Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Belly Up

Has anyone had their bolt action rifle go belly up during a hunt? Probably the only way you would know is if something came off (safety, floorplate?) or if the gun would not fire. I'm not talking about a scope breaking or a horse rolling on your rifle, but a sure enough failure on the action's part.

I had a hunting partner one time that tried to shoot a deer and the rifle wouldn't fire. After some cursory examination of his Winchester, it was found that the firing pin spring was so rusted to the firing pin, it simply wouldn't slide.
A bit of cleaning and some oil and his rifle was good as new for the rest of the hunt. It would have been much more difficult if it had been a rifle we couldn't field strip the bolt quite so easily. - Sheister

Had a safety on a pre-war pre-64 model 70 safety stick, couldn't get it unlocked. Missed an opportuntity om a nice deer. Had to take it to a gun smith.

I neglected the bolt on mt 700 classic 7mmweatherby, and the fireing pin froze at about -10 degrees. Ejecting and rechambering loosened the Fpin and the doe was dispatched on that shot. I immediately bought a Rem bolt disassembly tool and clean, polish and LIGHTLY oil my bolts internals before the season. Never had a problem since. Hope that saves someone from pain or panic in the future. Mark

Had a brand new Mosberg (835, 3.5 inch mag. I believe it was) jam on me on the first shot at a gobbler. Picked up the gobbler went to the sporting goods store and traded it for a sucks action shotgun. The damn gun also rattled like the action was full of rocks.