Bending and Welding Rifle Bolt Handles

Even though it’s possible to purchase a commercial sporting rifle for considerably less than the cost of sporterizing an ex-military rifle, there are a good many people who want something made exactly to their taste. If you want to custombuild these rifles, bolt handle modifications will be necessary to properly mount a scope. The finished bolt handle is one of the most visible items of a custom rifle, and many will judge your worth and skill by the finished product’s appearance. An old U. S.

Navy dictum comes to mind here" the "Seven Ps." Six of the seven "Ps" are: proper prior planning prevents poor performance (and you probably know what the seventh "P" is). Here are some tips and ideas to help with your "proper prior planning. Like almost everything that a gunsmith does, there are many possible ways to accomplish a modification, but only a few methods for doing it right. Working on bolt handles has the potential to cause serious problems, either immediately or down the road.

If you want to get into modifying bolt handles, you’ll need the "proper" tools and some "prior" instruction to keep you and your customer out of trouble. If you already do this kind of work, I may have an idea or two here that makes the job easier (and more profitable). I am using 98 Mauser bolts for this article, mainly because I’d been commissioned to build two Mausers and this seemed as good a time as any to cover this subject.

The 98 Mauser is probably the most frequently used platform for building a custom rifle, however, these methods are readily adaptable to almost any military turnbolt rifle. There are basically two schools of thought on bolt handles: bend the existing one; or cut it off and weld it (or anew one) back on. Both ideas have their merits, and I will present both methods, since there are times when one method or the other is not feasible or desirable.

For instance, low-mounted scopes (or scopes with large ocular-end bells) will usually require that the handle be cut off, the root shortened, and a suitably shaped handle welded back on. Bending (or forging) is faster and easier, but it is difficult to forge a handle low enough to clear low scopes and keep the transition section between the root and the handle large enough to have sufficient strength. Forging is usually better suited to higher-mounted scopes or scopes with a small ocular end.

Note: A proper heat sink and liberal use of heat-control paste is essential. If the back of the bolt is heated too much, it will lose its surface hardening and the cocking-cam area will be subject to rapid wear and galling. Too much heat can also weaken the safety lug, rendering it incapable of doing its job should the primary lugs suffer a catastrophic failure. Before You Start See Figure 1 for bolt-part nomenclature. If you haven’t done this work before, find some old stripped bolts to practice on.

Century Arms International usually has a good supply of old stripped Mauser bolts. An added bonus is that if you do these up nicely, they can be used as replacements to shorten the turn-around time on Figure 1.

scope-mounting jobs. You can often use them to correct headspace problems with rifles that may be a bit on the "no-go" side, as well. Both forging and welding take some practice to gain proficiency. Since getting a clean weld using a torch is a difficult task at first, and the welding rods are expensive, I suggest that your first few practice welding jobs be done using a brazing rod, as brazing is much easier to accomplish.

The brazing rod "wets" the base metal much easier than a steel rod, and you don’t put quite as much heat into the bolt as with welding. Unless the visible brass is objectionable, there is nothing wrong with a properly brazed handle. It’s just not quite as strong as a welded one. I’ve seen handles that were silverwill tend to flow out of the area you are trying to solder and creep onto the root and handle. Silver solder is usually best suited for applications where the parts fit relatively close together.

If you want to use silver solder, you need to use the highest-temperature solder you can. With silver solder, a higher melting temperature means greater strength, and the low-temperature solders are not up to the stress of holding a bolt handle in place. As you gain experience, you may wish to develop a distinctive style for your bolt handles, such as the wedge- The other three are forged. soldered in place. The problem with silver solder is that it is more difficult to "fill" with.

Since it is "wetter" and wicks better than brazing rods or welding rods, it shaped knob I use. It’s tapered front to back and top to bottom to allow the shooter to keep his grasp without checkering or stippling. Examples of my "style" of bolt forging and handle shaping are shown in several of the accompanying photos. Begin by opening the bolt and ensuring the rifle is unloaded. Remove the bolt and place the rifle aside.

