Bolt Face Imperfection (Remington)

This past week I went shooting with a friend of mine who after a few shots called me and showed me his bolt head (see below). I need some thoughts as to what might have caused that.
It is a 308 caliber. My friend only put through this rifle less than 1000 rounds. We looked at all his fired cases and we observed no signs of unusual pressure. I don’t recall the exact load he was firing at this particular time but nothing that he didn’t use prior. Is this something that might have happened all of a sudden or over time?

http://i1278.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7a3ad627.jpg

Looks like a primer may have burned thru or a poor fitting primer / primer pocket allowed hot flaming gas to get by and burn the bolt face.

Welcome to the club. I have 3 or 4 like that. Most are a little worse. Were the primer(s) made by Winchester?
The WLR primers were responsible for the semicircular burn marks in my bolt heads.

Clean it up with a piece of fine emery. Doesn't look too awfully bad.


PS - Are you sure it wasn't there when the rifle was purchased and you're just now noticing it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fgw_in_fla

Looks like a primer may have burned thru or a poor fitting primer / primer pocket allowed hot flaming gas to get by and burn the bolt face.

Welcome to the club. I have 3 or 4 like that. Most are a little worse. Were the primer(s) made by Winchester?
The WLR primers were responsible for the semicircular burn marks in my bolt heads.

Clean it up with a piece of fine emery. Doesn't look too awfully bad.


PS - Are you sure it wasn't there when the rifle was purchased and you're just now noticing it?

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The rifle was purchased new from a reputable gunsmithing company. I don't want to mention thier name becaue it is not thier fault and this can damage thier reputation. I am not sure of what primer my friend has used. So, is the rifle safe to continue to shoot or the bolt head must be changed?

I just asked my friend and he said he is using CCI 250 Large Rifle Magnum primers. He used for a while Federal 215.

It doesn't look too bad. I've seen worse in my own rifles.
I'd clean it up with a piece of fine emery paper and use it. Not knowing exactly what caused it, I'd keep a close eye on the spent casings for a while.

Here's a few of mine. Condition isn't critical so I keep using them. These were caused from a box of defective WLR primers. Upon pulling the trigger they'd burn thru the primer right where it's curved.
http://i1075.photobucket.com/albums/...ltfaces001.jpg
The worst one is far right and I still use it in my .243. The bolt heads that were burned real bad were replaced and paid for by Winchester. They replaced 2 boxes of 1000ea WLR primers and 2 bolt heads.

If it were me,I would replace it with a new PTG bolt head or at least a clean used one. That thing looks like it has been sand blasted.

I does look a little rough.
One of the bolt heads I had was a little rough, too. I used a 1/2" wooden dowel and whittled the end so it would fit in the bolt face. Placed a piece of real fine emery paper over the end of the dowel and gave it a polishing. It also helped clean up the damage from a primer burning thru the wrong side.

Cat64 - If you decide to clean / polish the bolt head you have, don't forget to remove the ejector and extractor. They come out pretty easy. There's info-a-plenty here on the site on how to remove them without launching a spring or steel ball into the next zip code.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jonbearman

If it were me,I would replace it with a new PTG bolt head or at least a clean used one. That thing looks like it has been sand blasted.

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Did you catch that it is a Remington bolt?

I did after I looked at the photo for the 3rd or 4th time.

I kept looking at it thinking - what the heck is different here?...

Must be another age related affliction.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cat 64

This past week I went shooting with a friend of mine who after a few shots called me and showed me his bolt head (see below). I need some thoughts as to what might have caused that.
It is a 308 caliber. My friend only put through this rifle less than 1000 rounds. We looked at all his fired cases and we observed no signs of unusual pressure. I don’t recall the exact load he was firing at this particular time but nothing that he didn’t use prior. Is this something that might have happened all of a sudden or over time?

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"Etching" is the result of the hot gases leaking past the primer cup -primer pocket flame cutting the bolt face, kind of like a small two hosed hacksaw (cutting torch). Typically it doesn't happen all of a sudden with one round but progressively gets worse.

Your Buddy's best option at this point is to send it to Gre-Tan and kill two stones with one bird, have it bushed and have the crappy bolt face cleaned up at the same time. Cost? 'bout 90 bucks.

http://www.gtrtooling.com/main.jsf


Bill

Cat
if you clean up the face yourself you might want to recheck headspace with a No Go gage. Looks like a good bit of material is going to need to be removed, at least as far as headspace is concerned.