Stevens 200 headspace issue

**aubie515** · 04-11-2015, 10:39 PM

So I bought a Stevens 200 a couple of years ago because I needed the bolt face for my 300BO rifle. I finally bought a new bolt face and put the rifle back together...I've never fired this rifle and I could not get the bolt to close on 223 rounds. At first, I thought it was because I had Hornady steel match ammo, but I noticed that my brass cased Hornady TAP ammo wouldn't close the bolt as well.

I ordered Forster GO gauge and noticed that my headspace wasn't set properly. I was surprised that the headspace was not set correctly from the factory. Any else experience this from a factory rifle?

I'm looking forward to sighting in the rifle as it's going to be my ground hog rifle. I'm going to eventually replace the factory barrel with a BHW 16" barrel that will be threaded 5/8x24 to use my TBAC suppressor.

**BillPa** · 04-11-2015, 10:56 PM

Originally Posted by aubie515

I finally bought a new bolt face and put the rifle back together...
I ordered Forster GO gauge and noticed that my headspace wasn't set properly. I was surprised that the headspace was not set correctly from the factory.

The headspace was probably set correctly at the factory with the original bolthead, but not the necessarily with one you installed. Anytime you change a bolt head the headspace should be checked and or reset. In your case it needs reset.

Bill

**drybean** · 04-11-2015, 10:56 PM

If you changed the bolt head,you need to reset the headspace

**GaCop** · 04-12-2015, 07:16 AM

I third that, you need to re-headspace the barrel.

**fgw_in_fla** · 04-12-2015, 08:41 AM

I may be one of the very few that replaced a bolt head and didn't have to reset the head space.
Swapped out one that was toasted from a bad primer. New bolt head spaced out fine.

Sometimes, just sometimes the luck of the Savage gods shine down on me.

PS- Every other time I swapped out a bolt head (and there's been many) I ALWAYS had to reset the head spacing.

**aubie515** · 04-12-2015, 10:32 AM

I didn't even consider that the bolt face would be different, but that makes sense. Only reason I had to replace the bolt face was due to the the ejector being stuck in the bolt face. I tried to have Savage CS remedy the issue, but they told me it wouldn't be under warranty since I owned the rifle longer than a year even though when I finally did shot the rifle I had issues within the first 10 rounds.

**fgw_in_fla** · 04-12-2015, 11:02 AM

You replaced a bolt head because of a stuck ejector???

Send it to me.
I'll un-stuck it, put a new spring, ejector & pin and send it back to you.

Unless it welded itself inside the bolt head, it's fixable. It may require a tender, loving touch & a few curse words but its fixable.