Remington 7400 .30-06 Magazine Issues

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Bill460

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Sorry for the long post. I'll start at the beginning. I have a Remington 7400 in .30-06 that I purchased new back in 1985. I scoped it with a nice Leupold Vari-X III 3.5 X 10X and went to the range with a couple of boxes of Winchester Silver Tip 180 Gr. Ammo.

I was loading and shooting the rifle single shot. After about 15 rounds the bolt was having trouble locking up. I'll admit to not cleaning or lubricating the gun before I went to the range. That was almost 35 years ago, and I was younger, and a lot dumber. I stopped shooting, went home and cleaned the rifle. Everything seemed normal.

Not long after that we moved out to Arizona, (Phoenix area), and I lost interest in the gun, and it's been languishing in the back of my safe ever since. Last year I purchased a new 200th Anniversary Edition Remington 7600 Pump in .30-06, and my interest has been renewed in these rifles.

Fast forward to last Fall..... I dragged the 7400 out of the safe, cleaned it up real good, and gave it a good lube job, greasing the bolt lugs up, along with cleaning both the chamber and barrel with the bronze brush, and giving it a light coat of oil. The action was running nice and slick.

I then ordered and received 2 new magazines from Midwest Gun Works. One is a original Remington 4 round. (Newer 2-piece design), and the other is a 10 round from Triple-K.

Disaster! Neither one even fits into the rifle! Not only that, but the inconsistency of the dimensions between the new 2- piece Remington magazine, and the original 1 - piece that my rifle shipped with are unbelievable. The original magazine that came with the rifle, (and doesn't feed properly, which is what started this whole fiasco), measures .550" across the front of the feed lips. The replacement Remington OEM magazine measures .650" across the same. A full .100" difference in the same make and model magazine. And like I said, it won't even fit in the gun.

So I called Remington and talked to a guy in Customer Service. I asked if they had ANY older 1 - piece magazines for the Remington 7400. He said they are no longer being produced, and they had none in stock. Remington only sells the newer 2 - piece magazines. He said my best bet would be to find one from either Numrich Arms or E-Bay. He said Remington 7400 rifles in general were very magazine sensitive.

I have a feeling when Remington went to the new tooling for the newer style 2 piece magazines, some dimensional stability was lost. Building multi operation, progressive stamping dies is a tricky business. And unless everything is absolutely perfect, the end product will not function as intended.

So after all this I pretty much lost interest in this gun. It just seemed too much of a PITA to locate a suitable magazine for it. And most gunsmiths don't want to screw with these rifles, because they're too, "hit or miss". So it was returned to my safe..... Again.

Fast forward to last week....... I was having my morning coffee, searching the Internet looking for an old style 1- piece magazine, and low and behold I came across this little mom and pop operation in Galesburg, Illinois, (Simpson Limited). And they had 3 brand new old style, one piece magazines for sale, that were still in the original Remington packaging! The price wasn't bad for $110.00 for all three. ($124.00 shipped to my door). That's only $41.00 each. I paid that much for the new style that didn't fit.

They came the other day. I now have a bit of confidence that this thing may finally run right. You can see from the picture, all 3 magazines have the oval DuPont company logo printed on them. DuPont purchased Remington in 1980, and sold it in 1993. So that means these magazines were manufactured in that time span. My rifle was purchased new in 1985, right in the middle.

One other thing I noticed is that the older magazines are stamped .30-06 only. The newer model I bought was stamped .25-06, .270, .280, .30-06, .35 Whelen. That could very well have been creating problems as well. "One size fits all", might work for some things, but not so well for rifle magazines.

I'm hoping to get to the range next week some time. And hopefully enjoy a bit more success. (The weather here has been wet and windy). Since all of this started, we have moved from the Phoenix area to Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and they have a really nice gun club here. So we'll see how everything goes. These are the magazines. I'm really hoping they'll do the trick, and get this rifle running correctly. Has anyone else had these type of magazine issues with a Remington 4 / 7400 / 742 long action rifle?

eLgiRGE.jpg
 
As I understand it, the two piece magazines are not manufactured by Remington but are contracted out. I have one and it works ok. Yeah magazines are a source of problems with these rifles. Springs weaken eventually, the lips bend. As a result the bullet nose isn't quite high enough and that can cause jams or damaged noses on bullets. I don't know of anyway to rebuild them. The 760 pump rifle magazines work but you lose the hold open feature. Glad you found magazines.
The 30-06 magazines also work for all the cartridges you listed because they all use the 30-06 case.
 
