Group testing my Remington 7600 carbine in 35 Whelen with 180 grain hot cores

[badaxeriverman]

I ordered this gun as a special run probably in 2019. I’m guessing. Never been able to get nice groups with it worth a darn. It also wouldn’t feed ammo so it went back to Remington. I tried so many ladder tests in it with poor results that I really got sick of shooting it. I did slug the barrel at .358”. IMO it’s in the large side. My Remington 7600 in 35 rem and 336 in 35 Rem both slug .357”. The barrel came loose twice on me at the range. Remington was going to replace the slide tube and never did. Told me they tightened it. Took it out the other day for a range session and it didn’t shoot worth the darn. A good 3/4” plus groups on everything I tested. Took it out again last week to experiment with powder coating some of the jacket and projectiles to get them bigger and diameter. Factory hornady in two sizes I have were .357”. Norma 250 grain I have are .3565”. I increased the diameters to .3595” with powder coating. Got to the range last week with them and went to shoot a group and I couldn’t even hit a 3 foot sheet of paper at 100 yards two out of three times! …To find out that the magazine tube is loose as a goose again. Apparently Remington didn’t tighten up the loose magazine tube. I got home in unscrewed that tube completely and took the barrel off. Cleaned the grease off the threads and put a generous amount of blue loc tite on the male and female threads. Put it back together and gave it a “He Man’s” tightening with a Phillips screw driver through the pump slide tube holes. I also had swapped out my plastic furniture with grey laminate factory furniture. I also installed the Uncle Mikes swivel screw set. The screw that holds the pump on has loosened up and backed out a few times as well. I also blue loc tited it when I did my slide tube. I also notice my pump had side to side movement enough that the pump would touch the left side of my barrel. My other two 7600’s don’t tough the barrels. I grabbed a dowel and sanded the pump channel till it didn’t touch the barrel and then applied tru oil in the channel. After I reinstalling it the pump touched my barrel again! I talked with my buddy who is a gunsmith. He told my to twist the pump in the opposite direction when tighten the hold down screw. Sure enough it fixed the issue and the pump will not touch the barrel so it “free floats”. I let the gun sit for almost a week after applying the loc tite. I had some ladder tests loaded up with the powder coated jacked bullets to try yet. I needed to load up a few rounds to check zero before I started wasting ammo again. I grabbed the closest powder to me which was H4895. I also grabbed some 180 grain hot cores because I have a few boxes and had some I pulled laying around with some dented up lead “road rash” looking tips. Decided to load them out of the clear blue a grain below hodgens on line data at 56 grains. They also looked to short at 3.030” but figured I really didn’t care because I was just checking zero. No crimp, didn’t trim my cases, just loaded quickly to burn up to check zero. Got to the range today and shot one of my 6 test rounds at 25 yards. An inch low and a little left. Figured good enough for a 100 yards to be on paper. I then tried three of these random loads at 100 yards…

Well, I guess I found my load by accident…lol. I had two rounds loaded up and left to get it zeroed. Needless to say I wish I was aiming at the square but I was aiming at 4 inches to the right. I got so excited that I forgot my where I was aiming and clicked over a dozen to the right and then took a shot. I hit an inch low and a good inch to right of the bull’s-eye. I then clicked about four clicks left in four clicks up. Took my shot and I was dead center in about an inch high from Bullseye. I was out of ammo, but had enough confidence in my adjustment that I clicked down 2 clicks. That’ll put me about a half inch high dead center at 100 yards. Have to load up some more and go back to the range another day, but I would assume I am ready to rock ‘n’ roll. I wasn’t gonna waste shooting those lighter tests of powder coated jacket bullets after that. I did grab one set of three in the 200 grain Hornadys. I think the best group I had with those from factory ammo was about an inch and a half when I first got the gun and before everything went haywire coming loose. The load I tested with powder coating was a about an inch group give or take a quarter inch. Didn’t measure it because I knew I already found my load with the 180 grain hot cores but I didn’t have to screw around and powder coat. I also knew the 180 grain were .358 to .3585” when I checked them. I could never get the 180 grain hot core to group previously. Guessing the pump was touch the barrel and non stop drama of the barrel coming loose kept opening my groups. Glad I got it figured out finally. I’ll load up some more and go out and shoot some 5, 6, and 10 shot groups to make everybody happy here…lol. I normally don’t shoot more than once at a deer and right it drops. So one shot group is pretty good for me... but it doesn’t tell me what my guns doing…lol. I’m pretty sure my pump has been touching my barrel since day one groups. The best I’ve ever got out of it was with hornady super performance ammo and hand loaded 180 TSSX blue tipped Barnes. Both were around 1.5” groups with several groups shot with both. I’m sure both will shoot tighter now with the pump not touching my barrel. The gun has been shooting 2/3” plus groups since I’ve owned it up until today. Never had to loc tite my other pump tubes and pump fore end screws in place. I would guess this caliber just vibrates and shakes things apart in the 7600 platform.

 

[SJB358]

I think I have the same carbine as you. I got mine from Kittery Trading Post a few years ago.

Glad you got a load sorted out. I’m using H4895 and the 225 Sierra in mine. When those guns are good, they act like good bolt guns.

 

[badaxeriverman]

I tell you to double check your pump slide tube to make sure the threads haven’t backed out. I sure would like to try the seirras some day. Have not tried them yet. My guess is they are a nice soft bullet that comes apart and knock stuff on their butt with tons of energy transfer versus the stout 180s. The ballistic tips on my bucket list as well.

 

[badaxeriverman]

Guess that was a minimum load charge when I just googled it. It’s amazing that only four grains of powder only jumps that load up 150 ft./s. I remember I had a pretty good group at 59 or 59 1/2 with that powder a few years ago I’ll have to test it again. I thought I shot up one whole group but I think the barrel came loose and I only put one hole in the paper….lol. Worth testing it again anyways. Looks like it would only jump me 100 ft./s if it did shoot better with an extra three grains of powder so probably not worth the waste of powder because I don’t think a Whitetail deer would know the difference with only another hundred feet per second.