Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Mausers and Military Rifles Looking for gunsmith to weld back broken bolt handle

I came across M98 barreled action that was sporterized in 70's with 8mm-06 #2 contour barrel. Want this as a moose hunting rifle, hopefully the hunt will happen this year. Bought beautifully figured Richards Microfit stock and just finished inletting and glass bedding. Accidentally dropped the bolt on cement floor of my garage/workshop and discovered crack in bolt handle, where it attaches bolt body. looks the handle was brazed rather than welded. So the handle just came off. I am thinking I could use a bolt from my other M98, but don't want to deal with headspace problem. If anyone can recommend a competent and reasonable gunsmith, would be much appreciated! Gunsmisths I knew in greater Pittsburgh area when I lived there either passed away or retired ((

I would recommend putting a new handle welded on When you say brazed, I assume you mean brazed qwityh brass rod?

Quite unlikely to be a serious headspace problem swapping bolts...in any event headspace is only a 'problem' until your brass is formed at the first shot.
If in fact some dumb son of a bitch brazed the bolt handle...now that IS a problem..brazing by it's very nature requires a large area to be be heated red hot...whether that clown had the knowledge to re-heat treat the camming notch area at the rear of the bolt, I doubt very much. Fire a shot with the broken bolt stub...substitute the good bolt, see if the fired brass will chamber again. If it works ,fine, if it won't, resize and fireform your brass and you're back in business. It ain't like you're gonna shoot factory loads in the good ol' 8mm06.

Looks like brass rod brazed. Please look at the photos in link below. I definitely would prefer welding, I am sure any smith with sporterizing experience can handle this.

photos

Thank you flintlocke - great advice. Actually I have complete M98 bolt of unknown origin that cycles in this action fine, bought it on garage sale years ago... I might just go that route. I have virgin 30-06 brass that I necked up to 7.92mm. So it should conform to whatever headspace is there

I am guessing, if you have a scope a stock K98k bolt probably will not clear.

Bubba/hack/crap job for sure.

If the bolt handle was indeed brazed, hard to tell from the pics, it will be a challenge to weld it. All of the brass will need to be removed before welding to ensure a sound weld.

Brownell sells bolt handles. If it was going to get it repaired that might go easier than trying to save the broke off piece. I think they also sell a jig to hold it. If sending the work out, a good smith probably has all this stuff.

My concern already posted, was if the OP is mounting a scope. I believe he will have to do something to make that work.

Snap a pic of the top of the bolt root. Looks like a lot of reshaping may have taken place, it would be interesting to see what teh extractor cam looks like.

Doesn't look like brazing to me but I don't see colors well. More like a real crappy weld. If cleaned up well, it can be welded again and never break. Properly prepared, it could be silver brazed and never break. No matter the process used, if it is poorly done it will fail. Any real gunsmith should be able to weld a bolt handle but many modern 'smiths prefer not to do so. GD

Didn't look like braze to me either. Lotsa folk don't like welding on on something like this as you are very likely to uncover inclusions and other imperfections that may require additional time and effort to correct. Looks to me like the root has been reshaped and my concern would be that the extraction cam would need to be rebuilt and rehardened but the OP has chosen not to post additional pics. So, good luck to him getting this sorted.

PM Dans40X, he did hell of a job for me.

Dan does great work!

Last I heard he won't work on Mausers,

He did for me, cut off a butterknife bolt handle and welded on a beautiful slim straight round knob bolt, seamless welds, looked like butter!

Did this corrective action work ever get done?
Pics?

Getting awful close to Moose hunting time.