The bolt will now need to be completely stripped to preclude any possibility of any physical or heat damage to the parts. (Exception: On Mauser-type bolts, it’s not necessary to remove the extractor collar. In fact, it’s a good idea to leave the collar alone unless you have a replacement handy.) Place the bolt’s parts in a secure container or put them in solvent to soak. They may need a good cleaning, and now’s the time. Welding Welding anew handle is definitely more difficult than forging the old one over.

However, you have the options of shaping and reusing the old handle or starting fresh with an aftermarket handle. Replacement handles in various styles are available from Brownells, Gun Parts Corp., and Midway USA, among others. You will also need several other items, also available from Brownells.

in 0.062- and 0.080-inch diameters. Either is suitable for this job. Use a hot flame with your brazing/welding tip (not the cutting head), and bring the parts to welding temperature. While heating the bolt, put the welding rod in the flame "wash" surrounding the bolt and heat the rod up. After a bit of heating, dunk the hot end of the rod into the flux and the flux will melt to the rod.

Then, turn the oxygen down just a hair to get a neutral to slightly carburizing flame (slightly starved for oxygen, not an intense blue flame) and place the fluxed rod on the gap, allowing the rod to melt and puddle. Continue adding filler metal a bit at a time, until the weld is a little larger than the handle and root. It’s important to keep the rod fluxed; as you get near the end of the flux stuck on the rod, dunk it in the flux again.

Let the weld cool for a couple of minutes or so, and toss the whole thing into a Now, we’re ready to weld. I use a simple, inexpensive gaswelding rig that costs about $50. It uses MAPP ® First, you’ll need a jig to hold the parts in place while welding.

It’s very difficult to get the handle to stay put while welding unless it is secured somehow, and a bolt-welding jig is well worth the cost. (They come with illustrated instructions.) You’ll also need heat sink for the bolt body, heat-control paste, and of course, the welding equipment. Let’s talk about "welding equipment" for a moment. I don’t mean electric arc-welders.

While they do a good job at general welding, it is difficult to weld a handle to the bolt root without voids or porosity that will show up as pits when the weld is shaped. If that’s all you have, you can try it; you’ll need some 1/16- or 3/32inch mild-steel rods and a low heat setting. I have had better success with MIG welders, but I don’t really recommend them, either. The preferred methods are TIG welding, gas welding, and brazing.

With the proper filler metal and flux, any of these will provide beautiful void-free welds that require minimal cleanup. Prepare the bolt body by cutting the old handle off, leaving the handle root protruding far enough that the new handle will clear the receiver tang. Don’t cut it too short or your new handle will not clear the tang. Shape the ends to be welded as shown in Figure 2. This will give a good fillet, much stronger than a simple butt weld that will be mostly ground off.

Clamp the various pieces together in the holding jig, arranging the handle to the desired angle and sweep. Put some heat-control paste inside the bolt and on the heat sink. Install the heat sink into the bolt and coat most of the bolt body (especially the back end and cocking-cam area) and the bolt handle with a good layer of heat control paste. The paste will keep most of the heat from your torch off the vulnerable cocking-cam area and the safety lug at the rear of the bolt body.

Additionally, any stray sparks or blobs of metal won’t stick to other areas, causing a burr and/or an unsightly clean-up. gas and oxygen. An oxyacetylene torch or TIG will work even better. The best welding rod I’ve found is from Brownells. It’s the 3-1/2-percent nickel-steel rod, and comes Figure 2.

bucket of water. You’ll have to repeat this process several times before finishing the weld on all sides, but remember, you don’t want to overheat the bolt. Keep your heat directed at the joint of the root and handle. After it’s completely cool, remove the heat sink and the jig. Scrub off the paste and examine your weld. If it looks okay, you can use files and/ or power tools to shape and blend the welded area. Use along brush to clean the paste out of the bolt and allow the bolt to dry thoroughly.

After it’s dry, use a stiff brush to remove any residue of the heat-control paste, both inside and out. Now the bolt body is reinstalled in the rifle and the stock is marked where it needs to be relieved to allow the bolt Figure 3. eyepiece. When all is well, the bolt is ready for whatever finish (if any) you are going to apply. Bending or Forging Bending a bolt handle requires the same heat sink and heat-control paste as welding, and instead of a jig to hold the parts, you need a set of bolt-handle forging blocks.

