A little help troubleshooting feeding issue

[Eris]

So I put together a bolt action today. I am having feeding issues and I'm pretty sure I have the issue narrowed down but a little reassurance from the community would be great.

The rifle is a bolt action 223.
I'm using a bighorn tl3 action
Foundation stock
Hawkins bottom metal
An accurate 223 mag (basically 308 mag with plastic insets that allow it to feed 223)

Once fully assembled and torqued to spec, the bolt face is not setting down in between the magazine feed lips deep enough to strip and feed a round. There seems to be excessive space vertically between the top of the feed lips and the base of the bolt face. When cycling the bolt it touches the case ever so slightly, then grazes across the top of the case. If I press firmly upward on the bottom of the magazine, the magazine moves up a couple millimeters, and the rifle feeds perfectly. Based on this, it seems the bottom metal is slightly out of spec tall wise, or the bottom metal inlet is slightly shallow.

To fix this, I was considering filing a thousandth or two off of the top of the bottom metal to allow the magazine to sit deeper in to the action, test cycle, and repeat as needed until I have reliable feeding.

Now before I go filing my bottom metal to pieces, does any of this sound viable to you guys with much more experience than the limited range I have?

 

[22DASHER]

The plastic insert needs to be reworked to allow feeding from the mag. I have several of these and all required some mods. First I remove a portion from the inside front of the plastic mag insert to allow a longer overall length loaded round. Then I slowly file some from inside the feed lips, only on the plastic insert. This will allow the cases to come up a little bit and allow the bolt to catch them. I also stretch the springs a little

 

[Eris]

How much plastic are you removing? I'm kind of hesitant to remove any plastic (I did already cut the tabs towards the front to allow me to seat rounds longer..no clue why those are there since they serve zero purpose).

I'm thinking I might pick up a ruger aics or mdt plastic mag to see if I still have feeding issues before filling the bottom metal, but if those mags work fine, then I'll do as you suggest and just file a hair of plastic off the lips. I have a feeling from the way this looks that the stock wasn't inletted deep enough for the bottom metal. It doesn't sit exactly flush at the front action screw hole the way it does at the back.

 

[22DASHER]

Little by little until it feeds. I doesn’t take a whole lot of work. Do not remove material from your bottom metal

 

[Eris]

So I pulled the Hawkins bottom metal I had on another rifle off, measured it, and it was.
.0015" shorter than the one I'm installing now. So the bottom metal isn't really out of spec or anything, they just might require minor fitting. However, instead of trying to file .0015" off my band new bottom metal , I went the route you suggested and tried sanding the feed lips on the mag down.... 50$ mag vs 150$ bottom metal. I took about half the thickness off the feed lips from outside to inside and it feeds perfectly now. Thanks for the advice and preventing me from more than likely overdoing it on the bottom metal