No, it's not what I would say, common. The extractor in the 742 bolt face is in itself, sorta spring loaded as it's only anchored down on one end of its loop.
I'm guessing here without having it on my bench, but it could be that there's some crappola holding the extractor from releasing that rim to allow the ejector to push it out of the bolt face and send the case flying out the ejection port.
That's the first place I would check.
Could it be a weak spring or over gassed?
Weak extractor, possible. It would only be overgassed if the ammo was overloaded with very fast burning powder; the gas system is designed to vent off any excess.
Is this common for this rifle?
Sadly, yes. The extractor was the weak link on these, as well as Remington's 700 series bolts.
Ive heard plenty about about 740 and 742 problems like that as well.
They make a special chamber brush just for those guns because of the prevalence of problems like these.
Further, as was touched upon, the receiver galls where the bolt and carrier slide during operation. I have heard they can go maybe 1000 rounds. A suggestion in the past for the more common 30-06 version was to only use Garand loads as it was theorized that is what the 740 was designed around. That doesn’t work either apparently.
Either way, it is possible the brass needs a small base die as was noted.
The 742 works best with moderate handloads sized with Small Based dies. They are actually capable of decent accuracy loaded as such. I loaded 47.0 gr. of IMR 3031 under 165 Partitions for the deer loads I shot from mine. Cloverleafs at 50, just under 2" at 100. Minute of deer heart, and that's where all of those I fired at deer hit.
As has been mentioned, if fired with full house factory hunting loads, coupled with overzealous whanging the bolt back and forth by hand, it's a sure precursor to a "munched" receiver, with impressions of the bolt lugs on either side of the channel at the top of the receiver. (The galling mentioned by earlthegoat2.) When we'd see them come in for the ubiquitous "Jam-o-matic" repairs/cleaning with a munched receiver, we'd flat out decline to work on them, and offer the owner $50 for parts. Some would leave in a huff, some took us up on the offer. We cut up quite a few 740 and 742 receivers back then.
I was lucky with mine. I bought it from my aunt when I was 14, and it had been taken care of- no munched receiver. I kept it that way by keeping the round count low, and used that load with Ballistic Tips for practice, and Partitions for hunting.
Wonder why they made those rifles for so long, (20 YEARS) and in so many calibers, if they were all as bad as you write about.
It was the era of planned obsolescence. Cars back then rarely went over 100,000 miles. You'd buy a 742, abuse it (which is not hard to do with them) for a few years, then buy another.
