I won one of these rifles at an FNRA dinner. I came upon this thread years ago and it helped me decide I didn't need the rifle - my umpeenth .30-'06 anyway. I traded it at Cabela's for one of the Remington/Zastava .22s.

I really wouldn't have been afraid of shooting the rifle - I'm not stupid enough to assemble the rifle without the bolt head pin and probably not ham-handed enough to break the pin.

But, accepting the allegations at face value - I was troubled to think that they short-circuited Savage's design which would prevent firing if the bolt head was not in locked position. I wonder of that is true? Has anyone of the us posting on these nine pages ever disassembled one of the ATR bolts and confirmed that? I wish I had, but I was keeping it all pretty and new-looking as trading material.

It's a simple matter to have an oblong cross-section to the firing pin and an oblong passage in the bolt head. Mauser figured this out several lifetimes ago and I think that's how Savage's design is done, if I remember correctly. What about the ATR?

Last edited by GunReader; 02/19/12.
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