These are available from Brownells, Midway USA, and Numrich (Gun Parts Corp.). Basically, the forging blocks are clamped Heatcontrol paste is cheap. Use lots of it. The faster you can bring it to bending temperature and forge it over, the less time there is for heat to spread out and damage the bolt. to fully close. Depending on the type and shape of your bolt knob, a relief may also be necessary to allow the shooter to grasp the knob.

Test also to see that the bolt can be manipulated quickly with the scope in place. You may have to do a bit of relief grinding or bending of the handle to clear the scope’s in a large vise, holding the bolt body and handle root immobile. You’ll also need an intense heat source.

A propane hand torch is not intense enough, and trying to heat the root to bending temperature with one of these will result in either of two undesirable outcomes: Either you can’t bring the handle to bending temperature; or you have to heat the handle so long that the bolt body becomes too hot and its surface hardening is destroyed. So don’t waste time and effort with tools that can’t do the job.

The small torch I have costs around $50 at home-supply centers, and welding or forging one bolt handle should pay for the unit. As with welding, use MAPP gas for a hotter flame. To prepare a bolt for bending, I’ve found that it is far easier to shape, checker, stipple, or otherwise embellish the knob before bending the handle. If you are going to flatten the handle’s profile (instead of leaving it round), it is easier to do before bending as well.

First, you need to remove a little metal from the bottom of the handle root so that the handle will bend cleanly and close to the root (see Figure 3). Don’t relieve this area any farther than the point where the handle root touches the receiver tang when

the bolt is closed, and no more than about one-third of the root’s thickness. If you have a high scope installation, such as see-through rings, it may not be necessary to relieve the root at all. (Here’s another use for your practice bolts; use one as a measure to determine how low the handle needs to be forged.) Prepare the bolt as for welding by packing heat-control paste inside and using the heat sink. Cover the bolt body with the paste, and put the bolt in the forging blocks.

Clamp the blocks Next comes the bore-sighting and range testing, followed by delivery to a happy customer. tightly in a big vise and wipe away any paste that may have oozed out around the handle root. Using a large, hot flame from your brazing/welding tip, heat the area to be bent, paying the most attention to the "top" side which is the area of the part that will have to stretch when bending.

When the area is glowing a medium to bright cherry red, quickly shut off the torch (or hand it to someone) and hammer the handle over into the notch in the bending blocks. You may have to make more than one run at it, as the heat-control paste and the blocks clamped in the vise make a large heat sink and the bolt will lose its heat quickly. If you try to bend it when it’s just a tad too cold, it will break off.

When the handle is bent 90 degrees against the blocks, you can sweep the knob back to improve accessibility. It’s also a good idea to heat the narrow part of the handle next to the knob and bend the knob up away from the blocks a bit, adding clearance so that the knob is accessible without scooping a big dish from the stock. Put the bolt in a bucket of water to cool, but don’t put the bending blocks in the water. If your blocks are cast iron like the ones I have, cooling them this rapidly will break them.

You can use a couple of old oven mitts to handle the bolt body and the blocks. I clamp my blocks back in the vise after removing the bolt, allowing the vise to absorb the heat from the blocks. After everything has cooled and the heat-control paste has been cleaned off, the bolt can be placed back into the blocks to hold it securely without damage while finishing and shaping the handle. If the inside of your handle was shaped and polished before you forged the handle over, it should still look pretty good.

Remove the bolt from the blocks and clamp it in a good vise, using lead or similar material to prevent marring. The handle can now be sanded and/ or polished to the desired finish. Finally, reinstall the bolt body into the receiver, and mark the area that will need relief to allow the bolt to close fully. Using whatever woodworking tools you prefer, cut the relief notch in the stock until the bolthandle root touches the receiver tang with a small amount of clearance between the stock and the handle. I

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AGCC56S 56-Tape Course Spread Ad p/u from 1/04 issue