When we open up the bolt face of the 98,we make the guiding shoulder(the area below the ejector slot,opposite the claw) more suceptable to breakage. I have seen the 98 opened to accept the Rigby .589",which left very little metal to stand its ground.
Has anyone had the experience of this thin section of metal breaking off, Particulary with a .532" boltface?

"there is none so blind and deaf than he with eyes and ears to see and hear,but chooses not to do so"

No I have not broken one. just considering what cartridge to chamber aSTD98 in.I like the .338 win., .375/338. But the 9.3x64 Brke keeps coming to mind. Has about .040" smaller face size,which should strengthen that shoulder somewhat. Std 98 & 9.3x64 deserve each other, No better medium bore match IMO.

Woodjack You get a 9.3x64 made in a nice 98 action and the only question you will have is "why didn't you have this made years ago?" 375 H&H power in a slick feeding non belted ,std length case. Lots of good bullets, ah life is good!

An incredible number of mauser boltfaces have been opened up to .532 with no issues. The proper approach though is to re-case harden the bolt since in the process of opening it up you have ground though all or most of the the case hardening. I have seen mausers opened up to .593 and even .630 without breakage issues. Rigby made a number of .416 Rigby's on std M98's and I've personally shot one.While it certainly looks skimpy, in reality even a .030 thick wall thats hardened is tough to break off unless you drop it just right on a concrete surface. The problem is not the bolt it's the experience that many mausers when converted to magnum calibers will EVENTUALLY set the action locking lugs back and become unusable.-Rob

Paul Zorn in Zimbabwe whom I book for has an old Rigby 416 built on a standard Mod 98 action, it has been shot a lot, it never fails to feed, function and its truly an accurate rifle..Paul has had it a long time...I have also seen some very well used 500 Jefferys and 404s on std. actions with no breakage problems...It would not bother me...

I suspect if you dropped any bolt on its face on cement or whatever it might break..I try really hard not to do such things...