Rem 700 problems

I have a Remington 700 SPS .308 I have had some work done to by a qualified gunsmith. He replaced the barrel for a tactical barrel which I had problems with. The bolt is sticking on fired cases. This happens with factory loads and with hand loads. I had him replace the barrel again with a nice new barrel. He test fired it with 5 rounds of different ammo with no problems. I have fired 78 rounds so far. It will randomly stick rounds from hand loads and factory loads.

There are no signs of pressure on the cases, primers look the same as unfired, other than the firing pin strike. The bolt will rotate up, but I have to hammer it back with a screwdriver. Once the bolt is about a half inch back, it will easily slide back. Sometimes it will stick 1 out of 5, sometimes it will stick 4 out of 5 cases. If need be, I will take it back to him, but as busy as he is, it may take a month for him to look at it. I have shot several of his rifles, and never experienced something like this.

The action has a total of 132 rounds, 83 have been fired through this barrel. Any ideas?

Check the locking/lug surfaces, you may have a burr in there. How is the engagement? Equal on both lugs or does it show evidence of one lug bearing the brunt?
Was any work done to the receiver to true it?
If the bore is not on the same centerline as the receiver it is conceivable that you are getting a bind in the bolt.
A few possibilities exist, slide by if you like and we can take a look.

Bert (BP Tacticle) is good people and will take care of you. Let him take a look.

I would love to swing by, but its close to a 500 mile trip. Ill see what I can find with the lug engagements. There has been nothing done to the action that I know of. Thanks for the replies.

Sounds like a scope base screw or action screw might be making contact with a lug.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hoser

Sounds like a scope base screw or action screw might be making contact with a lug.

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Genius.
Sometimes it is the simple things.
But, would not that cause it to bind constantly?

I went over it pretty good this morning. I checked the scope mount screws, it wasn't it. I did have that problem on my Savage. I found one shiny spot on the edge of a lug that appears higher than the rest. I also went over a box of shells and found a partial shiny ring abour 1/4" down from the shoulder. The partial ring is about halfway around the shell. It appears to match with the shells that were difficult to extract. I'll have to take a magnifying glass next time I go to the range. I took a brush and swab and cleaned the chamber. If this doesn't help, I'll swing by the gunsmith to see about polishing the lugs while I am there.