Blue printing a Savage , what about the bolt head?

[WbySub-MOA]

We examined the lugs and they appeared to be true, then looked in the recesses and they looked good. I could not find any discrete set-back.

Yes, the barrel has been removed and we're gonna check the action after lunch, to be double-sure. But I'm sure this was a weak bolt head pin that just gave way. This gun has used factory ammo only so I'm pretty confident the action is fine. It had to be blue-pilled at the factory anyway, with pressures exceeding 85,000 psi. It's hard to get around the 2-piece bolt design as it can fail, which is why they never received any government contracts and are seldom used in the bench circuits.

This is my first experience with this type of failure and I lay the blame on the pin. The bolt head looked fine save the hole where the pin goes through. It showed very slight wear, but I could mis-interpret it as a sloppy tolerance.

Thanks for the help, too.

[edge]

ooppppps !

[James Jones]

I agree with Kirby on that if the case had jamed up the bolt that hard either their was a problem with the load and it was WAY over pressure or their is a flaw in the lug recessess in that either they were improperly
heat treated and have been hammered back some or their is a machining flaw.
the two piece bolt like the Savage is just as strong as any other two lug desgine. If you suffered a failure like you are describing here the bolt would have been locked shut reguardless , and if it were a Remington you would have likely knocked the bolt handel off trying to beat it open. with only hearing the description of the probelm I'll wager to say that it woulden't have mattered if it were a two piece bolt or one. I will say that after now machining the Savage bolt head I think that it is a harder material than any Remington I have cut.

I went ahead and made a little jig to hold the bolt head and allow me to get a good cutter in their to face off the back of the lugs then I did the bolt face and front of the lugs , so now the bolt head is square , and just so you guys know the bolt lugs were only slightly out of square with the bolthead shank and the bolt face was a good bit out from the shank , so I think that trueing up the head may be a worth while task for squeezing that last little bit of accuracy out of a Savage.