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I do recommend going over to Lee Roy's Ramblings and reading his

Remington 740 / 740A / 742 / 7400 Semi-Auto Rifles

and after reading it, make a copy to keep Lee Roy has a habit of going off line for years.

After reading you may find you have more than just magazine problems. I do believe the picture Roy shows of a round with the shoulder pushed forward, is of a round that slamfired before the bolt was completely closed. I would only use the least sensitive primers in this mechanism, and that would be CCi #34's.
 
You can always use older 760/7600 mags also, but they don't have the bolt holdback/release feature of the 740 series magazines. I see d2wing beat me to that.....
 
I do recommend going over to Lee Roy's Ramblings and reading his

Remington 740 / 740A / 742 / 7400 Semi-Auto Rifles

and after reading it, make a copy to keep Lee Roy has a habit of going off line for years.

After reading you may find you have more than just magazine problems. I do believe the picture Roy shows of a round with the shoulder pushed forward, is of a round that slamfired before the bolt was completely closed. I would only use the least sensitive primers in this mechanism, and that would be CCi #34's.

Thank you much for that link! There is a LOT of good information and photographs in that article.
 
and after reading it, make a copy to keep Lee Roy has a habit of going off line for years.
Wayback machine helps for offline pages, too. LeeRoy can also be contacted by email, he's an incredibly helpful guy and a bona fide tech geek when you have a problem and can't find a solution elsewhere.
 
I do recommend going over to Lee Roy's Ramblings and reading his

Remington 740 / 740A / 742 / 7400 Semi-Auto Rifles

and after reading it, make a copy to keep Lee Roy has a habit of going off line for years.

After reading you may find you have more than just magazine problems. I do believe the picture Roy shows of a round with the shoulder pushed forward, is of a round that slamfired before the bolt was completely closed. I would only use the least sensitive primers in this mechanism, and that would be CCi #34's.
Thanks, excellent info.
 
The peculiarities of the Remington 740-7400 magazines may have saved my life.
A 14-year-old meth-head decided that I had turned his source over to the cops, stole a deer rifle from his current "daddy" and proceeded to shoot up the house where I was staying.
He quickly emptied his magazine and couldn't figure out how to reload it.
I sneaked up on him and knocked him loose from the rifle, and he ran off crying.
He later killed himself while in detention.
Ah, well.
His brother had been a friend some time before... .
 
Disaster! Neither one even fits into the rifle! Not only that, but the inconsistency of the dimensions between the new 2- piece Remington magazine, and the original 1 - piece that my rifle shipped with are unbelievable. The original magazine that came with the rifle, (and doesn't feed properly, which is what started this whole fiasco), measures .550" across the front of the feed lips. The replacement Remington OEM magazine measures .650" across the same. A full .100" difference in the same make and model magazine. And like I said, it won't even fit in the gun.
I just measured mine. The .30-06 one-piece magazine measures .600" across the front of the feed lips (inside measurement). This is the same as the .308 one-piece magazine. The .30-06 two-piece magazine (with the plastic floorplate) measures .635" across the front of the feed lips (inside measurement). The .308 two-piece magazine measures .660" across the front of the feed lips. All these magazines are new, factory Remington magazines.

External width (at the front) of the one-piece magazines is .895", and of the two-piece magazines is .880".
 
I have my father's 760 pump in 30-06 complete with its Japanese ground 3-9 Tasco.
I have two early 1960s magazines; if it would be of assistance; I can measure them.
 
Do both the one and two piece magazines fit and function properly in your .30-06 rifle?
Yes. However (by design, apparently), the 2-piece magazine protrudes 1/8" further out from the bottom of the receiver than does the 1-piece.

While I was at it, I measured 3 more of the 1-piece magazines that I have. So that makes 4 in all. The distance between the feed lips, at the front, is thus .565", .565", .567", and .600". External width, at the front, is .885", .885", .890", and .895".

I have a fairly late Model 7400 with a bead-blasted finish and black synthetic stock. It might be worth noting that it has an aftermarket Ram-Line extended magazine release.

This gun is not one of my favorites. But what I find interesting about it is that it's in the green molded Remington case, with all the Remington accessories: cleaning kit, offset chamber cleaning brush, extra magazines, Remington folding knife, Remington Zippo lighter, etc. There are molded places for everything in the case. I doubt if many were sold in complete sets like this.
 
