I have 2 mauser bolts I need forged. Does anyone know who can do this? I have had Davis May do a bunch for me in the past and he does GREAT work, but I have been unable to get a hold of him. Any recomendations?

Thanks!

Didn' know anyone forges bolt handles anymore..Welding is so much more conrollable and a nicer finished product should result

I have to agree with Mr Wiebe.

While forged bolts can be servicable, they often look like hell and leave too short a handle.

I had a couple of Mr May's bolts come through the shop and while they looked good the bolt root had deformed and wouldn't allow the bolt to close without first reshaping the root. In fairness to Mr May, I've seen this on many forged bolts which is why I used to tig weld a new handle on.

I have used Jack Hamrick with good results. Jack stretches the bolt but does not leave it looking "lumpy".

HAMRICK CUSTOM E
http://www.msnusers.com/JWHamrickfiles

I bought the forging set up ~10 years ago.
http://www.brownells.com/aspx/...T%20FORGING%20BLOCKS

I made a buttress thread heat sink from brass.

I put heat paste in and on the bolt.

I cut a notch in the bolt handle.

I bought an Oxyacetylene set up. ~$500

I put a big vise in the middle of the shop.
One guy runs the torch on the stem of the bolt handle, and the other guy hits the punch with a sledge hammer with on hand while holding the punch with the other. Both guys are wearing welding goggles.

Once the bolt handle is bent over, the bolt body is lowered into a tank of water up to the base of bolt handle.

A goal is to get the bolt bent without going past the straw color on the cocking cam of the bolt body.

I did a few dozen Mauser bolt handles this way.

The drawbacks are obvious:
Takes two people to co operate.
The bolt handle is shorter than optimum after it goes around the bend.

Since then I bought the TIG set up after reading Z1R's posts on sporterizing forum.

I paid to get ~ 3 dozen TIG welded for me.

I did not notch receivers, but notched the bolt handles on the mill to fit the receivers.

I made a fixture for rotating the welded bolt and handle on the axis of the bolt handle, so it may be finished.

The problem with the TIG welded handles is strength. I think they are better than soldered on handles like Rem700, but not as strong as the forged.
They would be stronger if the receivers were notched, but would loose the interchangeability that I need for all these Mausers for my experiments.

I now believe, but have not done it, that the best would be to forge the handle, cut off the knob, and weld on a know with extension. This would give both the best strength and length.

quote:

Originally posted by tnekkcc:

The problem with the TIG welded handles is strength. I think they are better than soldered on handles like Rem700, but not as strong as the forged.

I can't agree with that statement. A properly tig welded handle should be as strong as the original handle. The key to is to NOT weld it as a butt joint beveled on four sides. All that gets you is four small v welds full of pits. Instead, make the new handle and the bolt stub as one big v weld with the bottom of the bolt as the weld root. That way you don't have to rotate the bolt to weld it and you don't end up with a big un-welded (is that a word?) void in the middle causing pits. Using this method, you have to build up the large v sufficiently so that when you grind it down (mill, grind, file, however you do it), you have enough to work with to make the top of the handle. If you get good penetration on the first pass, you have minimal clean up on that hard to reach spot under the handle.

This is the method Jack Belk described at an ACGG seminar several years back. It works.

Yeah,
Belk was still contributing to this forum when he left some links to pics of his welding:
http://home-and-garden.webshot...m/31279476lSEOHaRuPs

My brother copied a number of those pics in welding his guns and maybe two for me.

I tried to get dozens of those done by a gunsmith, and the quality is a little lower.

The hard test for a bolt handle is to extract a stuck case by putting the butt on the ground, the muzzle in hand, and jump on the bolt handle with the foot like starting a Harley.

Another one is to pound out a stuck case by hitting the bolt handle with a mallet.

