Remington 7400 shooting issue. Help appreciated

[bhhacker]

Hello all,


I bought a remington 7400 in 30.06 that came with two boxes of hunting ammo for 50$ from a friend. His fiance didnt like guns in the house and it was a right place at the right time thing.

He said it was having problems feeding and that he had never cleaned it. I gave him the 50$ right on the spot and walked home with my new to me rifle.


I gave it a good cleaning and took it to the range to test it out. I noticed the magazine it came with says .243. I figured id give it a try and see if it worked anyways. (I live in Alaska and like to avoid having to wait for shipping things in if I can help it)

I racked the bolt back and the round loaded. Good deal. I fired. It shot, and shot pretty accurately. I took aim, and pulled the trigger again. No bang. no click. It wasnt a soft strike. the bolt was fully forward. Somehow the trigger didnt reset?


I pulled the bolt back and the round ejected fine. I looked at it and saw no nicks, denting, anything out of the ordinary. The 3rd round fired fine. The 4th fired fine.


It intermittently failed multiple times with that magazine each time the trigger didnt reset so when i pulled the trigger nothing happened. If i used it loading one into the chamber manually, it fired each and every time.


What I would like to know is if this can be caused by the magazine or is it something else, and if you have an idea, id love to hear it.

 

[BBBBill]

Yep. Magazine. You really need one for a 30-06.

 

[KC&97TA]

It's been many years: I have a 7400 .243, the only mag it would feed from reliably is a Remington mag marked .243, I had a cool 10 shot after-market that didn't work and tried a few gun show specials that were all short action .308 if I believe and extended capacity's too. That's the only complaint, it will only fire from a ".243" mag, not much to complain about and it ran sluggish in extreme cold.

It's a nice rifle, my first hunting rifle when I was 12, 4 shots seemed to be enough for just about everything with fur... the joke was always "you don't need more than 4 unless you meet a deer in the woods who cheated you on a drug deal"... that's supposed to be funny, at least it always was to me as a kid.

 

[Jim K]

You really should have the proper magazine, and you can probably order one on-line. But it sounds more like the hammer is either not cocking or is not staying cocked. The problem may be in the sear, in the hammer, or in the disconnector, possibly the result of someone trying to "improve" the trigger pull. I suppose the wrong magazine could somehow cause the problem, but I don't think so.

If you are not familiar with that trigger group, a trip to a gunsmith might be advisable.

Jim

 

[Patocazador]

I have a couple of 742s (model prior to 7400) in .30-06 and .280. Either magazine can be used interchangeably probably because they are both 'long-action' cartridges. My guess is that your 'short-action' .243 magazine is not capable of feeding the longer shells properly. Get any long-action mag. that fits (742 mags may work) and give it a try.
This model rifle has been around for scores of years and there should be quite a few suitable magazines available.

 

[MtnCreek]

You really should have the proper magazine, and you can probably order one on-line. But it sounds more like the hammer is either not cocking or is not staying cocked. The problem may be in the sear, in the hammer, or in the disconnector, possibly the result of someone trying to "improve" the trigger pull. I suppose the wrong magazine could somehow cause the problem, but I don't think so.

If you are not familiar with that trigger group, a trip to a gunsmith might be advisable.

Jim

I agree. I think the reason it's not causing an issue when single loading it because your finger is not on the trigger. When cycling from the mag after firing, your finger is on the trigger. I would send it to a smith.

 

[jjjitters]

Those are 2 completely different calibers, the mag's follower and spring rate are tuned for .243,not 30-06. Get yourself another mag.
I had 2- 10 round mags for mine, 1 plastic,1 metal, both would only feed reliable with 8 in the mag with 1 in the chamber. 9 shots of .280 in an semi-auto , I never had a deer get away from me. First shot was usually a well placed hit, then rapid fire till it stops
I had to sell it and get bolt guns after that, it was too much fun with the auto. It was fussy feeding and the spring rate being fast enough to get the next round up in time for the action to grab it. Clean it every year.
If the action doesn't go all the way back it won't reset the trigger,if the wrong mag is causing drag on the action, it won't go all the way back.Another option

 

[bhhacker]

UPDATE:

I bought a 30-06 magazine and it is still having problems. It will fire the first one that i manually pull back, eject and then load one into the chamber but it doesnt reset the trigger.

The bolt is forward all the way and if i manually pull the charging handle, it will spit out the unused round and load the next one and fire just fine.


Any clue where to go from there?

 

[jjjitters]

Its been a long time since I had mine apart,but I believe you can take the trigger assembly out as a unit from the bottom.There should be two screws or push pins on the side and/or the bottom on each end of the trigger. The whole assembly will drop down and you will be able to clean the trigger workings off good,along with the action up in the housing. I wouldn't be surprized if one of the small springs(not the recoil) are broke or there is some old weeds/gunk that is slowing the reset up.The reset is simply a knob on the bottom of the action that pushes the "hammer" back, kind of like a 1911 hammer.It can reset by hand because of the slow speed but when it is fired the action is too fast for a reset.
Try to pull the action back as fast as you possibly can(I know that it can be painfull on the finger doing this), see if it reset then.
If your not comfortable working around the trigger it may be better off taking it to a gunsmith.
I've had several auto's apart and they really aren't that bad,it's that first time and watching carefully how things go.

