Frame/barrel fit

[Yak Angler]

How common a problem is this with Handi's

The reason i ask is my factory .270 handi if i grab the far end of the barrel and the stock i can force side to side play not much but a little bit and I have been getting misfires about 1in3 rounds with CCI primers. I bought a .223 bull barrel from a member here and thought it locked up tight,  but after shooting it a few times found a fair bit of side to side movement after it refused to fire at all following about 1 box of ammo.  I shimmed the .223 barrel and now it locks up tight and the misfire issue appears fixed as i had it out to the range today without a signle FTF.

What im worried about is where the play came from on the .270 as that barrel performed flawlessly for about 200 rounds most of which were factory loads. At first i thought my FTF problem was a result of the trigger job i did but im pretty confident now it was excess head space caused by a barrel that got play after only a few hundred rounds.

I can understand a rifle wearing in but to the point it will no longer fire due to excessive clearances. Will this frame continue to stretch indefinitely requiring constant shimming to make it work?
Has anyone here had one of these rifles come apart due to metal fatigue while firing?

[quickdtoo]

The frame isn't stretching, the underlug is setting back if anything, but it may have been improperly fitted to begin with and the forend was hiding the looseness. Contact H&R and get it fixed. I've shot a 300WSM barrel on a modern SB2 frame with no ill effect on the frame, the previous owner shot 100 rounds of factory ammo on the original frame with that barrel with no problems with the frame itself, so unless the frame is defective, it's not the frame that's the problem, H&R will determine that when you send it in, they'll more than likely replace the barrel, ask them to send a shipping label to cover shipping cost.

Tim

http://www.hr1871.com/Support/repairs.asp

[Yak Angler]

Thanks Tim

I will call them on Monday to see what they want to do about it. I am in Canada so that will likely cause a few problems in getting things looked after as its always a hassle up here when it comes to warrenty repairs on firearms due to our gun laws and all the companies being based in the U.S.

Do you think it will likely continue to set-back after being shimmed ?

Has anyone here had any experiences with the Canadian repair centre?

[quickdtoo]

Do you think it will likely continue to set-back after being shimmed ?

Mine never have, but I don't shoot that much. My 500S&W barrel has almost 200 rounds thru it and it's still tight as when I shimmed it, but I also did the underlug improvement on it before I shimmed it. My guess is the barrel wasn't well fitted and had a burr or rough finish that eventually wore and made the barrel loose, a tight fitting forend will mask a loose barrel, that's why we recommend removing the forend to check barrel fit on a new/used rifle.

Tim

[Yak Angler]

i might just see how the shims hold up it sounds like they have worked well for you. i used a feeler gauge for my shim and it made a huge difference in how solid the gun feels when opening and closing it now. Feels really smooth and solid now just like a nice Beretta o/u for 1/10th the cost and I have probably opened and closed it 200 times since i shimmed and it hasn't started to loosen up any yet.

The .270 barrel had 3-4 times less side to side play to begin with than the .223 which now feels perfect to me and only required a .002" shim so a .001" should fix it up too hopefully. I figured i would start with the non-factory barrel first and It shot really nice today so if the .270 ends up the same way in the end I will be very very happy with this varmint/big game combo.

If i end up sending it back to h&r i will post my experiences with the canadian repair centre.