Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ganyana on Rifle Power

I was going to write a lengthy tome here but stopped & will say that orig. 98's reign. Easy to load, chamber, clean, fix, shoot & handle. Also you can get basic parts that fit most anywhere on the planet. Sounds like Bell @ Corbett, back to my chair and books.-Muddy

It's kind of interesting that some 'smiths will silver braze various parts; sights for example- rather than drilling and tapping them..........for a more secure attachment. The problem I see with the bolt handles is that they aren't all the same. The ones that are good are very good. Unfortunately a percentage of them don't get processed well and are faulty. Of course it is a percentage of those which end up failing in totality (while some undoubtedly manage to last for the duration of the relatively little use that some of the rifles get.)

The fault is not in the design of the system used since silver brazing properly executed can achieved strengths of over 100,000 lbs/sq in. The problem is that Remington has chosen not to control quality as some of us might hope they would. Can they? I would bet they can. Do they? I would imagine they do in specific instances - the military contracts I would hope. I would be surprised if they didn't also pay extra attention to the bolts for rifles destined for their Safari type rifles and perhaps other of the bigger calibers.

It seems pretty clear that some of the failures we've seen pictured suffered from a lack of or inadequate capillary wetting of the surfaces between parts. Cleanliness and fitment are paramount in getting more that a super-superglue bond.

I have sometimes wondered if the M700 Phil Shoemaker wrote about years ago in a Wolfe Publishing periodical ended up in the stream bed where they found it - sans attached bolt handle- by intent or by accident. (I can only imagine how frustrating it would be to come all the way to Alaska, perhaps a dreamed of lifetime hunt, only to have the rifle become useless. The picture of a fellow giving said rifle the heave-ho into the nearest body of water isn't hard to imagine.)

John,

I was under the impression that the bolt body was too thin to provide enough thread engagement for screws to work. Where would this screw be located?

TIG welding seems like a simple solution.

Anyone want to donate their 700 bolts for force vs displacement testing? I've got a material test frame at work and we can compare: factory brazed vs screwed vs welded.

We could make dummy samples, but the actual bolts would be more entertaining .

Given today's Six Sigma and ISO standards, I wonder if anyone would come out with a design that incorporates a brazed lap joint? Not exactly fool proof and difficult to test, although some claim that Remington tests each new bolt with a pneumatic test fixture to ensure that the bolt handle doesn't fall off.

Yet, we can see pics of detached handles on the interwebs and from our own forum members? The pics show voids in the brazed joint. But you can only see it once the handle falls off.

If we assume a 1% failure rate and 1-million rifles made, that's still 10,000 handles that fall off. 1% failure rate is acceptable for some designs but if starting from scratch I wouldn't choose a brazed lap joint that is difficult to perform a quality check.

Any QC or SQE people in the house?

Jason

And not to pick on the 700...

Brian Pearce has written about M70 handles falling off. And D'Arcy Echols noticed the same and states that all bolts that come to him get pinned.

M70 handles are also brazed...

That M-700 was the forth or fifth Remington I have seen fail. And I actually met a guy at SHOT who started telling me about his Alaskan moose hunt and the stream where they started. I asked if he or his buddy had lost a rifle and he said they had. I then not only told them what the rifle was but where he had lost it and it turned out to be the same rifle.

I have another friend who I have hunted with who used a custom M-700 that twice had the bolt handle pull off. He only uses factory ammo and the second time it came off he was simply closing the bolt in order to sight in at camp.
I have not sold any of my M-700's because of it but I also do not think it is worth the risk on a hunt for DG when there are more proven actions.

Klikitarik,

The 700 bolt handle would not be considered "idiot proof" or Poka-yoke by my company's standard, for the reasons you stated. Nor by many others today.

Jason

First off soldering and brazing are not the same thing. Soldering and brazing will not with stand 100,000 psi as Klikitarik posted. Welding is by far the strongest connection of the 3.

Glad I'm not the only one, but several entries, even from 700 users as to the various girations they go through to keep them operating and of course, Phil's comments, pretty much set, game and match...

I suppose rifle construction is related to rifle power...

Had a bolt handle come off (once). Have broken an extractor but have also replaced one on a Mex 98 (who knows what that rifle was subjected to previously) and honorable mention for those pure crap extractors (cast?) on the earlier M-70 Classics when introduced. I think that was in the 80's or 90's, I don't remember or care but kept the busted ones.

The bolt handle deal really nags me...

