Anyone out there familiar with the Model 788. I have one that I have questions about, I can PM you, call you or you can PM me or call me. 903-855-0441 Thanks Daniel

I have one in 6mm. Don't know a lot about them, but may have an answer.

Safarigene, I will pm you the problem. Thanks Daniel

I know mine was $400 well spent

The best reason for a forum like this is the sharing of information and ideas.
Unless there is some privacy issue why not put the question and answer here
for everyone to learn from?

Ive owned two. I consider myself fairly familiar. What's the question?

OK PKnTX, Here is the problem. The bolt is very hard to moved after firing. My loads are not near max but the bolt locks up., I can get to extract the brass with effort. Brass is correct length, full length sized. I would appreciate any info you might have. Thanks Daniel

Does the bolt stick with no round in the chamber? Have you tried scrubbing the chamber with an oversized brush?

What caliber? Have you recently done or had anything done to the rifle? Built allot of rifles off of 788 actions, not a better action around back in the late 70's and early 80's.

Have you had the same issue w factory ammo?

keep us posted, never heard of this, had one that had a trigger defect, was a timney trigger

I have a 788 in 308, but have never had a problem using factory or reloads. Hope you find the issue soon.

1. I have not scrubbed the chamber other than a thorough cleaning. The bolt does not stick with an empty chamber nor does it stick with just empty brass.
2. Gun is a 308 Win.. I have had the gun for about 2 months.
3. I have not fired any factory ammo in it.

Here is a bit of new information, 3 of the 9 lugs look as though they are not touching on anything where as the other 6 show some shiny wear.

The lugs not touching is not uncommon. Other than that all I can guess is an extremely dirty chamber.

I have one in 22-250 that will do the same thing with Winchester ammo. Any other brand and my handloads have no issues. Probably doesn't answer any questions but I just quit using the Winchester loads.

Ok, I have some additional information. I just weighed 3 different brands of brass. The brass I am using is 10-15 grs higher than the other two. Could that be creating high chamber pressures? Thanks Daniel

Heavier brass does usually indicate a smaller volume for powder, less case volume will result in higher pressure than cases with more volume.

You can weigh a case then fill it up with water and weigh it. Do that with one of the lighter cases and one of thr heavier cases. That will give you the actual difference in case volume. Someone with Quickloads could gve you a good indication of pressure difference between the different capacity cases.

I would shoot some factory ammo in it before I go any further.....

Bronco71, that is what I am going to do. I hope Wally World has some tomorrow. Thanks Daniel

Ok, I bought some Fed. Power Shok 150's today and tried them, not a single Federal cartridge created a problem. Then I found the problem " Headspace, That is BTE (Between the ears)". Started measuring COAL on the Federal and realized there was about .040 difference with mine being long. I went back to the LYMAN to check, sure enough book said 2.735 but when I check my reloads I was at 2.753. I had transposed the last 2 digits. Now to load some correctly and see how they shoot. Thanks Daniel

Ok, I have another question about the 788. There are 3 rows of 3 lugs. Why is one of the columns ( 1 lug in each row) different from the other 2? 1 column is pointed but the other 2 are square. Thanks Daniel

Does the point stick out slightly further than the other lugs?

I have 4 788s of them here and all lugs look the same

I suspect that's the ones that come in contact first and help align the bolt, the other 2 rows just follow.

That was my thoughts.