Stainless 17-4 bolt and 416 action

[Guest]

I want to get some new oversized replacement bolts for my Remington 700 big game hunting rifles from Dave Kiff at Pacific Grinding. My Remington actions are all 416 stainless. I can get either chrome moly 4140 bolts (and have them nickeled for corrosion resistance) or 17-4 stainless bolts. Some have told me that even dissimilar stainless materials will gall, while others say the 17-4 is considerably harder than the 416 and will not present a problem. Comments please!

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[Guest]

Yes dissimilar metels will gall if the heat and stress is high enough.
17-4 has a Brinell hardness of 332 and a yield strength of 145 ksi , both of which is way higher than 416ss that stands at 40 ksi and 155 Brinell.
I would think that if you had the standard 4140 bolts treated with say the NP-3 system from Robar that you would be fine but if you wanted the extra expense of the 17-4 then that should be fine also
in either case , so long as the lugs and action are true and square with one another so they mate and share the stress evenly , I believe that you would have alot bigger problems once the pressure gets high enough to gall the lugs.
I've seen a couple guns get the bolts locked closed from pressure but they were in bone stock factory guns and the pressure was way way high , probably 1.5 to 2.5 grains above flattened primers.

Like P.O. Ackly said , the weak link in the pressure chain is the case head.

 

[chris matthews]

Either one will work and both should be properly lubed. Remington factory SS bolts have a chrome moly head welded onto a SS bolt body.
Nesika uses all SS and they are prone to galling if they are not lubed.


On another note I would advise against getting oversized bolts for hunting rifles. Any dirt or grit in the action will make things hard to work. Nesika's are really tight awesome actions, but I have seen them sieze up in real world hunting conditions unless kept really clean.

[ 07-20-2004: Message edited by: chris matthews ]