..... While I was at it, I measured 3 more of the 1-piece magazines that I have. So that makes 4 in all. The distance between the feed lips, at the front, is thus .565", .565", .567", and .600". External width, at the front, is .885", .885", .890", and .895"........

With the exception of the one that measures .600", all of your one piece magazines appear to be pretty consistent. Certainly far more so than the difference I was getting between my one and two piece magazines.

All 4 of my 1 piece magazines, (the original, as well as the 3 new one's I just purchased), are similar. So hopefully all I am experiencing is a bad magazine. More so feed lip shape and / or contour, than out of whack dimensions.

I'm just guessing here, but because of the similar dimensions, I'm thinking all of these one piece magazines came off the same stamping die.

Anyway, if this doesn't cure the feeding problem, then there has to be something else wrong with the gun. As soon as this weather breaks, hopefully I'll find out, one way or the other.
 
Certainly far more so than the difference I was getting between my one and two piece magazines.
It appears that, in general, the feed lips of the 2-piece magazines are wider apart than those of the 1-piece. They are also shaped differently.

IMO, the overall quality of the 1-piece mags is better.
 
Great. The 1986 marketing dept at Remington undoing all the hard work that has gone into "magazine" vs "clip".

Not just Remington. Marlin and/or Savage (and probably others) also describe their magazines as "clips". Have to address the modern vernacular to sell things these days, I guess.
 
Not just Remington. Marlin and/or Savage (and probably others) also describe their magazines as "clips". Have to address the modern vernacular to sell things these days, I guess.
It was gun industry marketing that gave us the misuse of the term "assault rifle." The antigunners just took that and ran with it.
 
Not just Remington. Marlin and/or Savage (and probably others) also describe their magazines as "clips". Have to address the modern vernacular to sell things these days, I guess.
No actually the correct term for detachable box magazine has always been "Clip" it clips into place. Magazine can mean anything including a building. Gun forums are full of blockheads that insist on redefining things and being snobbish about it.
 
I'm going to try to get out tomorrow. The weather around here is finally clearing up and things are drying out. All 3 magazines fit and eject from the rifle fine. So we'll see what happens.
 
Well yesterday I was finally able to make it to the range with the 7400, along with all 3 of the new, "old style", 1 piece magazines. The weather was beautiful with no wind and mild temperatures. I brought along 3 different types of factory ammunition.

A box of Winchester 180 Gr. Power Points. Some Federal 165 Gr. And 2 boxes of 150 Gr. Remington Core-Lokt. 1 of the 3 magazines was a little tight going into the rifle. So I gave the outsides of all 3 a very light coat of some Super Lube Teflon Grease.

That did the trick, and after working the magazines in and out of the rifle, all 3 were slick as snot going in and out. I loaded 3 rounds into each one, starting out with the Remington 150 Gr. Core-Lokt, because I had the most of it.

I'm very happy to report that all 3 magazine fed, fired, and ejected flawlessly! Zero issues. I did keep the bolt lugs, along with the receiver rails very wet with Weapon Shield CLP. Admittingly I probably was overdoing it a bit. But I didn't want to come away from this test with even the slightest possibility that any stoppage were from the lack of lubrication.

I then shot both the Federal 165 Gr. loads, as well as the Winchester 180 Gr. Power Points. All ran the weapon fine. The Winchester 180 Gr. loads did eject the empty cases considerably farther. This was most likely because of the slower burning powder the heavy 180 Gr. bullets were loaded with. The rifle did also have a bit more recoil with those 180 Gr. loads as well.

After about 40 rounds with all 3 magazines and 3 different loads, I was convinced the rifle is reliable. At least as reliable as it needs to be. Accuracy was really quite good. The Remington 150 Gr. Core-Lokt loads grouped the best, with a couple groups going right under 1-1/2" at 100 yards. Not bad for an out of the box, semi auto hunting rifle.

The gun was filthy by the time I was finished. But by keeping it well lubricated, all of the dirt, carbon, and powder fouling washed right off with a good wet cleaning with clean Kerosene, and a blow dry with compressed air. I gave everything a light coating of oil, and she's nice and clean, ready to go again.

Overall I couldn't be happier. All I can suggest for anyone who owns one of these rifles that came with the older style one piece magazines, is don't even bother trying to use the newer 2 piece magazines. You will most likely accomplish nothing but wasting your money, and frustrating yourself in the process, like I did.

Try to hunt down a couple of one piece mags. Then give your rifle a good cleaning and lubrication, and you should be good to go. I'm usually not this lucky. But this time I'm glad I was.
 
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