Well, boys-n-girls, I got my 700VS back from the gunsmith, all dolled up so it should work as a starter match rifle. As far as feeding, he replaced the factory magazine follower w/ a Mauser style one, and put some spacers (washers) btwn the floorplate and the stock to make a little more room.

The result is that it holds 5 rds, if I'm fairly careful about how I feed the rounds from the stripper clip. The problem is that the gun is having a hard time feeding that first top round consistently. The gunsmith suggested a few things, such as shortening the rounds and changing how and where I put pressure on the clip as I zipped them into the magazine. These helped some, but I'm looking for a bit more of a buffer as far as reliability goes. I ordered some extra long stock bolts and plan on adding another washer to space the floorplate down some more (the gunsmiths final suggestion).

I'm hoping someone out there has faced this demon before and has figured it out, and is willing to share how to 'fix' it. I was looking at aftermarket floorplates, hoping to find one w/ a bit of a drop-belly profile to accomodate the 5th round, but I'm not seeing much so far. Again, any ideas or suggestions would be welcome.

TIA,

Monte

Five rounds of WHAT?

.308 Winchester, loaded to no more than 2.800, perhaps even shorter to fit in the magazine and feed.

Monte

I think you've dicovered why more people build across the course guns on push feed winchesters.

Thank you for the oh-so-helpful response. Now I am going to go throw away the rifle I have had extensively modified, before I've even used it, just because of that.

Or maybe not. I know a lot of people use Winchesters. I don't have a Winchester handy, I did have a Remington, and it was a known quantity as far as accuracy (very good), so I went with it rather than get another new gun that would be an unknown quantity in that regard.

Now, rather than quibble over my choice of gun, does anyone else have any *useful* suggestions?

Monte

I'm strictly a single-load-it shooter, benchrest..... But I have seen that Rem cuts some small triangle holes in the sides of the mag box on the Ultramag rifles. Doing that to yours MIGHT get you just a bit more cap. in the box. The BDL bottom is held in with 1/4-28 screws. You can get some at most any hardware store that sells 1/4" washers. That would allow you to play with lowering the floorplate more w/o waiting for fancy screws.

Jay,

Thanks, I'll see if any of the hardware stores in town carry some screws of the appropriate size so I can play around a bit. I already have the longer action screws on order (not the first gun I've had issues w/ Remington's screws not being quite long enough) but this'll give me an idea ahead of time if it'll work.

The whole washer-btwn-stock-n-floorplate doesn't give me a real warm-n-fuzzy feeling, so it may either come to some bedding of the floorplate, or a new stock over time. I'm going to see about maybe getting my old magazine follower back and seeing if perhaps w/ some modifications (grinding off the little 'feet' on the bottom) it might not work better.

Kind of hard to believe nobody makes a replacement floorplate for Remingtons that sticks down about 3/16", as that would pretty much lick the problem, I think.

Thanks,

Monte

Well, I got a longer 1/4-28 bolt from the hardware store, and put it in the front and moved the factory front bolt to the rear hole, and put in one more layer of washers. Works slicker than snot on the proverbial door knob. Looks like hell, but it works, for now. I'm having a local gunsmith (different from the one who did the machine work; this one isn't set up for that kind of stuff) fit an adjustable buttplate next week; my longer stock bolts from Brownells are coming in the same order as the buttplate, so I'll see if I can get him to bed the floorplate out... though I do have some 'contacts' among the local hydro mechanics that can do some slick machine work. Might see if I can coerce one of them to manufacture me a deep belly lid to fit in place of the factory one from aluminum. At any rate, the problem is more or less solved, for now. At some point, I'll try to get some pictures up of 'Frankenstein' for those who are interested. Might be a week or so, though.

Thanks,

Monte

Monte,

I have a Remington M40X .308 Win action with a used cross the course stock. You could just jack up your barrel and slide them in, and thereby solve all your problems.

jim dodd

Milanuk, if you wanted to throw a little more money at this project H.S. precision has a drop magazine with bottom metal for the Rem. If not, I have been able to get more Magazine room by using a real thick glass bedding under the action and getting long guard screws from brownells. You could also glass bed the floor plate to build up that area.
I hate when people make asinine remarks about someone elses project, thats just ignorant.

Milanuk: You might give some consideration to Pro-Bed 2000 glassbed kit from Score High Gunsmithing, 9812-A Cochiti SE, Albuquerque, N.M., 87123. If you call info an operator can get you the telephone number. This stuff is thicker than day-old snot and is strong as four oxen. The kit is something in the vacinity of $24 for the 4 ounce kit, but you have enought to do a complete glassbed of the action. The instructions are easy to read. My first glassbed job came at an internet and telephone tutorial by Jack Belk. I will never be able to thank him enough, but I'll bet he got tired of my frantic telephone calls about some of the procedures. I have since glassbedded four other rifles, the last two a CZ 550 American in 7x57mm Mauser (now a sub.5MOA rifle) and a CZ 527 in .223 (shooting half inch groups too, but I think it can do a lot better than that) and the last two were done using the Pro-Bed Kit. You can get glassbedd kits from Brownells, but I really do think the best comes from Score High Gunsmithing. Glassbedding is not hard, and once I got over the fear of myself, everything was okay. Best of Luck! Tom Purdom

Tom,

Thanks for the recommendation on Score-High, I'll keep that in mind. I'm kind of half-debating (with myself, no less... definitely bedtime for bozo!) whether to attempt it myself, or to try and weasel the local gunsmith (friend of mine ;p ) into doing the bedding job since I already have the gun lined up to go to him for installation of an adjustable butt-stock assembly the middle of next week. Perhaps I can get it in to him fast and in a week or so, have it back, bedded top and bottom, w/ plenty of magazine space, and a 3-way buttplate to boot.

The other idea I'm kicking around is seeing if it'd be possible to get someone local to modify the bedding block (see the related thread on pillar bedding an ABB stock), and doing the followup glass bedding myself. Either way, the gun is going to be OOC for a week minimum, it sounds like Didn't realize glass bedding had to cure for that long.

Thanks again,

Monte

I'm no expert on bedding, but this is what I did with a 40x wood stock. I first wrapped some tape around the barrel near the end of the forearm to center the barrel in the channel. Then I put a thin layer of bedding compound under the receiver all the way to the tang. I used the action screws to gently hold the action in place and let it setup.(use lots of release agent on screws and receiver). After this setup, I trimmed the excess and let harden for a couple weeks. Then I roughed up the bedding compound with sand paper and put another layer over the previous bedding and let setup. This is not the correct way to bed a rifle but it worked just fine. I had to then drill out the action screw holes as they filled with bedding compound.

Check this link---- there is some good info here that may help.

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB44&Number=149753&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

TBS,

Thanks for the link! That one will definitely be bookmarked for future reference. A couple things you said brought to mind a few questions I have about bedding in general, so I think I'll start a new topic as this one is wandering a little.

Thanks again,

Monte