feeding issues

I have a savage 110 action that had a blind stagger feed magazine. When i load the first round in the magazine it will not stay in. Also when I go to chambered a round it wants to hit the end of the barrel inside the action. The magazine has a new spring and follower in it. The gunsmith lost the original one and had the put a new one it. I never chambered a round before I took it to him, Therefore not sure if the issue was there before or not. The rifle was a .270 originally and i installed a .280 ai barrel from mcgowan on it. Any Ideas on a fix? are there aftermarket magazines that will fit and maybe work better. I don't really want a single shot as this rifle was built for hunting.

Assuming that the blind mag is origional and knowing that the 270 and 280 share the same parent case (30-06), I would say that the lips on the mag need adjusting. I'm thinking that you would want to bend them in a little.

Mag lips will need tweaking, but oddly enough the two symptoms you report require tweaking in opposite directions. To keep the first (and subsequent) rounds from popping out you will need to bend the lip inward a little to hold the round in place. Once you get that consistent, you will either have to play with just the front part of the lip to fix the second issue of the bullet catching on the face of the breech. Two options here:

1. You can try to tweak just the front part of the lip slightly wider to allow the nose of the round to sit higher in the magazine.
2. You can file on the front portion of the lip to open it up and allow the nose of the round to sit higher.

Savage never offered the .280 or 280AI so naturally they don't have a specific magazine for it and you are going to have to make some modifications to get it to work.

im thinking that the different dimensions of the AI case is causing the problem, but thats just my 2 cents... lol

There are no aftermarket blind stagger feed magazines available. Trust me, I tried looking and I can't find any. I managed to get mine to work though. It sounds like the round is sitting too high and the round doesn't engage the feed ramp soon enough.

Tony.

I have a model 11 in 7mm-08 with a blind magazine. Many years ago, when I took apart the rifle, I put the follower in backwards and had some feeding issues. It's been so long ago, I do not remember the specific issues. I just recall disassembling the rifle and reversing the follower - solved the feeding problem.

My first thought was a center feed mag in stagger feed. I would scrutinize the follower