Bolt lift torque measurement

I have spent a few days trying to reduce the bolt lift on my Savage 10 by polishing, lift kit etc. I have been wondering what kind of progress I have made but without something to compare to … I don’t know.

I may have devised a way for anyone to measure (close anyway) bolt lift so we could compare it on this forum … anyone game ??

What I did was:
1. Take a short arm ¼ allen wrench, mine is 3 ¼” measured from the centerline of the short part to the end of the wrench. Attached a length of heavy twine about 3 feet long to the end of the wrench and duct taped it there.
2. Tie the other end to a common plastic milk jug.
3. Insert the wrench into the bolt about straight up or whatever you can get.
4. Holding the rifle, with the allen wrench as horizontal as possible and try to lift the milk jug by rotating the rifle clockwise.
5. Add water to the jug until your rifle cocks.

Mine finally cocks with 4 7/8” of water in the jug.

hex key socket in BAS + torque wrench (beam in in/lbs probably would work best) = most accurate?

and hopefully the screw is godzilla factory tight so it doesn't back out

The idea was to devise a way that anyone could measure and compare, not everyone owns an in/lb torque wrench. Besides, the torque wrench I own only goes down to 25 in/lb and my bolt lift effort is less than that … I tried that approach first.

I did some math and figured out that my bolt resistance is 22.1 in/lb. The water weighed 6.8 lbs * 3.25 (length of allen wrench).

I also noticed something else while doing this that I couldn’t feel by hand. There is an intermittent “stepping” as it moves to the cocked position. I believe it might be the button traveling on the top of the receiver, I haven’t polished that yet.