Shimming the bolt solved my problem. Started with a steel shim washer with the correct inside diameter and hand fit it for outside diameter and thickness.
I had toyed with idea of shimming it a year or two ago and after taking the bolt apart and putting it back together I had set it aside.
I hated to give up on it as it is what I was looking for in a light weight walking varminter, and to me it's more pleasing to the eye than my new plas-tikka.
Put a Leupold M8 4X on it and took it out and test fired it with some .223 Hornet bullets/Lil' Gun loads, then progressed to some factory Winchester 46 gr HP's. It functioned fine.
What a fun gun to shoot, glad I didn't get rid of it.