 

[bhhacker]

Ok, I sprayed the entire darn trigger assembly with PB Blaster and then used an air compressor to blow off the excess and hopefully most of the junk.

Will see if that does the trick

 

[Patocazador]

When you eject the fired shell by hand, is it kind of hard to open the action at first? Your chamber could be dirty and the empty is hanging up on the irregular surface. My 742s are filthy guns. They get dirtier quicker than any gun I've ever had. The crud builds up bad and lead and copper solvents are sometimes necessary to clean the chambers well. I suspect that they came from the factory with chambers that weren't polished that well.

 

[bhhacker]

the shell ejects and loads the next one. it doesnt reset the trigger though until i manually rack the charging handle.

it will spit out a perfectly good loaded round and will fire the next. so with a full magazine (4) i can rack one, fire. manually pull the charger and shoot the 3rd, then have to pull it back again. So 2 rounds are fired, and two are dropped on the ground

 

[jjjitters]

When you had it apart, did any springs look broken or any of the parts like sear worn badly? How about the rest of the action, did the knob or finger that hits the "hammer"(don't know the name of it) look worn or peened at all?
Was the internals real gunky ,dry,or rusty?
If you can, try working the reset with the trigger group out of the gun, see if anything seems to act weird when going fast as oppossed to when working slowly. There has to be something worn,broken,peened,or loose that is preventing that reset to work fast.
here is a parts breakdown for your gun,http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=0/sid=119/schematicsdetail/7400-4

parts #2,12,25,27,42,67,40,30,&31 are the ones to inspect closely with 12 &2 the most important. Also if you can see where the sear engages the hammer look for any rounding over or wear. Look also for a broken sear spring.
It's quite a bit cheaper to find the culprip yourself, even if you have to take it to a gunsmith to change a part, at least he won't have time in diagnostics.

 

[FROGO207]

Look at the rails inside the receiver and see if they are galled up where the bolt rides on them. I had one that this happened to and the thing never worked well after that. I tried to smooth the roughness out of it but was never really successful with that. I am thinking that they did a poor job of heat treating the receiver on some of them. They (Remington) offered to look at it but sounded like they would not fix it if that was indeed found to be the problem. Another area is to see if the gas port is blocked at all as this will cause the problem also. Mine was in 308.

 

[jjjitters]

It wouldn't reset the trigger like his is doing? Slowing the action down and not going all the way back? These gun are finicky.

 

[FROGO207]

Yep If you pulled the cocking lever back and let it fall the round would fire as normal. The shell would eject and next one was loaded but no firing pin strike. Pull the handle again and repeat. If you loaded the round that did not fire and cycled it bu hand it would fire. I now have basically a single shot tack driver of a rifle.

 

[jjjitters]

I know mine was awfully rough and hard on the finger pulling back. I liked the gun but was a pain to keep clean,plus try loading a round just before dawn QUIETLY, in the treestand, when you need to yank the action back and let it slam shut to make sure it locks up and fire. Sold it 5 or 6 years ago for $50 more than I bought it for 10yrs earlier.

I never had anything go wrong with it though,always shot good. I've worked on a Browning a couple times and it has those locking "spirals"(not the correct term) by the chamber that gets crammed with weeds and dirt. Its been a while and I can't remember all the details of the 7400, but you can take the gas system apart easily to clean and maybe polish the rails with wet/dry fine sandpaper, if I'm remembering correct.

If you guy were close to me I'm sure I would get them working again.

 

[lathedog]

I bet that if you look real close at the rounds that were cycled thru but did not go "bang", there might be a very slight mark from the firing pin. Your description sounds like the hammer is following the bolt home; it stays cocked on the trigger sear during a manual cycle but the disconnector is not holding it back during semiautomatic operation.

You could test this unloaded (and pointed in a safe direction - at the range) by dry firing, hold the trigger back - do not release the trigger, manually cycle the bolt (do not ease forward - let it fly home on its own), then release the trigger. Listen for a click (reset) and then dry fire again. If you remove the dust cover you can look thru the ejection port while doing this. From your description I would expect no click, a mushy trigger, and the hammer forward. Cycle it again and feel for the increased force needed to cycle with the hammer down.

 

[Ryanxia]

Another thing worth mentioning just for your general info is that my buddy's Remy 7400 only liked remington ammo, other brands (similar loads) would cause jams every once in a while. Not related to your issues but just my 2 cents.

 

[USMC07]

Fix for Hammer not staying Cocked

This is a common problem with these guns over time the disconnector may pop over the action bar causing the hammer not to cock when there is pressure on the trigger.

If you remove your trigger group from the gun (drift out two pins that hold it in place). Look on the left side of the trigger group where the action bar and disconnector are located see if the disconnector (silver piece coming off the trigger) is sitting on top of the action bar. if it is not this is what is causing your hammer to not stay cocked when your finger is on the trigger. To fix this drift out the pin that holds your trigger in place (bottom back of trigger assembly) from RIGHT to LEFT. Lift up on trigger and gently pry the disconnector up so it sits on top of the end of the action bar. Reinstall the pin through the trigger and pull the trigger, then with pressure still on the trigger the hammer should stay cocked. If this doesn't work or you don't feel comfortable with doing it yourself take it to a gunsmith in your area.