Extractors

[Curly]

Has anybody had problems with the Remington extractors.   The little lip inside the bolt face seems small.  I am looking to buy a Remington after years of Winchesters.   

[Questor]

Curly. You beat me to it. I was just about to post that question myself. I've been using a 700 for over a year now and the darned thing really works, but I don't know how it can work as well as it does with that funny little edge in the bolt face and the dinky little spring to kick out the cases.

[wncchester]

Some folks don't like the Rem extractor.  I do. 

The mechanical design of that extractor was/is ingeniously simple.  It's what permits the Remington "three rings of steel" enclosing the cartridge head and, therefore, Rems great safety factor for blown case heads.

The extractor itself is a light, semi-circlar clip that snaps into a shallow groove in the bolt head.  There is no bolt-face cut for a Mauser hook type extractor, bolt head extractor cuts are what allows the gases from a case rupture to vent into the action and magazine box with such devastating force.  Rem's design does require that cartridge feeding be a "push" type, not "controlled" as a Mauser, but few of us are facing dangerous animals in our routine hunting  so that is of small consideration to most of us.

When chambering a round, the small "inward bent" portion of the extractor snaps over the case head.  The extactor then becomes a wedge, firmly locked between the case's goove and bolt's groove.  Thus the case rim is securely captured by that very small but very strong steel wedge, which is captured and enclosed by the strong grooved ring of steel in the bolt face, which is enclosed by the barrel's breech, which is enclosed by the receiver ring; a really simple but really good design.  Yeah, the small extractor can break but what can't?

Many 'smiths replace Rem extractors.   Considering how many Remington rifles are out there, that's no surprise,.  If only a tiny fraction give trouble it still makes for a signiificant business to fix them.  Personally, I know no one who's had any problem with it and I would never sacrifice the safety of that bolt and extractor design to have a different type installed.

[jro45]

I never had any problem with my Rems Extractors.

[Lou270]

I have a bunch of Remington rifles, sent many rounds down range and in the field in varying conditions and have had no extractor issues.  I have seen guys beat their bolts open with 2x4s (among other things) and no extractor issues.   I typically hunt in 3 states a year and Remington is by far the most common rifle I run into and have never seen or even heard of anybody mention an issue (being a rifle nut, anybody I hunt with generally gets quizzed on their experiences).  That being said, I have seen some guys on the internet post about how they have ran into several Remington extractor issues.  I don't know if these guys are unlucky or just exagerrating due to brand bias issues.  From what I have read, the Remington extractor can break if you get brass shavings or something wegded behind it and try and force it to close.  Again, never saw it, but in theory, sounds like it could be the culprit of some of the issues I have seen posted on the net.

-Lou

[Brithunter]

Hi All,

     Well as I know little about Rem 700's I had to go and look at my Firearms Dissassembly book to see what the extractor looks like  well from the photos it looks like it's not even a Remington design but a poached idea. The 700 uses the same as the 600 does it not and that model came in in 1964 yes  well BSA used this type of extractor from 1957 at least and the three rings of steel is not an Remington idea either Nope BSA again beat them to it  .

     I have never heard of the BSA extractors breaking but then again they were machined from solid and not investment cast as I suspect that Remington do today (cheaper that way  )

     Therefore I do not think it's design is bad having been using rifles with the design for many years now  although if the parts were cast I might not be quite so happy which is one reason I like the older rifles  as they didn't use cast parts but forgings and machined solid steel parts. Of course BSA is really no longer with us ( the Firm which uses the name BSA Guns Ltd is nothing to do with the original firm) due to Politics and Assesst srtippers  and it's been about 20 years since they last made Firearms  .

     Now as for the push feed Vs controlled feed  on that one I fail to see the problems of either type. Sorry but in normal use I have never had problems with either type and I have rifles which use both. The push feed is certainly slicker unless you add the Mannlicher Schoenauer into the equation which has a controlled feed design.

[wncchester]

I have no personal knowledge of the British Small Arms rifles (BSA) but I do the Remingtons. This is more than the original question asked but it seems relivant to the way the thread has moved.

Mike Walker designed the Rem Mod 700 predicessors, the  Mod.s 721 and 722, before the end of WWII to give Remington something to concentrate on after the end of the 1941-45 war.  I think that was well before BSA used the enclosed extractor and "three rings of steel" designs but maybe not.

The Remington extractor is a stamped spring-steel ring that is carefully punched out, deburred and shaped to fit into the bolt face ring.   It is not cast.

The rifle's design was intended to allow for less expensive production methods on new machinery that had been develped during the war, including such things as automatic screw machine lathes for cutting tubular steel receivers.  He conceived the ideas for the seperate recoil lug, a round bottom action and bedding, the trigger mechanism, the first practical working methods for making button rifling barrels (and later helped get the Hart's started in making quality barrels), all his original designs, for those rifles.  In the early 60s, Mike developed the 700BDL and ADL series, including the much nicer stock, for a better looking rig.  Sales records were soon set.  He did not approve the change to pressed checkering, top management did that to cut costs.  (It always takes high level management to screw up a good engineering design, right?)

I believe it was Walker's co-worker, Wayne Leek, who developed the Mod. 600, 660, 788, etc, in the mid to late 60s.  Leek included significant portions of the 700s better design/manufactoring features, including the extractor and round receiver.

Walker was, and remains today (even tho he's getting pretty frail) an avid bench shooter.  In the 50s he modified the 700 into the Mod. 40X series of target rifles, at first for the US Army Marksmanship program in Ft. Benning, GA, and, later, the public.    He develped the .222 for bench competition and it won most matches prior to the introduction of the 6ppc cartridge.  Later, he gave us the factory versions of the 222Mag, the 22-250 and the 7mm Rem Mag.  We riflemen and hunters owe him, and Remington in spite of themselves, a lot.

[Slamfire]

I once pulled the head off a case with a Remington extractor. 

[Drue]

I had a broken extractor in my 700 Varmint .308 (1981) that I use for silhouette shooting. When the extractor let go it cracked at the rivet. The rifle had a little over 9000 rounds on it. Almost all of them were a Sierra 168MK and 45gr of H380 which is sort of mild. A buddy lost the extractor at about 10000 rounds of similar ammo. I am not complaining about the service provided by the extractor, 9000 is a lot of rounds and it was inexpensive to fix. The problem is that it can't be done in the field. The job required a drill press, hammer, punch and a correctly shaped buck for the rivet. The newer 700s dispense with the rivet.

There are a number of gunsmiths fiting Sako extractors to the 700 and I have never seen one of these fail. However, as pointed out above, the procedure does compromise one of the three rings of steel.

Drue

[Curly]

Thank you Gentlemen,

[RayO]

Like Drue,I have a silhouette rifle on its third barrel.Many thousands of rounds down range and still working.On the other hand,I have another rifle that gave out in less than 100 rounds.