I have purchase several new American (one Canadian) made bolt action rifles the last 5 years and have noticed that the bolt bodies get scratched due to incomplete machining on the receivers. I have acquired the following...Remington 700, Mossberg 4X4, and Savage Mk. 1 .22 caliber RF rifle. Despite looking closely and even running my fingers inside the receivers I cannot find any irregularities. My remington 700 is different in that it has a burr in the chamber that scratches the brass, is getting better with a break in.

Checked online and this is a common problem, especially with the Remington and Savage rifles. I also had to do some polishing and filing on both of my Ruger double action revolvers as they did not leave the factory finished. The reason I did not send any of them back to the factory is that I did trigger work on them and this voids the warranty. Also, I had a late war Japanese Arisaka rifle (unissued) that had such a rough chamber that I had to run 300 rounds through it before it would function properly, so I figured my current purchases would need the same break in process.

I am to the point where I will just concentrate on Japanese and Finnish made rifles in the future. At least all three of these rifles are accurate though. Anyone else notice these scratched bolts on their recently bought American rifles?

Something we all have to live with in our modern era of mass production.

Until someone designs a bolt that somehow floats without touching the receiver when it is worked there will be wear marks/ scratches. I See it on every used bolt action rifle I've ever seen whether it's almost new or 100 years old. Even on my Euro built rifles.

A lot of rifles I handle in the fun stores seem to be really complete, almost-finished rifle kits. You have to take them apart and finish building them before they're right, but at least you know all the parts are there.