Remington 760, 30-06 jams

This was my Dad's deer rifle. I've had it for a few years and gone over it, but yet to actually get a chance to fire it. On the list, but I don't shoot that much, and don't deer hunt, so - it is a bit of a novelty to have it and that it was my Dad's.

The mag spring in the original factory mag gave up the ghost long before I got it, and I about a year or so ago - got a couple factory Remington replacement 4 round magazines. When I tested them with snap caps, and some dummy rounds I made - it would jam. The first round seems to chamber fine, then my the magazine seems to bring up 2 rounds and the gun jams, or the nose of the round doesn't get up high enough, and it jams. It does this consistently. I left the magazines loaded for a year, to see if the needed to be broken in, but tested them again today, and they do the exact same thing.

If I load the magazines with 2 rounds they seem to work fine. Chamber and extract, eject, seems good. I'll probably have a trip to fire this rifle this fall - but, it having any mechanical issue give me pause. I shoot mostly handguns and - have fired a 30-30, but a 30-06 is a whole other animal for me. Anyone know if these have this as a common issue? I find the magazines a bit annoying to get in and out, but for a hunting rifle, they seem to lock in really firmly.

When you pump the thing, I assume you snap it back and forward pretty firmly, no? Maybe I am just doing it wrong.

jmr40 said:

If you're not going to actually hunt with it and only shoot it occasionally for nostalgia I wouldn't worry about it. Load 2 in the mag +1 in the chamber and shoot it. Even for hunting that would be enough virtually all of the time.

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True. I think as an experiment, at some point, I'll take a spring out of one of the new mags and put it in the original magazine to see if it does the same thing. Don't really see myself shooting it a lot, just like things to work correctly.

I think I have 2 problems. Sometimes two rounds will pop up into the action when cycling forward - and the gun jams. sometimes the round that cycles correctly, will drag the one below to the front of the mag, and then the tip of the round will jam in the bottom of the ramp. I was reading about people adjusting the feed lips on the mags on these, but I think I need to observe the action closely to see what on earth it is doing. Annoying, no wonder Remington went bankrupt, not like just about every firearm in the world uses magazines, factory magazines not working out of the box is a major fail. I still need to find the original one and just eyeball them in comparison.

Yea, I found the original mag. Anyone remember the trick to get the follower out of these mags so I can just put a spring in the old mag and see what happens? The feed lips are not very close. The front portion of the original feed lips are much more closed, and the cut out slot on the original mag that I guess is so the back/rim of the cartrdige can pop out is much further back.

managed to get the follower and spring out. just kind of figured it out. you just push the back down and to the side to roate the follower sideways and get a little tool under the front corner to give it a little extra turn and once that corner clears it comes right out.

put the follower and spring from the new factory mag - in the old original factory mag, the all steel marked 30-06, and immediately I cycled 4 rounds perfectly on the first try. funny, cuase I was originally just going to look for a spring, and figured ah what the heck, I'll just get a new mag, well why not 2. maybe I'll mess with the new ones with the plastic bottom a bit, but honestly, now that I know - I'll probably just use the one functioning mag, and stalk ebay or other sources for another original mag. Don't really need 2, but like to have a spare of everything.

I don't know if the ones I got are worth messing with other than to steal the springs out of them. Now I have to clean the rust off the original one and touch up the bluing.

I did a quick clean up of the old mag and touched it up quick with some Oxpho after the rust removal treatment. I did the whole mag, which ends up looking very blotchy, but - it is 45+ years old, so - fine if it looks old, just wanted to refirb it a bit if I'm going to use it. Tested and works 100%, racking it slow or fast, action always functions.

I tested the other new mag, and what this one does, if I rack the action too fast, the nose of the 2nd round will pop up, and the nose of the 2nd round will jam into the top right above the chamber. If I slow down a bit and do it a bit more methodically it works fine and does not do this. It appears the lips on the front of the mag that jams, are not curled over quite as much, which seems like it is why the 2nd round is able to pop up like that and point too high before the action moved back forward. Never really bent magazine lips before, and since it works maybe I'll leave well enough alone. I have a hard time doing that though, since I do now have a spare mag shell to tinker with since I put one of the springs in the old mag.