Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Hunter Got Hit IN Face By Rifle Bolt

Your kidding, right????

The only force the pin will see is when the bolt is rotated. Your lack of mechanical knowledge is showing.

Sad to hear about the guy. These things do indeed happen. Saturday at the range here in town a guy had a slide fly back and take a chunk out of his face. I saw the guy bleeding and his buddy take him to the emergency room I guess. The range officer told me he was shooting Win. White box out of a cheap pistol (he told me the make but I didn�t recognize it and don�t remember). The range officer said the slide came apart and looked like it was made out of pot metal. Quality weapons are worth the investment IMHO.

i was just looking at the bolt from my sons mossberg 243 and noticed that the lugs have alot of play in them move in and out about 40 thousands from the bolt and about the same side to side.i never notice this before till i read this tread and decided to take a look at it myself . i can see how this would be prone to fail

Anyone else remember flying Beretta 92 slides? What a joke of a contract that was.

Curious, was your test performed with a spent cartridge in the chamber, or was the chamber empty?

"The only force the pin will see is when the bolt is rotated. Your lack of mechanical knowledge is showing."

Well, apparently, the force the pin sees when the bolt opens or closes is too much for it. It still functions as a shear pin. Some of the older outboat boat motors used the same principle to prevent damage to the prop.

Regardless of how much my mechanical knowledge shows, I still consider it the weakest link in a poor design. What do you think blows the bolt out of the receiver when the pin shears, if the lugs are locked in place.

What about a pierced primer? The gas would go directly to the bolt face and pin. If the pin sheared, the lugs would remain inside the action if they were engaged, or the entire bolt would come out if the pin broke when the bolt was closed.

I suppose if a person owned one of these rifles, after each shot, he could remove the bolt and check the pin to determine if it was broken or not. Of course, he would't be able to tell when he chambered the next cartridge, if the pin sheared on closing the bolt.

Your wrong again!

The pin that holds the bolt head to the bolt on the rifle will be hardened. The pin used on old boat motors was made out of aluminum. When we make shear pins at work for various applications we either use aluminum or create a shear point in a steel pin by cutting a "V" groove into the pin. The only thing that would appear to be the same is a picture.

Big difference between a shear pin and an assembly pin.

Rhode Island Tool fixed that problem and then went out of business.........

Never seen so many 92 slides in my life. 55 gallon drums full of them.

This happened to be the same forging house that had been running starrett micrometer bodies for about a mere 130 years, as well as all of Winchester and Marlin's forgings.
Sad day when that placed closed down.

Sounds like total lack of quality control.

I suspect what actually happens is that the pin shears and the lugs DON'T lock into place. So there's nothing to contain the 50,000 or so PSI and the bolt, pieces of brass, and assorted bad stuff comes back in the shooter's face.

I'm guessing there was something wrong with that rifle.

I am not familiar with the Mossberg design, nor the particulars of the nature of this failure, but I did want to add that in many bolt actions, the bolt handle serves as a safety lug to keep the bolt from coming back should the front lugs fail.

When you typing your reply, right above where you are typing there is a smiley face (fourth from the right). Click on it and menu of smiley faces come up. Pick one. miles

AJ300Mag:

Does it really matter if I am wrong or not? Does it keep you awake at night?

Whatever you call it and whatever it is made from, the pen shears, which causes the lugs not to lock.

The hole through it for the firing pin further weakens it.

Now, find something wrong with this post. I am sure there is and that you will find it. I hope you don't miss too many night's sleep over whatever I am wrong about this time.

You would think you own stock in Mossburg, the way you carry on.

Did your company make the pins? Is that whats got you all bent out of shape? Do you need a new shear pin?

Added to the above:

What others think of me is none of my business.

There is a thread about this over at the Ask the Gunwriters forum. I posted about a similar experience with a Savage and apparently offended some Savage owners. I honestly am not trashing Savage, just giving a heads up about an experience I had with a similar design. I will copy the post here - "I have a savage that somewhat failed in this manner. I was shooting some reloads that where under max. levels in one of my manuals and the bolt felt different when I closed it. The reloads where near the top of the chart listed, but I hadn't noticed any signs of high pressure. Upon checking out why the bolt felt "funny" I discovered that the pin holding the lugs and boltface had broke and the lugs wasn't engaged. Thank god I opened it up and checked before I went ahead and fired it.The pin looks rather large untill you take the bolt apart and realize it is nearly drilled in two to allow the firing pin to pass thru. I don't normally like the hotter loads, but this gun was grouping better as I increased the powder charge 1/2 grains at a time. In all fairness I had just bought the gun used at a very cheap price for a rainy day gun when I might not want to take one of my better guns out($150), and could tell it had a hard life.I spent a furtune on the gun ,new barrel(pitted badly- should have cleaned barrel before I bought it), new SS trigger(great trigger for a low budget design gun)and Devcon bed the stock, Replace plastic trigger gaurd with metal because of bedding issues. Wish I had never seen a Savage, not smart enough to quit putting money in it and cut my loses. Now on I will stick to machined bolt lugs design-Remington, Winchester,Ruger, Cooper( Iknow- bought before the USA Today article). This honestly isn't a flame, just my account of a gun and have resisted posting about because not wanting to appear as a flame. I still have gun, can't in good consious sell it to a friend as a beginner rifle because of what I think of the design.I still use it for bad weather, I never warmed up to synthetic-sucker for pretty wood, but only shoot factory ammo and inspect it after using it. Sometimes a manufacturer has to be forced to do the right thing. I think the poster asked for legitimate information in a honest question. I have never used a lawyer except for preparing a will, but all of us know that we may have to on any given day if it is the only option in a case where we have been hurt or wronged and can't closure by any other means." Again not meant as a flame, just posting so everyone can make up their own minds.

It's been a while since I toyed with a Savage. Is the bolt handle silver soldered on like a remington or is the bolt one piece?

The bolt handle fits in two index slots and held in these slots by the large screw at the end of the bolt body. The flaw as I see in the design is the pin that secures the bolt lugs to the body. It doesn't handle bolt thrust, the lugs do this , only camming thrust. If the pin is broke while camming open a tight case, it may well stay together because the receiver won't allow the broken pin to fall out untill the pin clears the loading port of the receiver. If this happens and a round is stripped from the magazine the bolt lugs may then not properly engage when the bolt handle is closed. The pin is nearly drilled in two to allow the firing pin to pass thru. This can be seen in one of the post earlier in this thread of a bolt someone has posted.

Savage bolt handle is held on by a bolt from the rear.




Savage bolt head

I'm glad bcp is smart enough to be able to post usefull illustrations and pictures as he has done. Wish I could figure out how to do this, I'm computer challenged at best.