First disassembly of rem 597 and already have problems

[SteelJM1]

I picked up a remmy 597 last nite along with a brick of federal 36gn to fill my .22 rifle needs. At the range today the action performed flawlessly: no jams, ftf, fte, or anything of the sort over ~300 rounds, but the accurancy was.. well dismal to say the least. I don't know if it was the rifle, the ammo, me, or a ratio of all three combined but the bullets seemed to wander pretty randomly around the target even when aiming as best i could though the crappy ironsights at the same spot.

Anyway so I come home and decide to strip it down to give it a good cleaning to perhaps tighten up the groups. Disassembly was easy and i got the bore and action spotless... but assembly is a bear. It seems that even while following the reassembly instructions to a T, I managed to bend one coil (end coil) of one of the guide rod springs in such a way as to cause it to rub against the guide rod and keep the bolt from cycling smoothly at all. Has anyone else run into this problem? I really don't want to send it off to get worked on after only having it for one day. I was thinking maybe snipping off the coil and hoping for the best?

Anyhow, any advice would be appreciated, im ticked.

 

[SteelJM1]

Welp. It looks like clipping that one coil seemed to do the trick. Back to normal, and now with a cheapie scope!

 

[ceetee]

I've never heard of anyone having that problem, but those guide rods ARE a PITA to get back in right. Didi you remember to back the set screws off a tad? They usually come so tight from the factory that they put pressure on the guide rods, causing the guide rods to bow and rub against the bolt. You want to snug them up just barely tight.

Sorry to hear about your accuracy problems. My 597 is more accurate than I can shoot. Are the sights all tight? If you mounted a scope, is it tight and holding zero? Is the barrel tight to the receiver? Ive heard that the wedge can be loose, and not hold the barrel tight. The only other thing I can think of is just using crap ammo.

For more info, check out Rimfire Central. There's a Remington forum where you can find out all kinds of interesting information.

 

[Te Anau]

My 597 is more accurate than I can shoot.

So is mine.

 

[SteelJM1]

Yeah i stopped by rimfire central (thanks for the link!) and learned all the little 597 tricks. This saturday i'll get the new scope sighted in and get a bunch of different ammo to see which one this rifle likes best.

 

[Jseime]

My iron sights came off the rifle all together pretty quickly when i bought my 597. It shoots like a dream and the best ammunition i have found for it is CCI mini-mag.

The only trouble i have had with disassembly/ reassembly is losing the last shot bolt hold open mechanism so i have the occasional dry fire when i run out of ammo.

 

[~ARMYSoldieR~]

mine was having the same problem bet as metioned b4 i had the set screws to tight so that was my bad other than that i use cci stingers and can shoot jack rabbits from 150 yards on out..... standing up free holding so i know the rifle is accurate now my problems are my mags the springs don't seem to last long in them so they don't want to feed its very frustrating and buying more is starting to get real expensive

 

[tommyt]

I can never understand people disassembling there guns when they have no clue as how to do it right.

 

[SteelJM1]

No need to be a jerk tommy. I followed the instructions in the manual to a T (which i wrote in the original post), the problem is that the instructions for the specific part of reassembling the guide rods and springs aren't written very well, because if they were, there wouldn't be so many threads on rimfirecentral on how to REALLY do it without going nuts. So bugger off.

I can never understand people not reading/comprehending the first post, then attacking the poster.

 

[MemphisJim]

Steel, once you mastered the basic 597, let yourself have some real fun: get 597s in .22WMR and .17HMR like I did. You get to play with twice as many springs per rod...and soon learn that God designed you with at least one too few hands for the task. Early on I had your same experience with the spring; I just clipped it (about 1/8-inch was mangled; didn't seem to affect performance). I mount the set screws flush to the bolt surface (another tip picked up from posts in various forums last year). And I predominantly shoot CCI Mini-Mags (by far the preferred food for all my .22LR long and hand guns). Now that I have (sorta) mastered reassembly of all three of my 597s, I no longer screw up spring ends. To celebrate the new-found mastery, I got new springs for all of them from Herter's. Like several others here, my 597s shoot better than I do but I sure enjoy trying to catch up to them. And, I am in full agreement with your assessment about the owner's manual: it needs improvement.

