Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Whooppppssss! A-Bolt Apology

Back in May of 2012 on a Kodiak bear hunt I reported a buddy had his A-Bolt fail. It happened under bad circumstances and I did not personally check to see exactly what the problem was. He simply swapped to his back-up rifle.

I just found out the other day it was not a rifle failure issue. He simply stopped carrying it and switched to a 700 in 338WM because he was tired of carrying the A-Bolt.

How I got the idea the rifle had failed I do not know... But that rifle did not actually fail. I apologize for the misinformation.

I thought the trigger link had frozen because that had been the common failure I have witnessed.

Maybe your bagging on him finally wore him down

It's still an A-Bort . . .

the Kodiak bear I shot in hidden basin back in the late 80's ....said my a-bolt worked well..... maybe it was the fact that it was a 06'

I killed my first Kodiak bear with an A-Bort that I still have... So the occasional one will last long enough to kill something...

My partner has two of em because of the LH availability and he hasn't had any problems but I'm still not craving one nor do I want a 700 for backup.

+1000

why not a 700 ?? ......cause....... it will kill a bear by itself !

I have nothing against A-bolts- I don't own one but the few I've worked on seemed OK.

Apparently some people are sensitive about it. If you are, just treat it like a fart. Keep it quiet and don't apologize....

Funny how folks opinions can vary so widely.

I don't care for Abolts, but just something about em.

Kind of like hating the 270... just don't care for it at all.

And then my hatred for Ruger period due to his backstabbing anti gun politics... But I do like some of their guns.... just avoided them for years so I wasn't supporting bills anti gun politics.

And then the 700.. I"ve actually had one with the bolt handle popped off. Of course it was only one. And that one was in a head on wreck that killed 2 of my cousins opening morning of deer season so I kinda think that was ok that it sheared off...

I've got a 70 action somewhere in a safe... but I've never really had the itch for 70s.

For my take they all work and all can have lemons. And if it freezes in cold weatehr, someone didn't do their clean/lube job right....

Have you owned or shot an Abolt?

Rost

I know what you mean by never really warming up to some things that, objectively, aren't all that bad.

For me it is Weatherby rifles and calibers, Savage 110 and derivative triggers, the 7MM Mag cartridge, Sako rifle bolts, and the cost of premium bullets when c&c have to date done all I've asked of them, no worse and no better than the premiums I've used, and in certain circumstances, will use again. Just not for 99% of the time.

It's a free country. We are all entitled to our unwarranted shooting arms prejudices. I think it's in the Constitution somewhere. Or should be.

I have a BBR, they stopped making these when they went to the A-bolt, I much prefer this old style, super accurate, nice handling.
This is a pic of one like mine..
And I found the bolt a very strong design

I did a lot of work on a couple for my cousin. 270 and 243. Both triggers needed TLC like any trigger does. But they had to be stoned.. no big deal.

Beyond that both were easy to get to shoot sub moa for him.

I thought the actions were a bit rough... but my 700 in 300/221 feels like sand right now..... need to UBC coat the inside of the rails and bolt a few times I suspect...

Damn the luck. I guess you'll loose my ammo with Barnes in it if I ever get the pleasure of fluying into Kotz to hunt something.

LOL

Back when I was first getting into a little gun writing in the mid-1980�s, Browning sent me one of the first-year A-Bolts for a magazine review. It was a .270 Winchester, and at the time was about as light a mass-manufactured centerfire bolt action as there was on the market. It shot really well, and they trigger pull was decent after I worked on it a little. My wife Eileen had been hunting a couple years, and wanted something a little bigger than the .257 Roberts we�d inherited from my grandmother for elk hunting.

So we bought the rifle, upping the number of centerfires in our �collection� to three (aside from the .257, my main rifle was a Ruger 77 .30-06). Over the next few years Eileen used the A-Bolt on rockchucks, pronghorns (including one at 430 yards), whitetails, mule deer, elk and one bull moose, and at one point had a strong of a dozen one-shot kills with it on big game. Eventually we got a NULA .270 and sold the A-Bolt, because the NULA was 1-1/2 pounds lighter and shot just as well. But it worked fine for several years or pretty hard hunting, though admittedly not in Alaska.

AK can be tough. An A bolt isn't any more or less weather proof than many others IMHO.

Dougs UBC will solve most of those issues though.

And I've had a buddy bring back an SS 700 with the safety rusted in fire....bear guiding on the salt flats in a bad fall season where nothing stayed dry.....

UBC the whole 700 after that.... life was much better. Coat it every year for a protection coat and life was much better... even though it was SS...

I have even seen stainless steel rifles rust some in Montana, though not like in Alaska. One of the surprises occurs when somebody sticks their stainless rifle inside a saddle-scabbard that's been alongside sweating horses for a decade or more. A wet snowstorm enhances the effect.

I've heard folks say you are a slob if your gun rusts...

I've had clients.... that take ALL of your waking hours. A man has to have a bit of sleep. Add saltwater...

Well hell in the end its just a tool to me. There are more where this one came from if need be.

Personally I've never worried that much about exteriro. Long as the guts work and stay clean the inside of the tube is rust free, and as noted, guts IE trigger, action and all work, the rest can and will get beat up if used enough instead of nursed.

But we all know I"m different. Hell I still try to wash both of my vehicles 1-2 times a year if they need it or not.

It appeared to be an Abolt that failed on the show "Kodiak" but who knows what the cause was. They look like fine rifles.

Compounded if it's a fleece-lined scabbard.

In my direct experience there is an issue with SOME A-Bolts where the metals chosen for the trigger parts do not like each other. The resulting rusty mess happens very fast and very completely.

Others, even from the same general era do not have the problem even under the nasties... I think it is a QC problem based on metal specs or delivery rather than anything else.

Forget about the excessive number of parts...

Rost - a ballpoint pen has been swapped in a few brownings, by me - triggers much better. Centerfire and 22 mag. I found them accurate, though I must say I had a bullet loaded into the lands that was a bugger to extract due to the short throw vs the leverage a longer lift would give. More work in a shorter throw seems to allow murphy's law for non-saami ammo.

Las - I would think the old Sako pre-garcia's would be praised in AK, albeit CM steel...more prone to rust. Know a fella who had many Sako's hard chromed, that should handle rust IMO.

In Texas rust just isn't an issue unless you live near the coast. I find myself taking my A-bolt to field more than any other rifle. Course it is a 260 and I am partial to that round. 1:10 twist but somehow shoots 140 Gamekings into bug holes. I changed the trigger spring- a snap to do- and find it perfectly tuned. I actually like the detach mag system better than anyone else's. It is light and very accurate although the skinny Stalker stock flexed too much so I replaced it. Some say they are ugly but that one in the pic a few posts above is beautiful to my eyes.

It will be in my hands Saturday morning. By the way- good season to all!