Grey Dog, The Remington Bolt I saw was peeled back, right at the nose. I'm only addressing the small ring ahead of the main bolt head. That old G.S. Oxy Acetylene welded on a thin bushing and then turned it down in his lathe. Of course the bolt is top grade steel, but it can't be case hardened. Rather it must stay machinable by HSS tooling.
Face it, its just Corp. advertising copy. There's not enough steel there to hold fast, if a case head goes. That bolt was saved and so was the rifle. But it was a nasty looking blow out, all the same.
Today, I'm sure that old G.S., if he were still around, would demand his customer put in a replacement PT&G bolt,or send the barreled action back to the factory, for repair. Too many lawyers running around. I only saw the bolt, not the barrel, so maybe he had to set that back too. I have no idea if the action's lug abutments had any set back, either. Only that he told me he had saved that rifle.
I still own and shoot Rem Model 700's., although I will always question their "Three Rings of Steel" ad copy. A Sako ext. may provide more gas release away from the bolt nose, but that's only a guess. In any case, that damaged 700 was a child of the early Eighties at the latest. But I bet its still going strong, somewhere.
The true custom receivers are still the best bet. The reason they are so darn expensive is reasonable enough. Their steels are so tough, that their manufacturer has to use very expensive Carboloy tooling to machine them. That's what runs their costs up so fast.
So I guess we will have to agree to disagree. For all I know, that blow out might have been caused by a soft case head. I just know what I did observe, and what my old friend, now long deceased, told me, had happened. Also how he had repaired that one damaged bolt head.