 

[SteelJM1]

MemphisJim: The .17HMR did look pretty neat, but I need to get a few other guns on my list before springing (heh) for another rimfire.

I think a lot of my accuracy woes had to do with the ammo as well, federal bulk. I picked up some Minimags and will go grab a few more brands later this week to be ready for the next chance at shooting I get. My 30rd mag should be coming in soon as well!

Aside from the minimags, what are say, the top 5 ammo models that generally give good accuracy without molesting my wallet too much?

Armysoldier: Im pretty sure that Remington will fix or replace your mags for free if they're malfunctioning before their due time. Don't forget to keep them clean, and it seems that stretching the spring out will help things a bit if they're getting a bit long in the tooth.

 

[ndking1126]

Tommyt, I hear you.

That's almost like my 6 week old daughter.. I know at some point she is going to try to walk, and she truly doesn't have a clue how to do it. She's been watching us walk for quite awhile, but since she's never actually walked herself, I'm thinking she'll probably fall and hurt herself.

Or like my brother-in-law, trying to learn how to play the guitar. He was reading directions online and watching tutorials on youtube, but man he looked clueless...

I just don't understand people who try to learn new things!! They look so silly when they have to ask questions!!

 

[ndking1126]

Had to say that...

I hope you picked up on my sarcasm, SteelJM1..

The first time I took apart my Marlin 60 I bent a spring.. it didn't affect it's performance thankfully. There's just something fun about tinkering with my .22. Sounds like you've caught the same bug I did!

 

[hogdogs]

I am fairly sure that the first time I took apart any gun it was the first time...
Luckily and ONLY LUCKILY I have never had to buy any parts due to my errors. I have had a few hiccups and mistakes that cost me some time and caused me frustration but I assure you I never take anything to the shop and can and will work on everything I own. Appliances, small engines, electronics and computers, cars, trucks and guns to name a few. I don't throw it out until it cannot be fixed anymore. Kudos for giving it the good ol American whirl!!! I can't understand folks who can't understand!
Brent

 

[blhseawa]

Don't feel bad, you are not alone!

I bought a used Remington Nylon 66 some years back from a pawnshop, but the action was so filthy the bolt was sticking. Anyway, once I got it home, I decided to give it a through cleaning. Read and re-read the disassembly manual for rim fire rifles eight times, before I ventured in.

It took me three weeks to put a Remington Nylon 66 back together after removing all of the little pins to clean the action! Talk about feeling stupid. I didn't think I would ever get the thing together again. I was so afraid I'd have to take a bag of parts and stock to my local gunsmith and I knew I'd never live the ribbin' down.

Anyway, don't feel bad. My wife still teases my about that one. Turned out to a very accurate fun shooting .22. Still got it in the gun safe.

 

[~ARMYSoldieR~]

thanks man

ya thanks for the advice on sending them in but i did some snoopin around and found that even though they send you new ones most ppl are still having trouble with them i heard they have a third gen mag out now but its still having problems so i looked into the 30 round mags and those too are having a lot of reported problems such as they need sanding so as to not sit to high into the chaber and that they work good as a 25 round mag which is fine and dandy but if it says 30 it should mean 30 I own a couple of remingtons and im very impressed with their out of the box accuracy but they're lettin me down on this .22 they need to completely redesign their magizines in my opionin at least...... Ya ya i know they're like aholes everyone has one and they all stink right.... as far as good rounds my favorite are CCI Stingers... CCI Minimags... Federal for Cheap Bulk Rounds and also Remington's Bulk Brass Rounds The Stingers work the best for me by far. Dead on even out to 200 yards and still have enough bite to tip a jack rabbit on its a$$

 

[SteelJM1]

Maybe the 3rd gen mags will work out for you. The one that came with my rifle has worked flawlessly with 20+ reloadings and no cleaning. Not ONE magazine related failure yet (or any sort of failure for that matter).

I picked up one of the 30 round mags (clear) and loaded it to the hilt, and though i didn't fire it, manually cycling the bolt as fast as I could also did not confuse the rifle either. I'm only curious as to why they went single stack with the 30rd mag. Why not keep it doublestack like the regular mags, just make it a couple inches longer? It sure would look a lot less goofy.