Barrel installation

[relabbe]

I just unscrewed my barrel off my Remington 700 300 win mag and I noticed there is a gummy compound in the treads. What is this? When screwing back the barrel in place, is there anything that need to put on the threads?

Thanks,

 

[James H]

I just unscrewed my barrel off my Remington 700 300 win mag and I noticed there is a gummy compound in the treads. What is this? When screwing back the barrel in place, is there anything that need to put on the threads?

Thanks,

Yes
First clean the gummy stuff off then coat the threads with never seeze or moly paste.

James

 

[relabbe]

Thanks James H

 

[Kevin Cram]

I assume this was a factory Remington barrel? The "gummy stuff" is Remingtons idea of tolerance filler. Their barrel threads are cut so sloppy they pack the threads with some sort of super high strength epoxy to tighten up the fit and then bond the barrel to the action. I have to apply some heat to the action with a propane torch just enough to melt the epoxy before I can remove a factory Remington barrel. You know it's melting when you see smoke come out of the front scope base screw hole. If you are attaching the same barrel back on it's best to make sure you have all the eoxy cleaned off the barrel threads. A brass brush will work fine, but the action threads will need cleaned out too. Best advise would be to get a 1 1/16 -16 tap to clean that out. The tap won't oversize the thread, just clean out all the gunk and may take out some of the taper. A little anti-sieze won't hurt either but use it sparingly, a little goes a long way.

 

[relabbe]

Thanks Montour, Would applying a propane torch flame to the action damage any of the bluing or the stainless finish? I guess if you wait to see some smoke coming out the sight screw hole it must be pretty hot.

Yes, you are right I was referring to a remington factory barrel? I had to take it off because it blew up.

 

[Jim Oliver]

How about "The rest of the story"?

Enquiring minds want to know...........

Glad you are able to type, etc!!!
Cheers,
Jim

 

[James Jones]

If your bafrrel is toast anyway , I would just apply the heat to that just in front of the action this way their less chance to get the bolt lug enbunkments hot ,granted it would take a several hundered degrees before their was any chance of affecting the strength and all that would take to "ungum" the barrel is around 200-300 max , it just bugs me to get stuff like that hot.

So how did you "blow it up"

 

[Kevin Cram]

The propane torch isn't held on very long and is kept rotating around the action. I would guess it's only about 200-300 degrees F or less when the epoxy lets loose. It's not enough heat to do any damage to the grain structure of the metal. I've had a Weatherby Vanguard action that the blueing got a little dis-colored I just stripped it and re-blued. I haven't had a Remington dis-color, but it could happen. If the gun "blew up" you may have some other concerns worth checking. How bad was the blow up and what happened?

 

[Coyboy]

I found the best, simplest and fastest way to remove the barrel is to set the action wrench to the 10 o'clock position as you stand behind the rifle. Take a good rubber mallet and wind up with one good whack. Done this way it typically only takes one whack of the mallet to spin the action and wrench around.

What some people do wrong is to tighten the wrench to hard onto the action, this can compress the action on the barrel, and that is what makes it extremly difficult to remove.
My wrench has a hole in it so a bolt can be inserted into the reciever to keep the wrench from spinning, and keep the operator from over tightening the wrench.

I have not had to put heat to any action/barrel joint.