Bolt closing hard

[bigHUN]

Talking about my Rem 700 W308 with heavy barrel target rig.

Last summer I replaced the firing pin spring, and I can recall that closing the bolt became considerably harder.
I leave at that expecting sliding surfaces will settle over time.

Earlier this week I had two beautiful days for range shooting, also had my first accident as well ....
One of my diy reloads was empty - no powder, and the primer only kicked the bullet into seat in pocket, I could easily knock it back from the muzzle.
But also noticed that opening a bolt became harder to manage.

Yesterday I disassembled the bolt and did a through wipe with IPA and a compressor.
My digital bore cam is somewhere in a bottom of my hobby locker, going now to inspect inside the action block what is a situation there. I am not expecting anything extraordinary gunk build up, but more like a bolt surface sizing up. If that may be a situation, I am ready to diamond lapping the bolt sliding/locking face.

I don't have a barrel separating tool (I have a heavy vice do), looking for a gunsmith in my local area L4G7X4 (Aurora, Newmarket) to eventually remove the heavy barrel from action.
I am very interested to see how it looks like there inside, if anything needs re dressing.

 

[Potashminer]

I can not help about the issues that you have, but seperating the barrel from the action. You will need two things - a barrel vice and a receiver wrench.

There has been several threads with pictures of "home made" barrel vices on CGN - you could use four bolt style or most of us use two bolt style. Seems to be common to make or have aluminum inserts that snug to the barrel and span the gap to "one size fits all" barrel vice. Some are bolted to something (work bench or lathe base); some just held in a skookum work bench vice.

There are two kinds of receiver wrenches - each has pluses and minuses - I have both. So first type is Internal Action wrench - like a big thing that goes in back end of receiver and engages on bolt lug shoulders at the front of the action - replaces the bolt in a bolt action rifle - sort of limited how much torque you can apply to get some rifles apart - I have found them to be very handy to snug up a receiver onto a barrel, however. Other kind of receiver wrench is the External kind - if tightened up too much, I read they can squish the front receiver ring and make the barrel tenon threads to be tighter in the receiver - so I mostly just snug up the bolts so it matches exactly to the receiver profile - no wobble or rocking - the Exterior type usually has heads that MUST fit the receiver of interest - there are perhaps a dozen or more heads that came with the Brownell's set that I have - some will use same parts for multiple actions - some are unique parts that only work on that ONE action.

Various "tricks" to using either barrel vice or receiver wrench - can use granulated "resin" (like a baseball pitcher uses) to enhance grip. Or can use a layer or two of paper - both ideas work - I prefer paper since it also tends to eliminate any "smear" or "transfer" of metal to the work piece from the tool although the work piece should not move in use - should not mar the workpiece, beyond geting it tight. So if you have a "matte" finish, it will probably get "flattened out" by a receiver wrench or barrel vice.

 

[banditogold]

hard closing bolt sounds more like you need to set the case shoulder back and maybe check bullet seating depth,, taking the bolt apart will do nothing for your stated issue