That sums it up for me as well.

I guess you only really have strong feelings about these things if they happen to you or see it happen to someone (first hand). Otherwise it's a bit abstract.

Anything can break of course but not much sense stacking odds against yourself.Humans are known as a species for ignoring lessons of the past.Americans in particular seem to like to buy things that will break,which is why manufacturers get to charge us more money for warranties,which tells us from the purchase they expect you will need it.

Much as I like and have used Remingtons,I won't build on one(except for varmints),and don't plan doing any serious hunts with one. Hunts are expensive.

Yep, and those Mr. Big opportunities that you dream about are rare, particularly on DIY stuff. This stuff always happens to me on desirable game--why not on the range or the bench--what are the odds?

Have not found a substitute for a 700 TI actioned flyweight...as least a build that the feel or look of something I want to use.

While am ranting, would include striker hits. I fully appreciate the 98's strategy of primer whacking...

I like model 700s I have several BUT while I have never had a handle come off I have had three extractors break. As a result have lost confidence in them and would never again trust an expensive hunt to one. I have never had a model 70 fail in any way in almost 50 years of using them.

I just got a Remington 660 .243 for the boy. I figured if the bolt handle and extractor lasted this long it should be a safe bet.

You are both right and wrong here. Of course welding is stronger (but can have certain localized issues in some applications due to more extreme heating). And of course soldering and brazing are not the same with solder generally being inferior to brazing strengthwise. Then again, silver brazing is sometimes erroneously called soldering - which it isn't. While I don't claim to know or have tested the strength of silver-brazed materials to the level stated, I do know that mild steel will fail and tear before a good brazed joint will - which puts it in the neighborhood of 50-60,000 perhaps. Or, you can take up your argument with the guys over at American Welding Society; they are the originators, I suppose, of the tests.

IMO silver brazed parts suffer the same erroneous concerns that cast steel parts do (Ruger stuff, Remington [and perhaps Winchester and others'] bolt handles, etc). They can be perfectly good, perhaps even superior, when done properly. Remington does seem to have some problems translating their mass-production techniques into "done properly" as consistently as we might wish. Let's not forget that it should be possible however. Carbide tipped tools of various kinds are frequently silver brazed by mass production - in China and Mexico even- and those tiny joints even tend to hold up to some pretty amazing abuses.

What is mild steel? I have been in the welding business for 43 plus years. Stella are listed in P groups and numbers. No where in a code book will the term "mild steel" be used. I doubt that brazing will hold more than 40,000 psi. Steels tensile strength quoted is a guaranty minimum and may well be below the maximum of any individual piece. The mill crest will give the tensile as tested at the mill.

High heat soldering and brazing both will induce stress, anytime steel is heated to the degree necessary to solder, braze the steel will shrink when it cools. Welds draw because of this shrinkage.
Most smiths that weld are rather crude when compared to the professionals that specialize in the welding trade.

Interesting attempt to play dumb there. You know as well as I do - and better than many perhaps- what mild steel refers to since it is a term of such common use....and not ignored in any sense by the AWS or any of many welding reference literature. You can find the strength aspects of various silver brazing materials and techniques among the AWS source materials and many reputable comprehensive welding resources. 100,000 psi tensile perhaps doesn't give full credit to the process in certain applications when correctly done. The bottom line is that I believe the fault lies with production at Remington not with the design. And perhaps there is a failure in the fit-up of the parts due to tolerances in what I think is an investment cast bolt handle. The fact that Winchester bolt failures are reported at a much lower rate suggests that it can be a good method and that it can be done well.

Therein lies the reason why many people have never seen this as an issue: it is a very good assembly method when done correctly - and yes, you could hammer on a bolt if the assembly was well done.

Show me the term "mild steel" in the Code any where, you can't it isn't a proper term. Most plate that one would commonly comes into contact with is A-36. Mild steel is a slang term with no true meaning. Most welding consumables will not hold 100,000 psi. 7018 will not, and no type of brazing will.

I'm not a steel expert, can barely strike an arc welding. But just for chuckles:

Mild Steel For Sale

edit: Actually meant to quote this link:

Steel terms

So is it A-36' X-42 or what? The term mild steel,has no meaning and is designed for those that don't know the difference.
I know the term is used, but it doesn't denote the exact steel, it does give the P- number or group the term "mild steel" is meaningless as to the exact steel referred too.

Yeah, they're using Mild Steel to describe A36 and 1018 in the second link I posted.