seen first hand how dumb and tragic this can be (I wasn't there when it happened but saw the results of it).