early recessed bolt head, switch to new bolt head?

[Jeff518]

Can you switch the early recessed bolt heads from the early 60's, for more recent bolt heads and barrels in the same action?

[Hotolds442]

Not without changing the entire bolt. The cross pin in the earlier bolts is 90° off.

[J.Baker]

Here's a visual of what HotOlds442 is talking about. Note how on the new style the bolt head retaining pin is perpendicular to the lugs, whereas on the old style it's parallel to the lugs.

[Jeff518]

Not without changing the entire bolt. The cross pin in the earlier bolts is 90° off.

so it's possible to use an entire new bolt in the older actions?

[Hotolds442]

Yes. A new bolt combined with a "modern" barrel will work just fine

[J.Baker]

Hate to see these early 110's getting hacked up into project guns as they now fall into the realm of being C&R guns. Production numbers in those first 7 years were fairly low compared to today and they're becoming harder and harder to find these days. There's something to be said for keeping an old gun original, especially when there's 49 years worth of the newer style gun to cannibalize for a build.

[Jeff518]

I agree with you on that one J.Baker. This line of questions is relative to one that's already compromised. It's an old action with no stock, and no bolt what soever, (but it has a barrel). so instead of trying to gather correct vintage bolt parts, we can remove the barrel, and the ejector, and build a newer bolt that works with a newer barrel.

[J.Baker]

Honestly, unless you need to change the bolt head size (i.e. standard to the smaller .204/.223 size) it would probably be cheaper to just have a gunsmith machine the barrel to work with the original bolt, especially if you plan to leave it alone once you're done. Not sure if a pre-fit can be modified or not as I don't know what all would be needed, but I would suspect you could just looking at it. Receiver threads are the same so it's just a matter of machining the breech/chamber to accept the shrouded bolt head and maybe cut an extractor slot.

I'd try to keep the original bolt if at all possible for one reason - those older guns were much smoother and didn't have the bolt timing issues the newer guns have. As such, going to the newer bolt will give you the dreaded heavy bolt lift that plagues modern Savage rifles until you pay to have them trued and timed.