Remington 721 safety

[Southmountain]

If my bolt is open and the safety on my Remington 721 is on Fire, and I close and lock the bolt, it is very hard to push the safety to S. It takes a lot of strength.

When the bolt is not locked, it is very easy to work the safety from F to S and back. So to work this rifle, I chamber my rounds, engage safety to S, then close the bolt.

This is not my experience with other 2-position safeties on bolt actions. They are always easy to move from F to S and back, regardless of whether the bolt is open or locked.

Is this typical for the older Remington 721 bolt lock safeties, or is something wrong with mine?

 

[Chief TC]

Definitely something is wrong. The safety toggle on the 721 should easily move. As a matter of fact, I do not like how easy you can toggle the safety from safe to fire.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Walker triggers are infamous for rust and dirt buildup on the slide bar ( connector) causing them to fire when flipped off safe or when the bolt is closed. Never heard of this particular issue, but I would do a thorough disassembly of the trigger mechanism (if possible- some are riveted together) and check for corrosion and contaminants.

Remington-walker trigger explanation

I requested and received permission to post this paper authored by JBelk over on ShootersForum. It is a rather long and detailed analysis of the Remington Trigger issue that was in the news about 10 years ago. It applies to the700 series triggers supplied prior to the introduction of the X Mark...

www.700rifle.com

 

[Chief TC]

Forgot to mention that if you have the original trigger, replace it. Doesn’t cost much and easy to do. A few companies make aftermarket triggers for the 721 and will improve performance.

 

[Slamfire]

Take the action out of the stock and blow carb cleaner through the trigger mechanism, followed by compressed air. See if that dissolves and clears what could be a half century of gunk inside the mechanism.

Based on what I have read, I do not recommend oiling the Remington trigger mechanism as gummed oil could prevent sear re set inside the mechanism.

Overall, it is safer to purchase a trigger mechanism that does not have the inherent design defects of the Walker Trigger.

 

[Litetrigger]

When you move the safety to fire position with bolt closed you are freeing the trigger sear to move with mating surface of bolt. Thus when moving safety back to safe position you are, in effect, partially working against pressure of the mainspring. Which is why the safety moves easily to safe position with the bolt open. You can demonstrate this by removing the bolt and pressing down on the trigger sear with thumbmail with moving safety back and forth while pulling trigger.
























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[jmr40]

My advice is to replace that trigger with an aftermarket trigger. It's a flawed design that still works most of the time. They fail so rarely that many fall into a false sense of feeling that it will never happen to them. But every single one of them has the potential to fire without pulling the trigger if things just happen to line up in the wrong place. It's more likely if the trigger is dirty or has been improperly adjusted but brand-new rifles still on the assembly line have been known to do it.

That trigger is on every Remington bolt action made from 1946-2007 except the 788. The one on my 1974 production 700 failed twice on me in 40 years. Fortunately for me both times the firing pin fell on an empty chamber. I was skeptical about the issue until it happened twice to me. It has been 10 years, but I paid about $100 for a new Timney trigger and it took me 20-30 minutes to install it. Now that I've done one I could do it again in 1/2 that time. It isn't hard.