Firearms Stack Exchange Archive

What can I do about scratched cases on a Remington 700 .223?

When I examine the spent cases from my 1 year-old Remington 700 SPS Varmint rifle, there is a long scratch that runs the entire length of the case. I read somewhere that this is not uncommon with this firearm.

What can I do to fix this?

Answer 86

It sounds like there is a piece of grit inside of your chamber. Have you verified that the chamber is not dirty? I’ve got that exact same rifle (but in .308) and while anecdotal, I do not see the issue you are reporting. I have a slightly different potential issue of the neck being perceptibly deformed, but that’s for another question.

Scratches are either a piece of metal sticking out or some grit. Should be easy to determine. If the scratch is not in the same location on every round in relation to how it was chambered, then it’s dirt. From there, you may be able to just find visually where the defect/dirt is.

I would be particularly concerned with the scratch if you intend on reloading as that is a potential weakening of the casing. Think of laying tile in a kitchen. When you need to cut pieces of tile, you score it first, then when you break it with tile cutters, it breaks exactly on that scoring line.

If you are truly concerned and don’t have the ability, you should see a smith about it.

Answer 109

If you have a dirty chamber, a very thorough cleaning could help to get out whatever may be stuck in the chamber.

If that doesn’t work, you could try giving Remington a call. They may have some advice for you before you spend money on any other solutions.

If you do not have a dirty chamber and Remington didn’t present you with any options, you could try reaming the chamber yourself to smooth the inner surface. Brownells sells kits to do this easily on your own.

If you are uncomfortable with reaming a chamber yourself, or if reaming does not fix the problem, find a gunsmith. They should be able to fix it up.

Answer 705

As well as the chamber, it could be picking up this scratch while feeding from the magazine into the chamber (and a bit less likely, perhaps on extraction/ejection.

Two ways I can think of establishing whether this scratch is coming from your chamber during firing, or not:

  1. Take a brand new piece of empty brass (or a fired piece of brass that you’ve polished the scratches out of). Put it into you magazine and chamber it (without a bullet there, you might have to carefully help guide it into the chamber with your fingers). Extract it, and see if the scratch is there.
  2. Alternately, next time you fire the rifle, put a round of ammo directly into the chamber (don’t feed it from the magazine). Extract the round, unfired - if it has a scratch, it is due to the extraction process. If it is not scratched, chamber it again (directly) and fire it. If it is now scratched, then the scratch was caused by the firing.

All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.