When I was in gunsmithing school in the early 50's forging was more or less the standard way to lower a bolt handle. One of the initial class projects was to make a set of bolt bendinb/forging blocks almost exactly like the ones shown above. We were also required to make a tap to clean up the threads after forging. It was nice if you had help but it could easily be done by one person. This was before the time of heat sinks and paste and a wet rag and a can of water were used. I have a Springfield that has been shortened and made into a pack rifle by Les Womack of the 50's period. His speciality was forging bolts. I have one of his original brochures ( a copy at really) where it is the central service shown. He even had a special stamp similar to the old Mauser logo with Womack in it that he stamped the handle root with. Only complaint I ever had was the handles were shoter than i prefer. The old original Mauser straight handles were better looking than the turned down handles as I seem to believe they were longer to start with. I would imagine by the middle 50's the practice was rapidily disappearing. I wouldn't think anyone to day would even consider it. Actually most of the old time handles were gas welded with plain old oxy/acetylene. I think I still have my old Victor #1 torch handle somewhere. Have done lots of oxy/acetylene and lots of HeliArc but it was primarily on aluminum . NO Tig welding such as is currently done. Just was never exposed to it.

quote:

Originally posted by tnekkcc:
Yeah,
Belk was still contributing to this forum when he left some links to pics of his welding:
http://home-and-garden.webshot...m/31279476lSEOHaRuPs

The hard test for a bolt handle is to extract a stuck case by putting the butt on the ground, the muzzle in hand, and jump on the bolt handle with the foot like starting a Harley.

Another one is to pound out a stuck case by hitting the bolt handle with a mallet.

If you make a good quality weld using the set up shown in the photos you referenced, that bolt handle will not fail because of the weld. A good weld is as strong as the metal it is joining. Destructive weld testing is done to test just that fact.

If you have to jump on the bolt handle or hit it with a hammer to remove a stuck case, well... I just don't know what to say about that.

I am afraid to jump into this foray, Rem721 will jump my ass. Just wait and see.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Kobe:
I am afraid to jump into this foray, Rem721 will jump my ass. Just wait and see.

This isn't a foray, it's a spirited discussion. Forays are usually identified by the beer bottles flying through the air.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Kobe:
I am afraid to jump into this foray, Rem721 will jump my ass. Just wait and see.

Jim,
Please keep posting.
Clark

Back when Ebay allowed bolts to be sold there, I bought a Mauser bolt that has a forged handle. It is a pretty good one, and the seller told me who the smith was who did it. So with it as an example, I searched out that gunsmith and sent him two more pristine bolts to forge the handle on, and sent him the one from Ebay to copy, which I thought was an example of his previous work and a style I liked.

Anyway, he forged the two bolt handles, and sent all three back to me, but the two freshly forged were much different than the sample I sent along. Come to figure out, he was not the smith that did the handle I liked, and basically he ruined the two pristine bolts. The shoruds would not screw in easily and the firing pin spring noticably draged inside the bolt body, and the handle was stubby and ugly. The Smith advertised that he had forged thousands of Mauser handles. That is a disgusting thought to me - thinking of all those Mauser bolts he ruined.

So, I'm done with forged handles. I won't waste my money again that way. If I can't justify the cost of welding on a new handle, I'll start with a commercial action instead.

But I still have the one good bolt from Ebay, which is really slick and I'll probably use it somewhere. At least I have one example that shows it can be done with satisfactory results. But I think the odds of satisfaction with a forged handle are not favorable.

KB

There was a guy on Ebay that seemed to know what he was doing welding bolts, but I could not make a deal with him. I just wanted to ship him bolts and money, and that was not his business model for selling bolts.

I can usually work around someone's deal-making-deficiency in person, but I could not do it in email.

Another guy I paid $650 to wreck a bag of bolts.

quote:

Originally posted by tnekkcc:

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Kobe:
I am afraid to jump into this foray, Rem721 will jump my ass. Just wait and see.

Jim,
Please keep posting.
Clark

Okay here is a couple pictures of ones I did, welded on.

Jim Kobe,
That comes as close to what I consider the perfect bolt handle for a scoped rifle as you can get. Sadly enough I can only have it done and have never been able to do it that well myself. Treatment at the base and the slim handle and teardrop knob are just plain proper in my old eyes.

Jim,

That is absolutely beautiful work!

Ken

One thing I should mention, the procudure I use necessitates the action needs to be modified to accept the root of the handle.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Kobe:
I am afraid to jump into this foray, Rem721 will jump my ass. Just wait and see.

Merry Christmas.

quote:

Originally posted by rem721:

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Kobe:
I am afraid to jump into this foray, Rem721 will jump my ass. Just wait and see.

Merry Christmas.

That's the christmas spirit!
Have a great one!
-Don