Troubleshooting Cycling Problems on the Remington 742

As sure as there will be another tomorrow, I can count on several Remington Model 742 semi-automatic rifles to show up in my shop needing some sort of attention right after deer season ends around here. The 742 is a very popular choice with deer hunters in this area. Made from 1960 until late 1980, the M742 was produced in chamberings to satisfy the need of a variety of users, from .243 caliber on up to the venerable .30-06.

In normal use, there are a number of things that can go wrong with the Remington 742, and then there are problems caused by those who don’t quite understand how this rifle should operate. Diagnosing Malfunctions The rifle’s owner is the best source of information when it comes to determining what’s not working as it’s supposed to. The place to start is where the customer directs you.

Questions to ask are: "Will the rifle fire?" "Does it fail to close and lock closed?" "Does it fail to feed, fire, and extract the empty?" But don’t trust the owner’s Top Bottom answer implicitly. Sometimes you’ll have to test fire the rifle and see for yourself what you’re dealing with and exactly what’s wrong. The first step in the troubleshooting process is a complete takedown and cleaning. This gives usa chance to look everything over for any obvious signs of damage as well as broken or missing parts.

If, for example, the problem is a bolt that fails to close or closes with a sluggish action, you’ll want to pay particular attention to the action spring and action bars during the takedown and cleaning procedure. Look the action spring over to see if the spring works freely over the gas tube, and check to see if the action bars are rubbing too much along the inside as they are worked backward.

If the action bars are bowed outward, they’ll need to be straightened so they slide without resistance when worked by pulling the bolt handle backward. If the action spring is pitted from rust, it’s best to replace the spring. Inspect the retaining pin for the bolt handle to see that the bottom of this pin is flush or slightly below the outside diameter of the bolt carrier. If this pin sits too high, it can rub on the

top of the magazine and impede bolt movement during the firing sequence. Take a look at the disconnector in the trigger group to see that the forward leg is flat to the receiver wall so that it functions correctly. If it’s bent inward or outward, straighten it so that the front end of the disconnector will ride on the action bar as it’s supposed to. Also make sure that the ejectionport cover slides back and forth freely as the action is hand-cycled.

These covers are plastic and over time will often get brittle and break. Brownells sells a one-size-fits-all replacement ejection-port cover. Feeding Failures If the rifle fails to feed correctly, the first suspect would be the magazine. Inspect all the magazines the customer uses in this rifle. If the magazine assembles too low in the receiver, try a magazine latch with the next higher number. If the magazine feed lips are damaged, you can waste a lot of time trying to get the lips back to where they should be.

In this case, I think it’s This is almost certain to cause malfunctions. time to replace the magazine. We often wonder how sticks, deer hair, and pine needles find their way into a rifle action. When fully charged spare magazines are carried in a coat pocket, any debris that can get into the pocket will migrate into the magazine. And then, as the rounds are cycled from the magazine into the action, this debris will go along for the ride.

I tell my customers to carry spares in a magazine pouch, or if they must be carried in a pocket to seal them up in a Ziplock sandwich bag’preferably, one that hasn’t previously been occupied by a sandwich. Push the follower on the magazine down with your forefinger to see if you can feel any rubbing or hesitation with the follower coming back up quickly. If you detect rubbing when the follower returns, it will need to come out of the magazine for some polishing.

The magazines for these rifles are quite easy to disassemble once you understand the method. To remove the follower, tilt the rear end of the follower downward while lifting on the left front end of the follower, then turn this side up and out of the magazine. The rear of the follower is then turned downward so that it becomes free from the pin on the boltrelease button/lever. Clean out all the pocket lint, sticks, and other debris

Often, this condition never gets any worse than what’s seen here. inside the magazine box and wipe the inside surfaces with a light coating of oil. Look over all the outside edges of the follower that ride along the inside walls of the magazine box for any signs of burrs or rough edges from the stamping die. If these edges feel rough, a once-over with a fine file will remove the rough spots, and then give the edges a dressing with 400-grit emery paper or polish on a power buffing wheel.

To get the follower and spring back into the magazine box, you first pinch the bottom of the follower spring up toward the underside of the follower with your forefinger and thumb. Make sure that the shank of the magazinerelease lever is up toward the top of the rear opening in the magazine box. Tilt the follower so that the hole in its left rear end goes over the shank of the magazine-release lever, and work the rear end of the follower into the magazine box while maintaining the pinching of the follower spring.

Push the front of the follower spring down into the magazine box, tilt the right front end side down and into the box, and then the left front end. Once you do this a couple of times it becomes a simple operation. Bolt Lock-up Failure If the bolt head fails to lock up completely, we need to check the bolt latch to see if it’s broken and needs replacement. If the barrel nut is loose, this could be another reason why the bolt head is not able to get locked up correctly.

Check the locking-lug recess in the barrel shank to see if there is anything captured in this recess that could prevent the bolt head from rotating into place. A major problem I’ve seen over the years involves rifles in .30-06 caliber. Many of these rifles show excessive signs of "bolt over-rotation." This is caused by the over-rotating of the hardened bolt head when it’s in its most rearward position in the receiver. There will be obvious peening marks as shown in the photo.

Some rifles show this peening condition to be far worse than others, and the only thing we can do about it is to make the owner aware of the condition. In some cases it will get no worse than what it is, and in other cases it will scrape the receiver. I’ve seen one case where the peening was so drastic that the impression caused by the over-rotation of the bolt head was deep enough to retain the bolt head to the point where the bolt carrier was unable to bring (continued on page 22)

the rifle back into battery. Once the bolt is removed from the receiver, check the front face of the bolt head to see that there is a smooth transition for the cartridge head over the rim of the bolt head and extractor. If there is a "step," it should be removed carefully with some very judicious stoning. Use a punch to test the ejector head to see that it’s moving freely forward and backward in its residence.

Inspect the inside of the bolt carrier to ensure there’s no gunk in the area of the firing pin, and make sure that the firing-pin spring is in place. Check the firing-pin nose for any deformation that could prevent it from poking out the front end of the bolt head. Sometimes, a bent firing pin can be straightened, but often it may break during the straightening process. When reassembling the bolt, make sure that the bolt-latch detent pins are correctly installed in the bolt head.

The little spring goes in first, and then the detent with the spherical head goes in the detent hole toward the front face of the bolt head. The spring goes in first for the rear detent, and this pin is flat on each end so it doesn’t matter which end enters first. Inspect the Trigger Group It’s a good habit to look the trigger group over thoroughly. In the example shown here, somebody clipped several coils off the sear spring and then stretched it out a bit.

As you can see, the rear leg of the bolt latch does not touch the front end of the disconnector. This attempt to achieve a lighter trigger pull resulted in very little to no tension on the disconnector, causing the trigger to fail to release the hammer on occasion. This condition can also cause the hammer to fail to engage the sear and can lock the hammer in the cocked position. Clipping coils from this spring is not a good idea, and the owner was advised that his attempt to reduce trigger pull was not a good plan.

This spring was replaced with the correct factory spring. Conclusions Although this article was specifically about troubleshooting the Remington Model 742, most of these safety and function checks apply to other semiautomatic rifles’particularly with regard to the importance of a thorough takedown and cleaning. It’s like an old gunsmith once told me: "If we don’t take care of our customers, somebody else will." I