I have a Rem. 700 BDL, .270 cal. which I bought used. The bolt face has a circular ring of small pits located just outside of the firing pin, which coincides with the approximate size of the primer. Could primer leakage in the past have caused this and is it safe to continue shooting it in this condition? I don't know the history of the gun from the previous owner as to whether he shot factory or reloads. The gun shoots reasonably well (3/4" to 1" 100yrd. groups) with the same reloads that I use in a Browning A-bolt, with the exception of a differant bullet seating depth. The primers seem to be slightly flattened in this gun where those in the A-bolt show no signs of pressure. The load (58.5 gr. H4831, 130 gr. Nosler BT, new unprimed Rem. brass, CCI 200 primer) is well below max according to the manual. There is also no signs of primer leakage with my loads. Any advice or ideas would be appreciated.

Felcher, I have a couple of bolt faces with pitting do to primer leakage, still shoot like they did before the pitting, I did clean the face up to make sure there were no burr's or high spots.

[ 09-20-2003, 01:58: Message edited by: gsp ]

I fell for the Keunhausen book on Mausers that says to reface the bolts. That was a mistake. Later I read the Walsh book on Mausers that says not to. Pitted bolt faces work fine.

The small pits in 2 of my guns were caused by 2 different reason. 1 Remington primers, a bad batch had a weakness in the edge of the metal cup. 2. I loaded the wrong federal primer in a m16 and the primer cup blew out. Both left the pits, both guns shoot just fine.

The pitting can also be caused by firing ammo with corrosive primers. Like some of the surplus ammo.

Pitting won't affect the performance of the gun, but removing them can alter the headspace. best to leave it alone.

Felcher,

I agree, there is generally nothing wrong with the presence of pitting as you've described, unless they jepardize safety. There is certainly nothing wrong with refacing the bolt either, provided you reestablish proper headspace.

One thing to keep in mind when refacing a bolt, as you remove metal, you increase the distance between the rim of the cartridge and the extractor. If you go too far, you may encounter poblems you never dreamed of.

Good luck,

Malm

[ 09-22-2003, 03:34: Message edited by: G.Malmborg ]